Special Ed Rising

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I love sharing other great resources!

My friend Mark, recently started a blog: specialedrising.com. Special Ed Rising is a joyful place for sharing, learning, celebrating and discovery. Mark’s background contains over 30 years of experience in special education and ASL. His site is a fantastic resource for the special needs community, as well as a place for others to share their story.

On this week’s episode of the Magical Mommy Monday Podcast, we had Mark on to talk more about his site. You can listen to that episode by clicking here.

The Battle of Tooth

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Losing a 1st tooth is a major milestone. Adult teeth want to come through, so the baby teeth need to go. It’s also another sign for a parent that time goes by so fast and my babies are getting bigger by the second. Excuse me while I go cry.

Ok I’m back. Enough about me, let’s talk about ‘J’s experience losing his first tooth.

One day when I was picking him up from school last year, a boy, also in Kindergarten, was leaving a little early with his mom because he had lost a tooth. That was the moment where I thought “oh my goodness, is this when they start losing teeth?!”

That night, I started talking to ‘J’ about losing his baby teeth. Explaining to a sensory kid that his teeth were going to fall out, did not go over well. At that point, none of his teeth were loose and we left it alone.

Now in 1st grade, most of his friends are showing up to class displaying their new toothless smiles daily. ‘J’s’ bottom two teeth have been a little wiggly for awhile and he would fall asleep sometimes wiggling them. Until it got too real. Once they got looser, he realized this was going to happen soon and he was not happy about it. He didn’t want us checking them, he didn’t want to wiggle them anymore and teeth brushing became more of a battle. For about a week one tooth was barely hanging on, and although he had fears of swallowing it in his sleep, he didn’t want us to get it out either.

The other day, as he was playing in the morning, he started crying and freaking out. His tooth had basically come out, but was now laying on top of his gum. He was so scared, didn’t want us to go near him, was talking without opening his mouth. I was trying everything and by everything, I mean bribes.

Want to watch a YouTube show you don’t get to watch often?

How about lunch at McD’s?

Nothing was working. Out of no where, he had been sitting on the floor, climbed up on the couch, looked at me and started crying hysterically. And I knew why.

I told him to try to breathe and stay still, had him open his mouth and got the tooth out from under his tongue. He continued to cry for a few minutes after. He looked at himself in the mirror and cried some more because he looked different. He worried about what other people would think of him missing a tooth, sad that the baby tooth was gone and wishing he was still a baby so he didn’t have to lose teeth. All was heartbreaking to watch and a hard experience for him to go through. Not to mention his 4 year old sister may be a bit traumatized having witnessed weeks of turmoil regarding this tooth.

Days later, he’s feeling better and getting more used to his new look. The neighboring tooth is ready to go, so I think his second experience will be happening sooner rather than later.

Sensory kids feel things a lot more than other kids. Their senses are heightened and what may seem like a fun milestone to someone, may not be to another. This is similar to other challenges on a day to day basis. What may be easy for one person, may be a struggle for another. It’s important to remember to have patience and understanding for any individual’s experience.

Is Speech Therapy Still a Part of Our Lives?

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Yes!

Once ‘J’ went to Kindergarten, we had to part ways with his Speech Therapist that he had been seeing since he was 2. I may have been the most distraught, buuuuut luckily she will always be family to us!

For the last two years, ‘J’ has been working with the school’s speech therapist who has been great. He’s been working hard on the sounds that still give him pause and has been progressing nicely along the way. After talking with his Speech Therapist, he will no longer be receiving an IEP for speech next year, but will be receiving speech through the school. Not too much of a change for him, just less paperwork on the back end. His mind tends to move faster than the words come out, so conversationally, it’ll be great for him to continue receiving services. We can all hear the difference speech therapy has made for him over the years.

As I mentioned in the last blog, I co-host the Magical Mommy Monday podcast. Remember that speech therapist that is now family? She was kind enough to come on and chat with us. I may have cried….just a tad…due to the impact she’s had on our life and the love she has for ‘J.’

Click here to listen to the episode and learn more about speech therapy.

