Putting Anxiety behind Us

As noted in my post on our tour of the house that Manly built, Pamela's auditory processing skills have come a long way. We took a beading class the night before leaving on a trip to Pennsylvania. The lady teaching us explained all the wonderful things we were going to do "tonight"—a word that did not sit well with Pamela at five o'clock in the afternoon. Pamela quickly corrected our teacher, "It's today!!!! You're joking!!!" After about three slip-ups, she had our guide well-trained in proper time terminology. Obnoxious outbursts aside, Pamela enjoyed herself thoroughly and required hardly any help in following directions for stringing beads.



While Pamela still has moments of minor anxiety from time to time, she has come a long way. Too many times teachers and parents address behavior from the outside in (manipulating outside factors that happen before, during, and after the situation). I have blogged many posts about dealing with her anxiety and wrote a long series of what helped the most.

About a week ago, the Wii Fit remote was acting unpredictably, so Pamela came to me for help. In the past, I was not able to troubleshoot electronics until I calmed her down (one aspect of co-regulation). When things acted up, Pamela freaked out like many children do. Because she has learned to self-regulate, I worked in peace. First, I spent five minutes playing around with it, making sure the batteries were good and checking the settings. While working, I quietly explained to Pamela my thought process. While she watched me carefully, she show no anxiety. Then, I spent another five minutes searching for the manual. Finally, I studied the manual for five minutes before figuring out what to do (synch the remote to the console). Even though she was fighting the tears the longer it took, Pamela kept her cool.

I participated in a workshop on a recent trip to Pennsylvania. Pamela kept herself busy the first day, sitting on the couch, drawing, and playing with my Nook. On the second morning, the IT people had taken down the wireless Internet. Usually, she watches me like a hawk while I troubleshoot. Watching my progress reassures her. In this situation, I worried that the uncertainty of the process might cause her to freak out. I took her out of the classroom and quietly explained the situation. Pamela seemed content. I also warned the other teachers that I might be demonstrating how to react to challenging behaviors if Pamela became anxious. Then, she said to everyone, "Don't worry! It's okay!"

Since Pamela is handling her anxieties well, I tiptoed to the edge of her competency. The other day, David's friend stopped by to borrow both Wii Fit remote controllers. Pamela was in the tub, so she had no idea of his visit. Then, we ate dinner at a friend's house, and she went straight to bed when we got home. I deliberately did not tell her about the missing items. In the past, I would have mentioned something because being unable to find the controllers would have caused a meltdown.

The next morning, I heard Pamela pacing as she searched for what was missing. She woke me (as expected) and asked, "Where's the remote controllers?" I calmly explained, "Scott borrowed them for a lock-in at his church. He promised to return them tomorrow morning." She listened and said, "Borrowed them. Okay!" No tantrums, meltdowns, or crying.

Because we decided to pick up David from college for the weekend, Scott did not return the controllers until late afternoon. Pamela did not pester me or cry during all the time they were out of sight. No tantrums, meltowns, or crying.

P.S. Since I failed to work in Pamela's play on words, I'm just tossing it here for no particular reason. She decided that a male Canada goose is a Canada gander.

Facing the Mother of All Anxieties

For a long time, Pamela's number one anxiety involved selling. Back in October 2006, I blogged how just saying phrases like "sell the dogs" (when my husband talks on the phone about selling products that are clogging up inventory). Two months later, we moved into our new (actually old Edwardian era, Victoria style) house, and the new fear was about selling the house. The last time we sold our home was in 2001. Even though she knew the signs of preparing to move (dejunking, cleaning, organizing, etc.), hearing the words sell and house together triggered a screech out of her.

I first noted her fears about selling the house in May 2008, but her screeching had been going on for a long time. The first issue we addressed was separating herself from others. Through RDI, we helped her to see that just because someone else was selling a house didn't mean we were selling ours. Six months later, we addressed the second issue: having insufficient information. She screamed as soon as she heard "sell" without hearing the whole conversation. So, we applied the whole-part thinking she learned in math to her listening skills. For a few months, we had conversations about selling things until Pamela stopped freaking out at the word sell.

Getting upset at that word probably has to do with the fact that we moved often: Pamela was born in Adak, Alaska. She has lived in California, Florida, Louisiana (two different homes), Connecticut, Pennsylvania, Colorado, Alaska (two different homes), Minnesota, and South Carolina (two different homes). That is a whole lot of moving for any person her age (twenty-two), much less a person with autism, who find change more difficult than the typical person. We have lived in South Carolina since 2005, right across the street from my parents, a blessing we have never experienced. We have lived here for almost six years, a record for the Glasers.

