School

Never underestimate the memory of a child. Traumatic events are burned into our memories no matter what age we are. Since S attends a small private school, they provide childcare for all of the teachers children. One teacher had a baby at the beginning of the school year and apparently she just came back to school. S had been going full days at school as much as half days. Last week, I think she went 4 full days and one half day. She did a full day Monday and then has been adamant about going only half days. I put two and two together and asked her some probing questions. I guessed it correctly, she doesn't want to stay because of the crying baby. The caretaker feeds the babies in the cafeteria the same time that S is in there. The baby room is also right next door to her classroom. I thought that would be a problem in the beginning, but it has seemed to be okay. I think there are enough distractions to keep her mind off of it. Crying has always been a huge trauma trigger for her and still is. My 14 year old remembers S saying that the babies were spanked when they cried. I don't remember her ever saying that, but her reaction matches that statement. There was also an incident that S told me about where she was stressed out and the teacher didn't recognize it. Since things have been going so well, I'm sure everything I've told her at the beginning of the year has been forgotten. I have an email into her to have a meeting. I hope I can say things the right way, it's such shaky territory. Hopefully they know her well enough to see what I am saying.

We have conquered the potty!!! It's been 10 days now and we're not looking back. She even was able to do it while we were away from home. She even graduated to a kid toothbrush the other day. We had been using a Wisp travel toothbrush because it was small enough for her. Now we just need to get rid of the bottle!

2 new reflex sites

http://www.itsacademictutoring.com/Primitive%20Reflexes.htm

http://www.icdl.com/graduate/documents/Chapter20.pdf

The Past Year

I've been trying to think of all of the things that have changed since doing NR full time. It's coming up on a year, and I'd like to see how far we've come. I remember being slightly worried about numbers, S had such a hard time recognizing numbers. If my memory serves me correctly, she couldn't consistently count to ten at 4 years old and didn't recognize one from another. Now she can count to 100 and beyond with accuracy. She can recognize and write her numbers. Several weeks ago, someone had grapes on a plate. She counted them from a distance and said the quantity. He decided to quiz her by adding grapes and taking them away. Each time, she stated the new quantity. I watched in amazement, having no idea she could add and subtract in her head. Her sentence structure and vocabulary is amazing. I remember last year when she started pre-school, she couldn't answer a question like, "What is your favorite food?" She could answer direct questions like "What is this object?", but would give a nonsensical answer to a question about what was just read to her in a book. Her ability to perform different physical activities has improved dramatically. She can do the "Miss Mary Mack" type hand clapping with amazing speed now. She is less anxious than she used to be. Her school experience is so different than last year. When I think that she was at least a full year behind her peers, it's hard to believe she has caught up and probably surpassed them. I am so proud of her. She is so eager to please and is so helpful. She is interested in what I do and the world around her. I have so much hope for her future.

Empathy

I forgot to mention that it is a regular occurence to have S quickly respond, "Are you okay?" when she sees someone get hurt or someone says OW! I don't think a day goes by now that I don't hear "I love you." many times a day. It's just so wonderful that I forget about the years that I never heard it. I get random hugs and kisses now. I don't care to ever look back, only to appreciate what i have now. More importantly is to recognize what SHE has now. Her anxiety has lessened significantly. She is more able to show the world who she really is. That makes the world pretty darn lucky.

List of Websites

I have compiled a list of the best websites about retained primitive reflexes. There are a few other websites in there that have great info or activities. NR identifies retained primitive refexes. There is really only one way to integrate these relfexes. If you think your child can live with these reflexes, read the information in these links and I think you'll change your mind. Reflexes are easy to test for, and if your child has retained reflexes, then you know what you need to do. I may have been told this before, but it took finding it on my own to really figure out this was at the heart of all of our challenges. Primitive relfexes defined my daughter. My daughter is the textbook before and after story. Everything came together for her as her relfexes were integrated. It may not be the answer for everyone, but if your child has retained primitive relexes, they aren't going to go away on their own. OT teaches good compensation skills, but the problem is still there. I have seen so many people who avoid NR because it's actually easier to drag their kid to 5 different therapies than be disciplined enough to do this every day. I would have probably chosen that option had I had it available. We actually did do OT, but I was frustrated that no one ever cared to find out what was the root of the problem. I need to know why we do anything that we do. I need to know how it works. I didn't really work with anyone who cared to find out. Our OT dismissed NR and some of the primitive reflexes. She was good, and nice, but I needed more than a band aid. Only our vision therapist and our NR practitioner got the big picture. I hear NR mentioned on the 2 sensory groups I'm on and they are dismissed. I am really happy to see so many doing NR and attachment therapy. I think our time spent doing NR really helped our attachment as well.


