Apple Stars

Alex is 13 years old now and has been working through the Collaborative Learning Stage, as I describe the rhythm of our unschooling cycles, since around 11.5 years old. This is never an easy stage as the children transition from a more relaxed, interest-based environment (seeking their passion) to learning more about goal setting and self-discipline (purpose). With Alex living with autism, it made the transition just a bit bumpier.

I’m so excited to announce that . . . Alex has arrived! Woohoo! We started off like I always do with my children at this stage . . . one or two subjects and working side by side with them. Together, we find resources that work for him. Actually, Abbey was the person who first did this with Alex back when he was somewhere between 11 and 11.5, and they worked together like this for maybe 6 months.

I believe a break occurred, and then I started working with him one-on-one, shifting things around to encourage transitioning into independence. It was always hit and miss at doing the formality, so it was maybe done twice a week, and lasted an hour or two. At a certain point, I didn’t think my current thinking would transfer to independence, so I started looking.

I went to a GIFTS-NC conference last year and picked up what looked like a good idea, if I could modify it to what would work for us. It was what I would call a “better” TEACCH box system. I thought and thought how I could modify it and came up with a good plan. Alex tried it starting just before 13, but he felt it was too overwhelming for him. He started calling “homeschooling time” the “H” word . . . LOL!

So, we took another break and he shared with me what he needed. He said he still needed someone to be with him as he did things. At the same time, Abbey, Alex’s big sister, was able to begin formally working with him through procured state services one-on-one in our home for four hours a day. He was excited as we shared with him what he would be able to do: things like creating his own stories with support, learning computer skills to further his car and other interests, earning money through chores, expanding his understanding through readings and vocabulary work, etc. All of this would be done by creatively interweaving his interests as the process toward worthy products.

Well, about two months into that, I started adjusting the box system and having his older brother sit with him (who wanted to earn some money, too). It didn’t work, adjust, it didn’t work, adjust, it did work! There still seemed to be resistance, though. Then, one day, about three weeks ago, it all started to come together. All the social and emotional and behavioral conversations that were happening with his sister in their “therapy hours” was transferring over into his formal work.

Alex actually started to come and REQUEST his homeschooling. He collaborated with me about adjusting it once again to work exactly the way that is right for him, how often, and when, and the boy is doing it all independently (as he dropped wanting Eric to help him). He does four activities each day, he learned to keep focused (something he had a hard time with) through using a timer, but dropped that after only a week or two, and he learned that he didn’t have to panic if he didn’t understand something, nor did he need someone right next to him to avoid the panic, but all he needed to do is come ask for help. It takes him about an hour to complete.

So, he’s approaching 13.5 years old and are right about on target for what I say typically happens in this timeframe. It just takes that long to transition, find what works for everyone, and then success. I am already anticipating the next stage of Gift Focus Stage as we are gearing up to match him with apprentices in mechanics. We’ve been trying to put it together and it has been slow going, but I see it happening by 14, so . . .

It’s always so exciting!

Here’s some pictures of Alex doing his homeschooling. He prefers the side porch, and you see his big brother still likes to come along and “spar” with him, literally and figuratively (they love to verbally spar good-humoredly with each other):

Elsie, at Elsie and Joe Deluxe, wrote a post called Keep Those Systems Off My Kids. I enjoyed the topic and it reminded me of a VERY important point about how I homeschool my children. She says this at the very end of the post:

But I am equally sure that there are teachers who slavishly follow the precepts of their chosen philosophies, to the point where they don’t even see the children in front of them. I might even say that there are more slavish followers than there are creative thinkers in these systems. I might even be pushed into saying that it is the very creation of a system of education that gives birth to slavish followers.

This is also very true of homeschooling philosophies, which she touches on throughout this post. But I really like how she summarizes that “the very creation of a system of education” or philosophy of education “gives birth to slavish followers”. This means, to me, that the philosophy becomes the end all to the purpose of learning. Unschooling is a prime example of this potentiality. There are as many ways to define unschooler as there are unschoolers, and plenty to go around of those who will tell you if you are “unschooling enough” to be considered one. To me, this misses the entire point, particularly of my view on unschooling.

