Baking Time!

One of J's favourite activity was to bake. I am glad I had introduced baking to him.

Teacher's Day Gift
Baking Blueberry Cupcakes for his teachers
at his Early Intervention Centre last year

If you google the "Benefits of Baking with Preschool Children", there will be lots of articles on that! But for our child with sensory challenges especially to touch, it is good to expose them to baking. Baking alone encompasses many benefits, in regards to motor skills.

• Hone their fine motor skills - Eye-Hand coordination or even hand strengthening when pressing dough or even squeezing the icing bag.
• Stimulate the senses, feeling the texture of the different ingredients - butter, egg, flour, sugar, etc.
• Bilateral Coordination when rolling the dough, sifting the flour, etc.
• Spatial perception and Organisation Skills, when cutting cookies or sifting the flour into the bowl and not out of the bowl.
• Listening and Understanding Instructions.

Fine motor skills, Bilateral Coordination,
Spatial Awareness, Organisation skills
Listening and Understanding instructions

And there are those benefits pertaining to

• Pre-literacy skills - When we read from the recipe, the child realises those are words. Or even introduction of the different baking accessories.
• Math - Learning the numbers and fraction from the recipe, e.g. three-quarter and counting, e.g. the number of eggs we are going to put. We can even learn about Time while setting the timer - How long is the baking time?
• Social Interaction and Communication - When we talk to our child about the recipe that we are going to bake. Or he might ask questions. We can even talk about where we can sell the cakes, cookies, etc. Invoke some "What-ifs, What happens, What do you think?"
• Science - What happens when the flour, butter and sugar are mixed together?
• Responsibility - Teaching about washing hands before baking, wearing apron and cleaning up.
• Patience - Waiting for the cake to be ready.
• Safety and Danger Awareness - Showing him how hot oven is and why we should not touch the oven.

Teaching about Danger Awareness, Responsibility and Patience

And all these are even enhanced when our child does it with another friend. That will also teach them about turn taking, team work and the list goes on.

Most importantly, Having fun and bonding while baking. I love it!

Of course! There were those initial times when he might have some sensory challenges in touching those ingredients. Well! I believe in exposing him. The thing is, if he insists that he does not want to touch certain ingredients because of some sensory challenges, I would not force him and I will just do it for him. And then, tell him the goodness of how it feels. And try again the next time.

That happened initially, he did not want to touch the flour. I did not force him and I told him how soft flour feels and what flour is used for. I then invited him to try and touch it. There were the first few times when he said "No". I just left it as that and I tried again the next time we do baking. And eventually, he was willing to touch the flour.

The key thing is to be persistent, be loving and understanding and of course, not to be afraid of messiness.

J's Special Friends

Since Nov 2016, J would treat his 4 special friends as his "Precious". At times, he might put them to sleep. There was once he took my hub's windbreaker and laid it properly on top of my drawer organiser. After which, he would laid his 4 precious on top of the windbreaker with care, just like what it was shown below.

In case you can't see who they are. From left, there is Kangaroo. It is a tissue box cover. Next is a toy baby. He named her "Felicia" (Such nice name!). Third is a puppet froggy, which he brought it wherever he goes. Lastly, is a grey tom cat, which is no longer working (cables are spoilt and the cat is "bandaged" with black tape) but he just treated them as his precious.

This is only a beginning milestone of his social play - being caring and loving to friends in his play. This is a little progress that I celebrated and which, I am proud of.

However, almost 2 years ago (I knew about his autism in Feb 2015), all these were totally impossible and unthinkable. At that time, since he was 18 months old, he was only interested in playing with 8 blue megablocks and 4 red megablocks, mimicking the opening and closing of lift doors. He never was interested in building train tracks but used the train tracks to make into 4 panel doors.

After reading the book Autism Breakthrough by Raun K. Kaufman, Hub and I started joining him. We were "lifts" after shower, when he would be carried to the room to change or when daddy piggy-backed him. We even mimicked the sound of lift door opening as he was being carried or piggy-backed. I talked to him anything about lift, telling him about how the lift goes up and down, axles and pulleys, button panels, panel-doors, numbers, etc. 2 weeks later, my tears fell when he started to connect train tracks, instead of just making train tracks as lift doors. And few weeks later, he started to build upwards using megablocks. Mid-2016, daddy used Lego to help him build tall buildings with lift and he was receptive to that. These were some of the progress. And the amazing thing is J learned his numbers, alphabets, counting and reading through lifts - the importance of child-led learning - Let the child teach you. We soon realised there are so many things to learn from lifts.

Friends... Do not lose hope! Believe in our children! They are getting better. J's interaction and social awareness skills may still be in progress. At this point, he still could not relate to people yet. But I know, he will get there some day. The photo was the 1st step to being socially aware and it is one of the milestones to be celebrated.

Currently, another 3 friends are added to his team of precious. They are robot, gingerbread man and the dog, which he named "Bark" because it barks.

Epsom Salt Bath

J had his first Epsom Salt bath this morning. In the evening, I added Lavender Essential Oil. As he is quite big for the small bathtub, his chest was partially submerged. Hence, I had to use a watering can to pour the water over his chest and he enjoyed the soaking and I enjoyed the bonding time because I will ask him to count the number of times (approximately 50 counts) I poured the water over his chest. And there were lots of laughter. Showering became one of his favourite, amidst all the meltdowns, tantrums and behaviours for the day.

With the Lavender Essential Oil and Epsom Salt bath, it will be recommended to have the soak in the evening, which can aid in his sleeping. It is best to use hot water at first to dissolve the Epsom Salt and then, top up with cold water so that the water is warm. Use a handkerchief or wash cloth to rub his body so that the pores can be opened.

J felt so relaxed. And he looked forward to showering time. Showering is never the same again!

Epsom Salt Bath

Why Epsom Salt Bath?

Epsom Salt, also known as Magnesium Sulphate, is composed of Magnesium and Sulphate. Both of these nutrients are low in children on the Autism Spectrum. Many articles on Epsom Salt claim to help in clearing toxin and heavy metal, most believe to be very high in people in the ASD Spectrum. In any way, one of the main components of Magnesium is to relieve stress, which I felt is much more important and helpful. For children on the Autism Spectrum, many times, they find themselves unable to fit into the rules of this world, thus causing them to have very high stress level. They are either in freeze, flight or fight mode. Stress is very harmful to the body. Hence, the Epsom Salt bath, coupled with Lavender Essential Oil, also help in relaxing them. You can read more about it here.

Even for adults, Epsom Salt seems to be very beneficial for us, especially for parents like us, whose kids are autistics or even other special needs parents. Now I regret not having a bathtub! You can read more about it here. We can even used Epsom Salt for beauty, household and gardening.

Where to buy Epsom Salt?

Epsom Salt can be purchased at iHerb and they deliver it right to our doorstep.

This is the Epsom Salt I bought

Read more on Epsom Salt Bath (Part 2).