Autism. School: week two
The four day gap between his last day of school and the first day of the second week saw Bright Eyes get into a terrible mood. In fact, I am about to start researching Oppositional Defiance Disorder because he was just so oppositional about everything.
Everything was so difficult, and I was dreading today with all my heart.
Thankfully, God is good. I got onto the phone last night and left her a message saying, "Please, please would you pray about this. She mobilised my Pop and grandma and I'm sure others were praying specifically for us as well."
The morning went like this.
He woke (reasonably happily) about 8 and had a slow breakfast. I dropped the other two children off to preschool and school at 9, then came home. I decided that talking wouldn't help anyone, so I gestured him into the quiet plain guest bedroom where we did about 20 minutes of brain gym exercises together. We did deep breathing, stretching, crossovers, calf stretching and rolling. He was wriggly and jiggly but cooperated for the most part.
After that I got a pen and paper to write a do-list. We did two little chores and then decided we could either read stories or play with toys. He chose toys and we had a very involved and interactive game of Buzz, Woody and Barbie, hiding out in caves and on the beach.
Next on the list was changing into the school uniform. This was where I wanted to hold my breath, but because it was on the list, he coped really well and moved right into snack time with no hassles.
The final step was out-and-out bribery. We took a trip to the lolly shop before school. That gave him something nice to think about as we went out the front door, and just helped him feel positive towards crossing the road. He chose a candy watch, ate it, and then walked like a lamb with AP across to school where he went into his classroom without a murmur and had a good day.
In fact, when I went to pick him up halfway through lunch, he told me 'not yet'. He wanted to do more playing.
So thank you God, and thank you praying friends. Two more days of this week to get through now...