http://www.drsamberne.com/articles/Berne_essay.pdf (primitive reflexes)


http://www.rhythmicmovement.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=11&Itemid=18 (importance and roles of primitive reflexes)

http://www.visiontherapyathome.com/category_s/86.htm (primitive reflexes)

http://playathomemom3.blogspot.com/search/label/Sensory%20Activities (for great sensory ideas)

http://www.playcreateexplore.com/2011/01/homemade-geoboard.html (fun sensory and play activities)

http://www.brainhighways.com/ (videos about effects of problems in different parts of the brain)

http://www.thedailybeast.com/newsweek/2011/04/10/the-child-you-didn-t-dream-of.html (hyperlexia)

http://www.inpp.org.uk/intervention-adults-children/more-information/reflexes/

http://www.ky3.com/news/contactky3/ky3-lack-of-tummy-time-blamed-for-developmental-delays-02232011,0,3781056.story

Attachment

I am so thrilled with the direction our attachment is going. S needs to be close to me to go to sleep, usually with my arm under her neck. She is sleeping a longer stretch at night without waking up. Now, she just asks me to go down on the bed with her when she wakes up. She talks about being away from me when she is at school and repeats what I have said to her about it being okay to be away from eachother and that we always come back to eachother. We had a tentatively scheduled phone consult with the attachment therapist more than a week ago that I canceled. I have been thinking that I should schedule one, but I honestly can't think of anything that we need to talk about.

Yesterday, we went to the park to play. There were only older kids there, but age doesn't stop S from going right up to them and ask them to play. Usually she just joins in without asking. Most of the time she is ignored or they try to lose her. Girls can be so nasty. I ended up reprimanding 2 kids that were there. Of course there were no parents around, which is probably the reason the kids were such brats. S tried to climb up the slide instead of doing it the right way. I made her go up the slide. Then an older girl told her not to slide down because she wanted to climb up. I told her to get down and go around, that s was doing it the right way and she had no right to tell her not to slide down. The girl just looked at me, dumbfounded. Apparently no one had ever told her not to do something. Then S wanted to sit on a bench with 2 girls. They said no and I told S to come back. There wasn't enough room anyway, and they didn't need to include her. Later, when one of the friends left, S saw her opporunity and ran to sit down. The little girl gently took her hand and shoved her off. The reason? She was getting off the bench and she didn't feel like walking around. So she moved my kid!!!!! I yelled, "Hey, why did you push her." She ignored me so I persisited. I asked her how old she was and she started to give me an excuse for what she did. I interupted her and made me tell her how old she was. she said she was 8. I told her she should be a good example to my 5 year old and just said excuse me instead. She never apologized. When S went near her I said, "Stay away from her, she pushes little kids!" Then I heard this slightly older boy recounting the whole episode.Why is it so hard to do the right thing? I stuggled with this with my older kids. I teach them to be good people and do the right thing and then they are surrounded by people who never consider anyone but themselves? Even when you are around what you think parents with the same mindset, their kids end up being brats too? My older kids are nice people who are trustworthy and a friend anyone would love to have, so I guess I need to hold onto that. There are a lot of tough years in between though. I thought since S was more bold than they were, she wouldn't have a problem. She is so sweet though, I can see her taken advantage of. She is happy go lucky, and for that I am so grateful. Maybe she'll go through life never noticing what I do. What a blessing that would be.