First, let me share with you a Growing Without School letter I wrote in (and it was published in the November/December, 1997 Issue 119) to make my initial point:

I am writing in response to the letter from Carolyn Ellis in the Challenges and Concerns section of GWS #117. Carolyn’s struggle over accepting her daughter Mary’s learning style and her subsequent “reassurance” that her “other children are still happy unschoolers” raised my philosophical questioning nature again. It made me wonder what the definition of unschooling is.

My definition (at this moment) is following the lead of my child, whether it be in interests or in learning style, and giving respect thereto. I know that many definitions of unschooling include allowing a child to learn in his natural environment and context (learning fractions from cooking, measuring from building, science in the backyard, etc.) as well as learning out in the real world (volunteering, apprenticing, working, etc.). However, as Carolyn discovered about her daughter Mary and as I have certainly discovered about some of my own children, not every child enjoys learning in that hands-on way — or, as in the case of my son Adam, may be limited by neurological biology (autism) in his ability to learn naturally from his environment. And how about a child who in his elementary school years enjoyed learning in natural contexts but subsequently chooses a substantial increase in structure? Are all of these learners not considered unschoolers now?

I believe we would be doing a grave disservice to the origins of unschooling if we defined it as a particular learning style such as “real-world learning.” Wouldn’t that make us just as guilty as traditional schooling of implying that one style is better than another? With such a belief, the educator or facilitator will always be trying to correct, impose, or direct the learner toward this supposedly optimal style, even if it is not the style to which the child naturally inclines.

I declare myself an unschooler even though my daughter Abbey loves workbooks and my son Adam has to be taught most things in a highly structured manner. I say this because I am respecting their need to learn in the way that works best for them. I would declare an older homeschooler who decides to become much more structured in learning an unschooler because she is respecting her ability to know what she needs and wants at each stage of her life. I would declare Carolyn’s daughter Mary an unschooler because she refused to be forced to abandon her learning nature. Carolyn finally was able to respect Mary’s right to be who she was, thus accepting her learning style as viable. What Carolyn may not have figured out yet is that Mary’s learning preference is not a lesser form compared to her other children’s preference for learning from the activities that fit her definition of unschooling.

Is unschooling an educational philosophy or just another learning style that some kids will be grouped into? If it is the first, then I am an unschooler. If it is the latter, than I must call myself a self-led learner with an interest-based curriculum. This way, I could be any type of learner that my nature or desires incline me to be. What other names would represent this educational philosophy: freedom learner? self-determinator? self-learner? autodidact? (My note: I think people call themselves “eclectic” these days to mean what I’m talking about here.)

To summarize my own point in all this, I take another quote from a comment back at Elsie’s blog from Anthromama that states beautifully:

I recall from my Waldorf teaching foundation year that the recommendation was for the teacher (and this would also apply to homeschool parents, I would think) to prep their hearts out, reading about child development and observation, reading about curriculum development,etc….and then essentially letting it all go in the moment with the children. Letting all of the prep be the invisible and somewhat unconscious foundation for what happens in the moment.

I happen to say this same type of thing ALL the time about the various labels available to describe difficulties or learning styles or temperaments. It is the same for my educational philosophy of unschooling. I would research and read and compare and note and contemplate from all the sources I could find and then, and this is the important part, I would file it all away in my brain for any future moment I might find myself at any given time with a child that I might be able to recall something that might be useful in that moment.

In other words, it’s common for someone to get a label, even a good one like a right-brained, creative learner (which is a positive descriptor), or grasp hold of an educational philosophy, like unschooling, read up all about it, begin to understand it, and then take all that information and apply it on the front end to each situation as it arises. For instance, I have heard someone who has come to understand the creative learner attributes and preferred resources, and then ask, “Is this a creative learner resource? Can I use it?” To me, that is putting up roadblocks to the access of all information and opportunities. Instead, what one can use the information for is something like this:

I observe my child building with Legos for hours. “Should I allow him to play like that for so long and not do something productive?” I access the good information about the creative learner and discover that I found out that this is one of the many creative outlets preferred by this learner and that, in actuality, this process and experience and resource is a foundational element to their gift development of spatial abilities. So, I respond to my own question: “Of course I should allow it. I should even encourage it by bringing in more opportunities and resources of a similar vein. Wow! Look how he’s creating his own contraptions bringing in various parts of others he had previously built. What great visualization abilities which I remember reading is how they learn certain subjects later on.”