Pamela had other anxieties too that caused her to control David and Steve. For a year-and-a-half (from April 2007 to November 2008), she instituted the sacred hour in which she banned David from the television room from noon until one o'clock. She let go of that as her anxiety and control issues wained thanks to RDI. She tried to control Steve through his work schedule, which was always unpredictable, therefore increasing her meltdowns. Not only did she tell him which car to take and which highway to drive, she would stalk him until he left the house if he were running late. From January 2009 through August 2009, we addressed thinking flexibly about his schedule. Life certainly improved once we guided Pamela out of her anxieties thanks to the Whac-a-mole campaign.

Steve has been ready to try another industry and an opportunity opened up for him recently. Unfortunately, the location is the midwest. We have many reasons for not wanting to sell our home, in-state tuition for David being one of them. So, the big question was how to tell Pamela without having a nuclear meltdown. Because uncertainty plays such a large role in her anxieties, we took the route of "less  is more" by only telling her what we had to at the very last moment. If anything, it would shorten the length of time she had to stew over the future.

Steve's last day of work was in April, and he took a month off, enjoying life as a handyman and all-around-good guy. When Pamela asked why he didn't go to work, Steve told her the truth. He was on vacation. Whenever we had conversations about his future job, we talked in code or made sure we were well out of her hearing. I had one lapse two weeks until D-day, and I smoothed it over with stretched truth: Steve was heading out there to work. A week before his first day of work, Pamela read one of his emails and, thanks to a brilliant download from God, Steve simply explained that he was getting a new job and we were going to have two houses.

I'm sure Pamela went back through her episodic memories of previous moves and realized she saw none of the signs. She showed absolutely no trace of anxiety, smiled at the thought of having two homes, and ran a victory lap. I felt like Snoopy Dancing because you have no idea what kind of uproar it would have caused four years ago!

Pamela is adjusting well, thanks to her hard-won flexible thinking. Wednesday was quite busy and, before we headed out of the house, Pamela asked, "What about dinner?" I told her that David could pick up some food for her when he takes her home. She said, "Just like Dad." I agreed, "Yes, he's man of the family right now." She smiled at the memory of us reading the book by the same name many years ago.

Steve headed west exactly a week ago today, and he is thriving. He loves being back in an engineering atmosphere, yet able to apply the business and computer skills he has mastered in the past two decades. This morning, I pulled weeds, picked up sticks discarded by the pecan trees after two lightning storms we had this week, and slew some ivy crawling up the brickwork. David took over his father's Saturday morning ritual of picking up breakfast at McDonald's and plans to cut the grass and edge later today. Unfortunately, David woke up too late for breakfast this time, but he will learn.

Between my volunteer efforts at ChildLightUSA and doing all the things Steve used to do on weekends, I will keep trying to blog what I can when I'm not sweating outside getting dirt under my nails, making repairs, and caring for the cars. And, those of you who know me well can stop laughing now! :-)

Un-Becoming Mrs. Bennet

The unprogrammed life is going very well. Pamela has watched Monty Python, Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat, and The Prince of Egypt and is waiting for an episode of Big Comfy Couch from Netflix, and David is waiting for Sonic the Hedgehog. We spent the past two nights viewing the Pride and Prejudice mini-series.

Mrs. Bennet, the heroine's mother in Pride and Prejudice, was a terrible guide for her girls in emotional regulation. She lets her moods be buffeted by any and all circumstances, swinging rapidly from one extreme to the next, complaining all the while about her "poor nerves." When her youngest daughter does the unthinkable, she locks herself in her bedroom complaining about "such tremblings, such flutterings, all over me—such spasms" that I was waiting for her to say she was getting a thrill up her leg! Mrs. Bennet would give the airport lady a run for her money in a contest. My consultant would suggest Mrs. Bennet is in desperate need of some thinkspace to learn to be calm and neutral!

Being calm and neutral is critical to set up "a learning environment that optimally balances cognitive challenge and safety" (page 13). Parents and teachers who tremble, flutter, and spasm may end up guiding their children into becoming easily unregulated. Without feeling emotionally safe, their amygdalas go into fight or flight mode and learning stops. Charlotte Mason taught me this a long time ago. In habit training, she explains not to cry out "because she knows that a summons of that kind is exasperating to big or little" (Volume 1, page 123). When we think that everything rests with us, "our endeavours become fussy and restless" (Volume 3, page 27) and "the thing that her children will get from her in these moods is a touch of her nervousness--most catching of complaints. She will find them fractious, rebellious, unmanageable, and will be slow to realise that it is her fault; not the fault of her act but of her state" (Volume 3, page 33).