Magical Mommy Monday Meets Sensory Spectacle

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If you’ve checked out my previous blogs, then you saw a series written by Becky Lyddon, founder of Sensory Spectacle.

Fun fact: I host two podcasts! One is Theme Park Thursday with Dillo’s Diz, with my brother, where we focus on Disney nostalgia. The other is Magical Mommy Monday with my friend, Angela Dahlgren.

Ok, now that the cheap plugs are done, we can move on.

Becky was kind enough to take time out of quarantine to chat with us on the Magical Mommy Monday Podcast. Along with her amazing YouTube videos and her website containing trainings, she also has a podcast as well.

Click here to check out episode with Becky to learn more about her background, sensory processing and Sensory Spectacle!

You can visit Becky’s one stop shop for Sensory Spectacle here: https://www.sensoryspectacle.co.uk/

Attacking Anxiety

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After 4 months in the house, the uncertainty of the new school year and ‘J’s’ overall anxiety, we decided to look into having him talk to a therapist.

Last year, the plan was to have him start working on his daily challenges with an Occupational Therapist and then in the summer add in an aspect of therapy to focus on his social and separation anxiety. We originally thought this would happen in a group setting with other kids and had found a great place that focused on play therapy. With Covid, plans were ever-changing.

I reached out to the school psychologist to see if she had any recommendations for an outside psychologist. After researching and making sure our insurance would be taken, we were able to make an appointment. ‘J’ was nervous at first, especially after the previous 4 months, but warmed up quickly.

‘J’ has been going to therapy weekly for about 6 months now. There’s a mix of talking, playing games and focusing on tools he can use in moments of frustration or anxiety. Most adults aren’t able to keep their emotions in tact and think before they act, so of course a 6 year old is going to struggle a bit too. Especially when big feelings come up out of no where. Some days or moments are tougher than others but he works hard, as do we, to mitigate the anxieties that arise.

I’ve said this before, but if you were to meet ‘J,’ chances are you would never see or know the challenges he has. He may go 3 weeks without a care in the world. He may have an entire week where he is on edge, fully of anxiety and just getting dressed in the morning or having lunch could seem incredibly overwhelming. Other times, it could just be a fleeting moment where he can breathe through it and move on.

He is easily overwhelmed and when he has a list of assignments to complete, something surprises him, or there’s too much noise and commotion, he can shut down quickly. Something that didn’t affect him yesterday, could affect him tomorrow.

We are so proud at how well he has done with school being virtual. The consistency of knowing what his day to day would be was a big selling factor for us decided to do 100% virtual. His teacher is great, he’s learning so much and is now acting like a CEO with all of his google meets. Those moments, days or weeks do happen, in the same way they would happen when he went to school and would come home to let it all out.

We all have to remember to keep breathing through the challenges, think before reacting and not take our day to day for granted. What may seem like something silly to us, could be major for someone with Sensory Processing difficulties.

A Sensory Evaluation: Take 2

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During his Kindergarten year, ‘J’ received Occupational Therapy at school. His Occupational Therapist (OT) was awesome and we stayed in contact to keep each other in the loop. However, occupational therapy in school typically focuses more on fine motor skills (ie: handwriting) and whether or not the student cannot focus in class. ‘J’ was doing great in both of these areas. Unfortunately, the school could not provide more assistance when it came to sensory difficulties. They did not have the space or types of therapies to assist students in this way. It was recommended that ‘J’ would not receive OT for 1st grade.

Knowing that ‘J’ struggled with lighting, sounds and still had separation anxiety during morning drop off, we had him evaluated by an outside OT. He was evaluated at the end of February, 2020 in the areas of Touch Processing, Visual, Oral, Movement and Motor. Without going into specific details, he received scores under the categories of “More Than Others” or “Much More Than Others.”

It was recommended that ‘J’ receive occupational therapy for help reduce sensory sensitivity in the area of auditory, touch processing, visual, oral and sensory seeking behaviors. There would be focus on strategies to help reduce anxiety in social settings, to make him become more comfortable with challenges and to adapt to given situations within his life.