The reason this is so important is that it simply begins one’s journey in trusting yourself as the parent/facilitator and trusting the child as a learner. When some of this information challenges one’s conditioned beliefs about what learning is supposed to look like, and one sees how what we observe our children naturally gravitating to matches up to this new and better information, we can truly start allowing the children to come first. No matter how good the information, if we prioritize that in front of, on top of, or over what our children are showing us, we miss the opportunity to create a space for that child to truly unfold into their unique selves.

My job, as a parent facilitator, is to first, observe, trust, and give value to what emanates from my child and feed into more of that. Second, it is to use some of that good information I collect about my child’s learning style or temperament or differences and provide more opportunities and available resources that might be found useful by the child. And, last, to bring in healthy mentoring that my experiences and wisdom garner in any given moment or situation or circumstance that the child might find helpful along their own path.

So, to conclude, gathering good information about learning styles, temperaments, timeframes, educational philosophies, difficulties, is good, but:

Children First.

To me, this develops the trust that we are unique individuals.

Warning: Not for the faint of heart

How could a good unschooler resist documenting the birth of kittens? Not us! We decided to take in a pregnant mother cat that had been hanging around our church for a while now. She is really sweet, and a good mommy.

The children were SO excited to be able to witness the experience. It happened on Thursday, April 24, 2008, starting around 7:00 p.m., when Missy (the name we think we’ve chosen for the momma) started acting strange and headed for a tight place. Luckily, I was able to convince her to birth in a laundry basket with her bed in the tub.

So, here’s the entire experience of the birth of Kitten #2 (an orange like her mommy):

Crowning:

Emergence:

Birth:

Cutting the Cord, and Taking care of the placenta:

Nourishment:

The full litter of four beautiful kittens (one black with orange/white, one gray with orange, one orange, and one tan/white or light orange):

Over at Woodstone Prairie, Maura wrote about the discrimination of the mentally disabled, as well as the common word usages in the same category used flippantly to describe negative attributes.  Interestingly, both just recently were part of a conversation as well as an experience today (again).

I was gone for the weekend with four of my children getting to enjoy the camaraderie of fellow unschoolers at a weekend camp at a sound on the coast of North Carolina here in the state we live.  It’s a group called Families Learning Together that has been around for a while here in North Carolina, and for which I have become a part over the past few years.  They have two camps a year:  one in the fall and one in the spring, at various camp locations across North Carolina (usually YMCA types or church camps, etc., where you can rent the entire facility).  They are starting to add a winter gathering.  There are usually around 100 people of all ages and this past weekend, there were four families with children with autism there.

I had a particularly good time connecting with a mother of two, Carissa, in which we enjoyed sharing similar experiences of many attributes of our families being “different”.  One particular conversation I had was about the idea that it’s the mentally disabled that are the most discriminated about strictly for the fact that they really have no voice.  As an example, I brought up the realization that before the Jews were persecuted during the Holocaust, all the disabled people were killed.  But nobody talks about that, or for them.  Though it was horrendous what happend to the Jews, they have a voice to be remembered and seek consolation or vindication.  Anyway . . . I agree with Maura on this point.

And, just this morning, during an early morning scripture study class, some of the youth referred to each other or themselves as “retards”.  I like to take the opportunity, particularly with this age group, to create awareness on their part, as most of this language is just said without realizing what they are actually saying.  I’ll say something like, “You know, one should think about the words they use, because they may be in the presence of someone who has a mentally retarded child.”  Since they all know about Adam, they usually quickly apologize, and I hope, find more awareness.  I think change begins with the youth . . .

I try not to take it personally, but educate.  But, sometimes, it is tiring to always be in that role.  So, again, I’m there with Maura on this one.

