Epsom Salt Bath (Part 2)

In early January, J had his first Epsom Salt Bath (Refer to my post here). About 2 weeks later in later part of January, hubby remembered that J had a swim tub (Clever Hubby!) that we had bought when he was an infant. He suggested that we can use it for J as the current bath tub is too small for J and J isn't fully soaked in.

And here it is! J enjoyed his Epsom Salt soaking in his swim tub about 2 to 3 times a week.

Enjoying his Epsom Salt Soaking

Not only that, even I can fit into the swim tub (benefits of being small-built) and have a good Epsom Salt soaking. Epsom Salt soaking is not only good just for eliminating toxins and heavy metals said to be high in people in the ASD spectrum, it is also good for adults too.

It helps to relax our body, relieve stress and muscle tension, pains and cramps. Hubby will also soak his tired and sore feet in the tub (He is too big for the tub!). Epsom Salt is also claimed to have anti-fungal and anti-microbial properties.

Thanks to Hubby's clever idea and J's swim tub, the swim tub has not gone to waste and now the whole family can enjoy the Epsom Salt Bath and Soak.

Little Artist @ Work

Today, J got his hands dirty with paints, brushes, sponge and water. This is one of his favourite activity since he was an infant.

Initially, he had wanted to do water colour painting. His painting has always been just colouring and scribbling. He is never interested in painting on objects, except on paper. Even though it is just colouring and scribbling, he is able to interpret what his artwork is about (which is worth celebrating). When he just draws in circles, he could still tell me that he is drawing the MRT Network Line (Now I know in J's mind, our MRT Network is so confusing... lol).



J loves to paint with brushes

After painting with brushes, J would like to get his hands on the paint. Maybe, he loves the sensation of touching the paint. Today, he had his hands printed on papers.

After printing his hands on paper, he showed me his dirty hands

Lastly, J sponge-stamped numbers. There were lots of interaction, initiated by J, when we were doing this activity. When he stamped number '4', he said that he is 4 years old. When he stamped number '5', he said Froggy is 5 years old. When he stamped number '6', he said that his baby is 6 years old.

His painting activities will always end in putting his hands in the water and go round and round, seeing the water changed colours and squeezing the sponge. He hand-painted the wall too. He said, "Today, I am painting my house."

Stamping, sponging and hand painting

Painting is a good sensory activities for children, whether neurotypical or special needs. Painting not only invokes and foster creativity and imagination, they learn a lot about primary and secondary colours and what happen to colours when mixed up, texture of paint, helps in hand-eye coordination, brain or cognitive development and emotional expression. For children on the ASD spectrum, painting can be one form of Art Therapy.

Perhaps the greatest benefit is the fact that painting provides us and our children a great platform to bond and spend valuable time together. Today, it has been an interactive session. The whole activity lasted about an hour and a half. In fact, the activity we had today helps in the development of Interactive Attention Span, which is one of the important goals in the Son-Rise Program® Social Development Model.



Painting on easel on 14 Nov 2016
We created an art corner for J.

Dear parents, I would encourage you to let your little ones paint. Do not be bothered by the outcome of your child's paint works. If getting messy is of your primary concern, do like what I did - I put J in the toilet (My toilet is very airy) and after the paint works, it is toilet washing time.

Most importantly, enjoy the bonding, have fun and invoke interaction by talking about your child's works (Remember, no criticism but PRAISE AND CELEBRATION).

If your child is non-verbal, painting can help to teach new words and even working on eye contact when your child asks you for the colour.

If your child has sensory challenges in touching the paint, do not force the child, help the child to explore and feel the paint. Take a step at a time!

A Pleasant Surprise

It has been a busy period because of the CNY preparations and CNY visits. Hence, I haven't been updating on this blog for almost a month. CNY just ended on Saturday, 11th Feb 2017.

On 6th Feb 2017, I had a pleasant surprise. That day was also J's first time having an almost full day outdoor after weeks of Son-Rise playroom time.

We were at Coffee Bean at East Coast Parkway. J was patting his favourite toy Froggy to sleep. He was on a high chair. He wanted to put Froggy on the pram, which was very, very low. And he said to me, "Mummy, can you push the pram nearer? I can't reach."

OMG! I was simply amazed that he could say such a sentence, so clearly and spontaneously! We had stopped the once-a-month Speech Therapy (ST) in December 2016. So after the Son-Rise Program® Startup that I attended towards the end of November 2016, hubby and I were his Son-Rise Therapist. In the past, if the same would have happened, he might just say "I want the pram", which to us, it is still not fully functional and it is quite robotic because everything will just be "I want...". But instead, on that day, he used such spontaneous sentence. How nice and wonderful to hear it! I can't help wanting to hear it again!

This beautiful sentence, my hubby and I believe, was the result of constant prayers and the changes we had made while doing the Son-Rise Playtime with J.