We were able to have two sessions with his new occupational therapist before everything shut down due to Covid. In the meantime, I came up with a Sensory Diet (pictured below), bought some fidget toys to assist with the sensory bin and luckily it was spring which meant lots of opportunity for outside play.

Like everyone else, we had to adjust our daily life. Although we were looking forward to have ‘J’ get started with occupational therapy to focus on his challenges, we did the best we could without it.

2 Years and 2 Months

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That’s how long it’s been since I’ve blogged. I’ve taken some breaks before, but this one takes the cake. Especially because 2020 was about 10 years long alone, right?

Some changes from the last 2 years:

  • ‘J’ is now 6 and his sister is now 4
  • Last year, ‘J’ ended his Kindergarten year on March 13th and since September has been 100% virtual through his school for 1st grade. His sister is doing homeschooling for nursery school.
  • Just prior to the shutdown last year, we had an outside evaluation done to confirm (once again) that ‘J’ does have Sensory Processing difficulties and we were about to start working with an OT outside of his school.
  • Through the ups and downs of the pandemic, my kids are resilient, thriving and learning new things everyday.

I’ll be getting into more details regarding some of these changes, along with many others. Just wanted to say hello and let you know that I’m back!

Happy Winnie the Pooh Day!

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Piglet: How do you spell love?

Pooh: You don’t spell it, you feel it.

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Winnie the Pooh is one of those classic characters that stays with you throughout your life. And how many amazing quotes can be pulled from his stories?!

We spent the morning reading Pooh, watching Pooh and doing a little craft too. I hope the kiddos remember that they are braver than they believe, stronger than they seem and smarter than they think, because I already know those things to be true.

 

Guess Who?

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It’s Me!

Oh wait, that’s not what I mean. I’m talking about the game.

Guess Who? was a favorite of mine when I was younger and I made a special note to Santa that ‘J’ might love it as well.

In ‘J’s’ school, they assign a child as the Leader of the Day. When they do this, the teacher gives out clues to see if the children can guess who the leader will be. Hearing ‘J’ talk about this sparked the idea that he may love this game. And it’s been an enormous hit! He’s obsessed!

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Although he had a speech delay and has come so far from that point, there are definitely still parts of speech he’s working on. This includes pronunciation, sentence formation and articulation. I’ve found this game to be an excellent tool to help in this process.

We have to take turns asking questions. Since he normally wants to play about 10 rounds at a time, my husband and I can use this time to help him formulate those questions, use proper pronouns and improve on his adjectives.

Clearly he hasn’t caught on that we’re using it as a learning tool as well as a game or else he may have tossed it to the side by now! Hopefully he never does. I love how much he loves playing the game with us.

Overloads and Reactions

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Every child with SPD is going to handle a sensory overload differently. This makes sense since the causes can vary, why wouldn’t the outcome?

For ‘J,’ there are so many things that can affect how he reacts to a situation where he’s uncomfortable. Sometimes it’s making a loud noise, other times it’s an actual scream. He could break down crying, get fidgety, act out or sometimes just give me a look where I can see he just needs some reassurance.

Most of the time we can be proactive in situations and deter whatever may affect him. At the very least, we always try to prep him from what he may see, hear or experience in any situation. If you’ve read this blog before, you know he’s huge on routine, so having a heads up to something new is always helpful.

Of course with a scream, people around us (family, friends, strangers) will notice. Being fidgety, acting out or giving us a look can be trickier. We know that he’s uncomfortable and we’re trying to get a handle on it or make it ok while those around us are clueless.

As I’ve talked about before, because SPD isn’t something you can see, people don’t always think through their actions because to them, ‘J’ often appears carefree. Someone we know might invite us to a big party, which is great and usually ends up being fine but we also know that ‘J’ will never be 100% comfortable. Others may play loud music, change up a routine, or try to play around by surprising him. His reaction can definitely run the gamut in these instances from giving a look to an all out meltdown.

When this isn’t a part of someone’s ever day life, it’s not a natural instinct to think through the moves you make. But taking an extra minute to think through actions can make all the difference to someone with sensory sensitivities.