I came home yesterday and heard some instructional talk coming from behind the couch, which is William’s “quiet time area”. Hhmmm, what’s going on? I was excited to discover this:

I was excited for several reasons. First, there was a time when Eli eagerly sought out “pupils” for Lego instruction (and other related building materials) when he was about 11-12 years old. At the time, there were no takers. Now that he’s (recently) turned 17, he is not as interested in giving in this manner as he is so engrossed in his own passion pursuits (namely, computer programming). So, the fact that he was giving patiently of his time to his younger brother was exciting.

Second, there have been many attempts on my part to offer William, through his interests of castles and knights, to build the same with various building materials. Because of his learning differences, it was always WAY over his head to comprehend the spatial ability to do so. He always begged favor of Eli to construct any of these things for him. Further, starting when he was 3-4 years old, I began to slowly help him develop some visual-spatial abilities. Because he is a creative, right-brained learner, I knew this was intended to be a gift area that had been hindered by something, so I hoped to tap into it some way or another. He had a difficult time, to begin with, even placing blocks in the same location as myself. It took some time to build up imitating a two block construction, and he was only able to do so three-dimensionally, from a real person. He had to work up to having me hide my creation and then duplicating as well as duplicating it from a picture. Eventually, William was able to construct 7-8 block creations both in imitation and by picture.

Because Eli was a huge builder, we have all sorts of types of building material, but William has not gravitated to it, though I’ve seen interest, but because of his inability, he stayed away. Periodically, he gave it a try, but discontinued fairly quickly.

So, to have William not only doing a difficult Lego creation was exciting, but the perseverance I was witnessing was next to extraordinary for him. He has always been one easily frustrated and always ready to quit (which I’ve worked gently but consistently on), so his sticking with it, even eagerly, and also patiently listening to Eli’s oral instructions, another weakness for him (as is for Eli), continued my amazement. Maybe because Eli struggles with verbals makes it a great match for William in how he explains things along with visuals and explanations of how he perceives spatially (one of Eli’s major gifts).

Anyway, after 2-3 several hour long sessions, this was the “product”:

By the way, notice William’s “outfit” . . . he is being a referee (his great right-brained asset is his imagination, displayed through self character and costuming creations)

At the beginning of the year, when I was reading various blog posts, I came across some great thoughts over at Loving Him 4 Ever. Interestingly, as I went to look up the reference, it appears a break has occurred for the blog author since writing this post. I hope there is more to come! Anyway, here is an excerpt that particularly caught my attention:

I’d like to share some things I believe God has given me recently.

The first thing was Deut 6:6-7…

6And these words, which I command thee this day, shall be in thine heart: 7And thou shalt teach them diligently unto thy children, and shalt talk of them when thou sittest in thine house, and when thou walkest by the way, and when thou liest down, and when thou risest up

This speaks to me that we are to bring our children alongside of us as we live life and they will be mentored and learn from us…there will be an impartation of our spirit into theirs…but is comes thru relationship with them..a good, solid, loving relationship with them…one where they can trust us to love them unconditionally…

Two weeks ago today, William was baptized by his older brother.

Afterward, his father (and my hubby of almost 23 years!) confirmed William a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints and bestowed upon him the gift of the Holy Ghost by the power of the priesthood which he bears.

Almost right after the lovely gathering dispersed, William excitedly approached me and asked, “Do I get to have my own scriptures now!?” It was very interesting for several reasons. One was that I had not discussed this as any “rite of passage” or anything before obtaining your own scriptures, so I wonder why he associated it as such. However, in the past, that is when the children have typically taken up owning and carrying their own scriptures (though he has two older brothers who don’t do so; therefore, it isn’t a given). Second, was how eager he was to obtain his own scriptures (this from a boy who LOVES presents that are toy driven, yet this is so spiritual driven, and he doesn’t read yet).

So, it got me to thinking about this passage that I found above as well as the post that I wrote over at Life Without School a while ago found here. I do things quite a bit differently as it pertains to how I share my faith with my children, and all the attributes that go with that. For instance, it is common to start very young with children to pray alongside them so they “grow up with it”; therefore, they will continue with it as they are older. The same could be said of owning and carrying one’s scriptures from a young age, whether they can read or not, just to create a “habit.”