Certification

As soon as I turn in my quiz, I will be a certified Integrated Learning System provider. I don't know if I will provide to anyone else but my own family, but it will still be worth it. I would love to provide for so many others in our community, but I'm not sure how I would do it without having a building to operate from needing to buy many systems. It is an amazing system and I think it will rapidly gain in popularity. Someone finally combined all of the body systems that work together and benefit from being stimulated at the same time. I can't wait to get started. Disney was a complete washout, but my family braved the steady, pouring rain. S enjoyed it, but didn't want to go on any new rides. I'm really happy she liked it, and I'm looking forward to going wioth her in 2 more weeks. Last night, I read her stories before bed. She went into a horribly sad mood and said alll sorts of horrible things. I think it may have been triggered by the stories, but I don't know for sure. I need to be very careful what I read. I thought they were cute little kitten stories, and they were, but one was about a kitten that was lost and no one could understand her. She was asking everyone where her home was, but they only heard a meow. A little girl picked her up and brought her to her house to live. After the whole emotional fiasco ended, I thought about it and this is exactly how she must have felt leaving her caregiver and no one understood what her cries meant. We were the little girl who gave her a home. How devastating it is to think she could have related that to her own experience. I'm sure this is just one of many things she will go through and I have to remain strong for her.

Changes

Well, there were no repercussions for the fetals and I spoke with Bette about them. She said we could move on to the last 4 patterns. S stayed a full day yesterday and the day before at school. This was after missing Monday because of car trouble. They have this friday off from school and we will go to Orlando this weekend. I am excited to be going to the ILS seminar to be trained as a certified provider. The rest of the family will be enjoying Disney while I am learning. Today after coming home from school, S gave me a huge hug and said, "I love you!!!!" I think we have finally arrived! I am beyond thrilled at all of the changes we are seeing over the past several months. The first thing I am going to do is go to 'no mail' on my groups. It will be a little while before I leave them completely, but I am happy to see the end. I really believe in NR and it has given my daughter what she deserves to have-a fair chance at life.

We risked something big yesterday. I had asked about doing the fetals we were still having some issues with because they were eliminated at our last eval. We decided they should be added back in until they were no longer an issue. Unlike some of the other exercises, the reps only go to 30 as opposed to 60. The one day that she wanted to do more and more, I'm sure we went over 30. Anyway, we are doing them in the proper sequence, one fetal at a time until we can be done with it. This way, we know which is causing any problems. So yesterday, because I think we made it up to 30 before, went ahead and risked doing 30 fetal cross all at once. We will do it for a few more days to see if there is any problem, and then slowly move up with the fetal measure. I know we never did 30 of the fetal measure, so we will start out slow and only add one or two a day. Then we can go through the rest of them and be done!

I took the plunge and I am going next week to be a certified ILS provider. I am hoping this is as good as it says it is, and I can provide it to others with confidence. I'm excited about it, I hope it works out. There is also the possibility that I can get a small income from it too. We'll see, let's just get trained first.

Attachment

Have I mentioned how great our attachment is going? Although I'm losing sleep over it, I am so happy how it's going. I have moved a twin sized mattress next to my bed and lie down with her until she goes to sleep. I was on a toddler mattress with her, but only half of me fit on there, so I broke down and put the twin size there. Someday she will end up in her own bed. The other night, she put her arm around me and put my arm around her. This is from a child who hated to be touched and snuggled. It took about a year and a half if I remember correctly to allow herself to be even sitting on an adult bed. She would panic just when we tried to sit her on our bed. She allowed herself in a bed one time when we went to a hotel. She was afraid to stay in the portable crib, so she decided she had to be with me to be out of there. I get many hugs and kisses each day, something I could only dream of for years. My concerns for emotional expressive language have almost disappeared. We are going to go to Disneyworld in a couple of weeks. I think this will tell us how far we have actually come. Although she enjoys some of it, she does not want to go back. We will be there with another girl who was adopted the same time as she was from the same place. Hopefully this will help her enjoy it more. We plan to go back in November with another friend. Who would have imagined that we would have to convince her that going to Disney was a good thing. She even tried ice cream the last time we were there. School is still going well, she stayed a full day today and plans to tomorrow also. I have been consulting with the attachment therapist every three weeks on average. Our next appt is in a week and I think I need to extend it because we have no new or pressing issues. How great is that?