The lecture was titled "How Does Your Engine Run? The Alert Program for Self Regulation." She based it on materials by Mary Sue Williams and Sherry Shellenberger, OT/owners of Therapy Works, Inc (877) 897-3478. (name copyrighted by Therapy Works, Inc.)
What I took away from the lecture is that as parents and therapists, our job is to help our kids begin to understand what is going on and how they can help themselves. Therapy Works has come up with a language that they use with children to help them relate to how they are doing sensory-wise. They talk about our bodies as having engines that can run low, high or just right.
Here is what I can tell you about how their process works. I also should add the disclaimer that I'm 100% positive that it will be difficult to move from my level of understanding to actually DOING this with Nathan to help him.
First, they say it is a good idea to know yourself. What are the things that completely de-rail you, addle your brain, discombobulate you? What has just happened when you can't think at all? Do you have any little rituals/exercises/whatever you want to call them that you do when you get in a bad place that help you organize your thoughts, think again and function more normally?
This was hard for me. I think that observing yourself can be extremely difficult. We are nothing if not completely biased and skewed observers of ourselves. :-)
I have been able to observe one thing. When my house is cluttered (particularly the kitchen countertops), I have a VERY hard time focusing on anything. I have a hard time organizing what I need to do into small tasks that I can actually complete. If left unchecked, I can easily fly off the handle from the 'stress' of it. My tactic to handle this is to breath deeply, stop talking to anyone else, and force myself to plan the smaller tasks I need to complete to begin to get my bigger task done - which is most often first to clean up the kitchen so I can then begin to think about other things. If I can't clean the kitchen, I know that I absolutely must at least leave the kitchen if not the house in order to be able to think. If I am unable to do so - I know that the most I'm going to be able to take care of is whatever small, immediate thing is staring me in the face at any given moment.
Nathan whining is another thing that completely throws me for a loop. I have no coping mechanism for this right now - I don't know how to handle it. I do try to 'shake off' whatever it is about it that makes me crazy by breathing deeply, kneeling down to his level and talking to him to try to figure out what is up.
After you understand yourself, you can begin to more clearly observe your child and begin observing what helps and what doesn't help them. Christy was pretty adamant about the fact that she really thinks it is a good idea to keep a list of things that you observe - for your own sanity.
What are you looking for? Activities that seem to send your child off the deep end (too much running around, unable to respond to your requests, too goofy, unable to easily transition from one activity to another). And, then, when they get to that 'bad place,' can you observe what things really seem to help them get into a better place?
The idea of knowing yourself helps in several ways:
1) You are able to more easily observe things in your children
2) When you are reacting to your child being in a bad place, you can stop and make an assessment about whether or not it is YOU that is in the bad place and not your child.
3) Having been able to make these observations, you can explain things more to your child - making them part of the solution rather than part of the problem.
As you are observing your child, the idea is to be experimenting. As you can see them starting to get ramped up, are there any things that you can do (playfully, of course) to help them keep from going over the top? Here is where I am lost. Huh?
Some things that Christy has talked about are 1) swinging, 2) hugging, 3) squishing them with big pillows, 4) getting them to carry heavy things from one place to another.
She also suggested making a game of it. "Hey! Let's see how this makes us feel." You do it. "Wooaaaahhhh, that doesn't make my tummy feel very good. I feel kinda sick. How did it make you feel, Nathan?" Or, "Wow, that made me a little tired. Do you want to sit down for a minute, Nathan? How do you feel?"
After you've been able to observe your child and make a list, you can begin to talk to them using the engine analogy (if it works for you). You can use the engine analogy about yourself as well.
An example that Christy Kennedy used with us.
"Wow! That car just cut us off! That was dangerous! That made mommy really angry. Wow, my engine is running really high right now. This doesn't feel good. What can I do to help my engine run slower? Oh, let's talk about something else... Nathan, where are we going? I think we are going to have fun there. What are we going to do there? Oh, that makes me feel better. Thank you, Nathan! Thank you for helping mommy feel better by talking about something else."
By talking about your own emotions this way, your child can begin to see how it's OK to talk this way. For kids who are too literal to talk about their body as having an engine, she sometimes uses talking about their heart - how it feels like it is going too fast or too slow; she also just uses feeling words for other children.
Christy's advice once we begin to try these things is to keep as good a diary of our 'experiments' as possible. So, if I was doing this (which I'm not doing such a good job at right now), I might make a note in my diary that Nathan calmed down faster in my arms last night when I had NOT played chase with him after 4:30pm. I'd also have to note that he was WAY over-tired (which is my confusion re-asserting itself... how much of this crap is just my child being over-tired? I'm sure Christy has an answer to that one).
Another thing she said was that is it important to help our kids understand that it is OK to get angry or upset or hurt. The idea is to teach them the OK ways to respond to those feelings and the not-OK ways to respond to them. (Uhm... how much of this just sounds like good parenting advice? Hmmmm...)
Okay - that's all I got from the lecture. It isn't enough for me to be able to know what the heck I'm doing with Nathan. I think it is enough for me to start observing what is going on in a slightly more informed way.
Here is what I think I'm observing with Nathan -- I think he's becoming less "low-sensory" if that makes any sense. I think his senses are waking up. I think he isn't used to it and that he is having a hard time regulating things. My guess is that this leads to him having a very difficult time settling down for naps and at night. Now, this is very skewed towards Nathan's "norm." By no stretch of the imagination would another mom look at Nathan and think that he's over-stimulated or over-excited. :-) He's still a calm, agreeable kid. And, most of the time, he can still respond to requests from me - as a matter of fact, he does it more often now. BUT, that doesn't mean that his nervous system is used to it.
The best way to help him at this moment? No idea. What I'm doing? Rocking him more at night in the hopes that I can help him calm down. Trying not to play chase as much in the afternoons so he won't get too high. No clue if it will work.
So, here's to happy and appropriate play with our kids! Play on!