I didn’t do that with my children. Instead, I did as the scripture above indicates: I lived and spoke of it, in my home and outside of my home, as I awoke and as I went to sleep, as I walked and as I lay; it incorporates every aspect of my life. What I found was that my children each came to desire it for themselves when they were old enough to make that choice and recognize the value in it. I saw it with prayer, scripture study, serving a mission, Sabbath Day observance, and all the other myriad of goodly things to seek after.

In our church, there is an “age of accountability” whereby people are old enough to know right from wrong, make correct choices, and understand the consequences of actions. That age is 8. William actually turned 9 years old the day after his baptism. With his learning difficulties, I felt another year was in order and that proved to be of benefit as I saw him really embrace for himself his own desire for the important saving ordinance of baptism.

Interestingly, it is often found through brain research that the ages of 8-10 years is formative in the ability to discern, learn, and assimilate. Many of my children are right-brained learners, William included, and it is not until this age that many higher level thinking abilities emerge. The previous years are ones of building a foundation that will create so much of what will be needed for the proceeding years of growth and understanding. I see this both with academia as well as spirituality. You can include emotional and physical in there as well, from my vantage point. Pretty cool, really. It’s just another testament of the Truth that I live.

I currently have two adult children, by society’s standards and their age identification process. My oldest recently turned 21, and my next will be 19 at the beginning of summer. Both have been unschooled all their lives. Both have found their passions. Both are working out their purpose.

Abbey, my only daughter, and the person who will be 19 this summer, is a fantasy writer. She has been dedicating full time hours to this pursuit for several years or more now. When college came up, at first, she considered it, but quickly thereafter, upon looking at the process of pursuing it and the sacrifices involved for the product promised, she immediately stated ‘you’ve raised us to question the status of learning traditionally, why should I embrace it now? I’m going to look into my alternatives’. She is doing just that.

Interestingly, the only reason she keeps the possibility of college on her consideration plate is because that’s where all her peers are, and she wants the opportunity to date and be married. She figures she may have to go where she can find lots of people in the same pursuit. Lately, she’s questioning the reasoning again. Just like the 3-18 age range, it DOES take more creativity to find one’s social outlet when the choice is to not engage in the institution that segregates these ages away from real life.

My oldest, Eric, just turned 21, is trying to decide which of his many interests and talents would be best to pursue in lieu of his recent realization that college is not for him. He stumbled on a site that was searching for voice actors for a fan-made radio drama that he auditioned for and received the part. This is an area he’s considered off and on for some years now. He’s also considering writing manga. He figures he will find other employment to support himself until his pursuits are realized in a way that he can independently exist. He originally had liked the idea of Japanese history, but figured it can be incorporated into these other areas as well as simply enjoying it for its own benefit.

It makes full sense that always unschooled people would continue that path as adults. I was able to listen to a panel of grown unschoolers at the Rethinking Education conference last September, and most had foregone college. All were finding their way based on what was important to them. That’s what I’m seeing in my children. They don’t know any other way than to exhibit silent resolve that they will make their way.

So, I find myself needing to gather articles for my own continued deconditioning during this phase of life. Boy, I thought the kindergarten transition was tough; the adulthood transition is tougher out there with all the expectations for this stage in our society and all the underlying definitions of success. So, I revisit my original goals for unschooling: Encourage my children to find work they love so they don’t have to work a day in their lives. And, so the journey continues. And, they DO love their lives . . . today. They have loved their childhoods. And they expect to love their adulthoods. How many can say that?

The article I found by Alfie Kohn at the blog of LIFE with Granola *Girl* fits this well. It’s found here. Of course, the outspoken John Taylor Gatto is always a go-to guy when it comes to these matters, and Life Learning Magazine recently published his “A Letter To My Granddaughter” about “Don’t Worry About College”. And, while I was reading over at Life Learning Magazine, I found Sarabeth Matilsky’s article “Redefining Success” that I felt would resonate with my children.