During the Son-Rise Program® Startup, one of the suggestions was to "Limit Outdoor Activities" for our child and put him in the Son-Rise playroom. We did just that ever since I attended the program.

Benefits of a Son-Rise playroom

For many children in the ASD spectrum, it can be very challenging to filter out external distractions. Thus, limiting their ability to focus on learning and interaction with us. The purpose of the Son-Rise playroom is to make it as easy and enjoyable as possible for the child and the parent to focus on interaction so that both of them are making the most of their time together.

Time and time again people with autism have expressed the great anxiety they feel due to a disorganised sensory system, making seemingly simple things like a trip to the grocery store incredibly overwhelming. So this is an important one: do your best to decrease the sensory overload your child might experience. You can do this by either eliminating/limiting or modifying trips to stimulating environments. For example, don't take your child grocery shopping (or the park, etc.) for now, or take him much less often, or take him only on off hours, when it is much more quiet and less crowded. This is an important time to be an open-minded detective because something that may not seem stimulating to you can be incredibly challenging for your child. - Adapted from the book "Play to Grow" by Tali F.Berman & Abby Rappaport

What I have done

Since the Son-rise program in December 2016, hubby and I had made it a point to limit J's outdoor activities to help him decrease his sensory overload. There were times, before making those decisions, that we weigh the pros and cons. I do felt, for some activities, it seemed a pity that J could not be involved. In the end, for the sake of J, I had to do what I think would benefit J.

• J stopped his once-a-month Speech Therapy (ST). We felt that there is no point in spending 2 hours, rushing and travelling to-and-fro to the ST. While travelling, there will be lots of sensory overload. By the time we reached home, I felt I had run in a marathon. Since J had improved using the Son-Rise technique for speech the past year, we have decided to stop. We are also intending to stop his EIPIC since the Son-Rise Development Model helped J alot.  
• J stopped attending his Thursday Co-op group. (This was a pity because it has all NT children whom he can learn from. But no! He don't learn from them. Unfortunately, it does not come naturally for a child with ASD to learn from others because they focus on objects, instead of learning from others).
• We only go playgrounds during off-hours, with no children or at most 1 child around.
• We go to places that has no crowds.
• We only go nearby places like NTUC and hawker centre (on a weekday morning).
• If the place is crowded, we would just quickly go to the shop that we need to buy our stuff and quickly evacuated from the place.
• We stopped bringing J to church (hopefully it is temporary) for the moment. Hubby and I take turns to go to church each week (We still need to be spiritually fed). Whoever stays home with J will do Son-Rise playtime with him. Even though J is not going to church, we do devotion, Praise & Worship and prayer time with him at home.
• Of course, more Son-Rise playtime with J.

This CNY is also a time when hubby and I decided to adopt some changes, different from what we had done in the past years, in regards to J.

• J only visits his grandparents.
  So, we agreed that for this year, other than the grandparent's house, for any other house visits, hubby and I would go to our own relative's or friend's house. This is so that we can each spend quality social time with our relatives or friends.
  
  In previous years, with J around, we could not even sit down and talk to our respective relatives or friends. We would have to follow J wherever he goes. For kids in the spectrum like J, he is always away from the group. For J, he is obsessed with lifts, so we would follow J to go and see lifts. In the long run, this isn't beneficial for us and it became very frustrating.
  
  There were times J would have sensory overload as he is highly sensitive to sound and he became "not himself" and started hitting and scratching people.


• Get J a room.
  Hubby had his mum prepared a room for J so that he can be away from the crowds if he needed to. Before heading to both of our parent's house, we pre-empted J that there will be a room if he finds the place noisy.
  
  True enough, while at my mother-in-law's place, J was in the room with hubby almost the whole day. There were times he came out of the room. With the noise level and overwhelming human faces, J did start to hit hubby's uncle.
  
  At my parent's house, there were fewer relatives visiting my parents this year. So perhaps it helps.

The Outcome

Hubby and I felt that there has been an improvement in J, ever since we made the changes. The latest achievement was that beautiful sentence "Mummy, can you push the pram nearer? I can't reach."

In the past, while the family was out at any public places on weekends, where it would be very crowded. We found ourselves putting out fires because of the challenging behaviours like hitting, scratching and screaming that J would exhibit, especially in crowded places or places that challenged or over-stimulated his senses.

Even in a typical co-op, I spent huge amount of energy managing behaviours. When just going to church, hubby and I felt like we had run a marathon. In fact, when the child is always on "Fight" mode, it leaves little energy for the parent or child to focus on interaction, learning and other life skills. Plus, these kind of behaviours bring J a lot of negative attention.

However, when I am home alone with J, things seems to be peaceful, even though there were days of meltdowns.

For ourselves, hubby and I each have our own days out with our own friends, without J. When hubby is out, I will be with J at home and hubby will do the same when I am out. We felt happier and fulfilled.

Of course, I pray that the changes that we made will be temporary. Very soon, we will be able to go out anywhere and to church as a family together and enjoy one another's company.