I’m just beginning my journey in my search for inspirational articles and like-minded people in the same stage, so I’m open to hearing other recommendations from any of you who have found some good ones! Of course, my own journey started some years ago, when my oldest led me to unschooling in the first place. He hinted at unschooling continuing into adulthood when I wrote this, and this, so it is simply time for me to fully embrace what it all means and offers in our continued joyful living path!

Christine over at Thinking Things Through wrote a post about how she started to realize that she was still being parent-vested (or motivated) versus trusting that what emanates from within the child will be worthy of the time and space necessary for the process to evolve into what we are so conditioned to strive for: a measurable product. Here are some of her thoughts:

I’ve begun to revisit the idea of strewing. I think something that has always been an issue for me in the past is that I haven’t used strewing with the right intentions. I’ve strewn things in my children’s paths with the hopes that they would do what I wish them to do with these things. I “plan” it out in my mind, what they will do when they come upon these things. Then it’s just the same as when I’ve planned a whole unit study and my little unique personalities do not wish to learn about the topic as I’ve decided we should. Instead I need to strew with the idea that these things I’m placing in their paths are something I find interesting, something that they might find interesting, something that they can choose to look at/interact with or not. And not have any resentment if they choose not to.

Since I’ve been gone from blogging so long, I didn’t reference some of my blog posts over at Life Without School and her topic went beautifully with some of how I have come to view the process of exposing my children to new ideas, adding to their current interests, or sparking different perspectives worthy of pursuit. My post, entitled “Interest-Based and Child-Led Learning: A Comparative” shares where I feel the differences lies between the two descriptives after I ran into a LOT of homeschooling parents who were doing exactly what Christine describes she had been, and then wondered why it felt flat afterward. I received a perfect opportunity to lead a set of parents, through their amazing young daughter, at a conference last year in what that looks like.

Admittedly, especially since I joined the blogging world, I can get to feeling guilty about what I don’t do with my children when I see scads of wonderful craft projects being made, lapbooks being produced, dictation being copied, or seemingly interest-based curriculum-based resources being utilized. In fact, because we have been blessed lately financially, I find myself purchasing some of these resources thinking they will bring new dimension to learning. But, after the fun of opening the boxes and peering excitedly inside expecting the wow factor to hit, it almost always disappoints within minutes. It simply pales in comparison to the experiences I have witnessed with my children’s child-led use of living books, or their self-created projects that help build their own understanding of what is important to them in their life today, and inevitably, I see it all link when their tomorrow’s come. When will I learn? I guess my conditioning runs deep that I can still wonder after learning at the feet of my children for 16 years (!) . . . Or maybe it’s my left-brained self-interest in sequential learning materials that is actually drawn to the resources . . .

Yet, I don’t see that doubt in my always unschooled young adult children (which I will be discussing in upcoming posts), though it continues to challenge my product-driven conditioned mentality through each stage my children lead me. (Young adulthood is even harder to navigate through the expectations of the world than the 5-year-old stage, if you can believe it, or as you can imagine, depending on your current stage )

Let’s see, what are my children doing right now as I pursue my own interests at the computer: my youngest two are out creating a place to camp out tonight on the trampoline, Eli is programming from his new book his dad bought him when he expressed an interest in learning how to create artificial intelligence for his computer game characters, Abbey is driving her brother Alex to the library to find new books to spark his interest, and Adam and Eric are still sleeping (though I’ve been hearing Eric’s alarm clock the past hour . . . LOL!).

Here I go trying to get my blogging habit going . . . again. Only time will tell when my efforts will stick I thought it would be fun to target various children in my focus for my posts if I don’t have a personal inspired thought for the day. Today, I thought I would start with Adam because he did something we all dropped our jaws over the other day. In fact, I had to laugh because my instinct was to tiptoe around the situation, pretending that if I didn’t put a spotlight on it, it would stick around a while longer . . . LOL! So, what am I talking about.

Adam, who is 15 years old, and struggles with autism on a minutely basis, has taken to withdrawing from the family for the most part over the past several or more years. He is very comfortable around his father and I so will hang out between his own bedroom (one of the few with their own) and our bedroom, connecting on a consistent basis. As for most of the other children, he avoids them . . . the younger ones because they agitate him because he can’t predict their behaviors, and the older ones, because they are usually around where the little ones are . . . LOL! So, to come out into the main family area during peak hours is rare. Instead, he peeks his head out his door to request food every so often . . . thus, why his nickname became “His Majesty” . . . LOL! . . . or to request a parent or older sibling to do something with him.

It would take a lot to explain the ins and outs about how and why things happen, but just suffice it to say that Adam and Alex (13 years old and living with autism) are autistically at odds right now. It happened when they were about 2 and 4 years old, and started again around 12 and 14 years old. Probably another year and they could be through it, with a little help from me. And, that’s what I started the other day. Alex has come a long way in understanding his own and others’ behaviors, including Adam’s, with a LOT of talking and explaining from me to him, and a lot of talking through relaxation techniques in order that he doesn’t go into a meltdown himself over their behavioral differences.

So, Adam doesn’t want Alex to be outside when he is, and lately, Adam has taken to wanting to be outside more since moving to the country, and so has Alex. Naturally, Alex doesn’t want to be dictated whether he can be outside just because his brother does, so I decided to implement a plan that entered my mind. I explained to Alex that although he is the younger brother, he has more abilities than his older brother, and in order to create a different relationship, he would need to be the one to initiate a rebuilding of their interactions as he proved to Adam that he could be trusted through maintaining his composure no matter what Adam says. Alex seemed game, so we rehearsed what he could say, and what Adam might do in reaction behaviorally, and how Alex could respond.

So, Alex approached Adam who was waiting on the trampoline for his sister, and sure enough, Adam closed his eyes and started insisting that Alex leave. Alex courageously and calmly stood his ground and waited for a silence and initiated, “Adam, I want to be your best friend.” Hhhmm, he added “best” in the suggested sentence . . . interesting Alex had to repeat this a couple times for Adam to really hear him since he will often shut down all his senses when he feels like he might become overwhelmed in someone’s presence. I helped Alex keep his composure through Adam’s ignoring and other behaviors and Adam dared to peek and see that Alex was being calm still. Then, I leaned over and suggested that Alex ask Adam a question about what he was wanting . . . “Do you want to bounce with Abbey?” Adam replied calmly, “Yes.” And then Alex stated he would go inside now so Adam could bounce with Abbey.

Alright, I figured that was a good start, and if we do something like that every day, maybe their interactions would become less suspicious of one another and maybe they could start being in the same room together again. So, what to my wondering eyes did I see a few hours later? Adam came downstairs (after returning to the house and to his room, as usual) and sat down in a chair and watched his oldest brother, Eric, play video games in the main room of the house . . . during prime time peak hours! Happily! With Eric (who has a similar history with Adam, who couldn’t tolerate Eric’s voice for several years before he left for a year, which seems to have broken that pattern to a large degree, thanks to some things Eric did when he returned to help lessen the previous effects, bless his soul). Adam stayed there for about a half hour! And Alex walked in, and he was fine! I was shocked. Everyone was shocked. We walked around like you would when you see a deer in the woods and don’t want to frighten it away . . . LOL!

My hubby arrived home from work and I met him on his walk in and prepared him for a surprise, but warned him not to be too shocked or “scare him away”. He walked in, saw, and his jaw dropped. I even went and got a picture. I know! Sounds silly, but unless someone lives with autism to the degree we do, you have no idea Here’s the captured moment!

I’ve done this before, but I saw it over at Throwing Marshmallows.  I have a feeling I’m different every time. (Yep, see this post.) What’s interesting as I answered the questions is that I could recognize how my children changed me. For instance, I definitely value my alone time after being a mother of seven children. LOL! I probably would have responded less favorably to alone time before now That showed up in the intrapersonal being as high as my interpersonal.

Also, I have some visual/spatial skills showing up, and I believe it’s because I live with a houseful of these types of learners and I have learned to adopt some of their preferences.

It categorizes me as a “persuader”, which I feel has been a gift of mine for a while, but “creator”? My creative learners have probably rubbed off positively on me.

Anyway, always interesting . . .