Ideas are great, but the proof is how we act in real life! The other day, I was fixing Steve's lunch: trail mix, fruit, and heavy salad (he likes this stuff, REALLY). I opened a brand-new jar of heart of palms and a thick layer of green mold covered the top of each one! Steve, the one who usually makes such nasty discoveries, tends to freak out a bit because of his affinity with Monk and loses the opportunity for teachable moments. Calmly and playfully, I carried the jar to Pamela and wrinkled up my nose, "Ew!" Her face mirrored mine and she said, "Yucky!" I said, "The palmitos are covered with green mold." She mirrored my words, "Green. Moldy! Ew!" Then, I added, "Mold will grow on the palmitos if you put the jar back in the cupboard." She said, "Throw in the trash." I asked, "If you open a new jar, do you know where it goes?" She said, "Refrigerator!"

Note to Self: I will not digress about David's account of a failed science experiment that he just found shoved in a drawer, preserved in a plastic bag for TWO YEARS, that ought to be in the dictionary for the word mycotoxin. Calm and Neutral! Deep cleansing breaths, well, not too deep . . .

The vignette with Pamela may seem simple on the surface, but it illustrates two of five dynamic functions of the brain covered in the first chapter of The RDI Book. The first is vertical integration, the interplay between the basal-ganglia (the low-level clerk doing things by the book) and the prefrontal cortex (the CEO telling the clerk when to deviate from the rules). Some rules of putting stuff away that Pamela has stored in her procedural memory are:

• Throw empty temporary containers in the trash.
• Put empty permanent containers in the sink.
• Put something you took out of the refrigerator back in, if it is not empty.
• Put an opened can from the cupboard into the refrigerator, if it is not empty.
• Put an opened jar from the cupboard back into the cupboard, if it is not empty (oil, vinegar, vanilla, etc.)

When we buy heart of palms in a can, Pamela puts it into the refrigerator. If in a jar, she sometimes forgets because she lumps it in with bottled stuff. Come to think of it, Pamela occasionally puts newly opened ketchup, mayonnaise, pickles, and mustard back in the cupboard too.

Pamela's clerk was following standard operating procedure, and the interaction we had about the mold was to draw her CEO's attention to a problem. When I slowed down and spotlighted what happened to the palmitos, I tried to help Pamela encode an episodic memory for future events. The next time I find any open jars in the cupboard, I will remind her of the palmitos and give her CEO a chance to consider putting them in the refrigerator.

We were also tapping into a second dynamic function of the brain, lateral integration (which folks in RDI circles call broadband communication). Our face-to-face interaction included facial expression (wrinkled nose and disgusted look), auditory non-verbal (how we exaggerated our pronunciation of "Ewwwwwww!" and "Yuuuuuuck!"), gestures (pointing at the mold), and posture (both leaning into the jar) and blended into one message: nasty things happen when palmitos are not refrigerated. Lateral integration allows us to tap into our intuition and to integrate our perspective with that of others, emotions, and ideas.

Later that day, I struggled to unscrew the cable connection, which was not secured into the wall at all. Simple mechanic things befuddle me and test my ability to remain calm and neutral. Pamela grew antsy while I struggled to unscrew the cable and showed signs of escalating anxiety. I turned to her several times and smiled broadly to reassure her. I spoke in a bright voice to update her on my progress. Because of her edginess, I did not further stress her out by spotlighting my problem solving techniques: using a rubber jar opener to grip the nut with a back-up option of unscrewing the electrical plate. Her feeling of safety was too low for me to place anymore cognitive challenges on her.

Steve and I believe the decision to kiss cable good-bye is sound. Our church's Wednesday night Bible study on Philippians 1:21-22 ("For to me, to live is Christ and to die is gain. If I am to go on living in the body, this will mean fruitful labor for me. Yet what shall I choose? I do not know!"). The pastor asked what things of this world get in the way of living in Christ. When someone mentioned television, he brought up a good point: the purpose of television is not to report the news (usually bad) nor entertain. Its real goal is to sell stuff because advertising pays for the programming.

Later that night, while we were watching Lizzie and Mr. D'Arcy engage in verbal combat, Pamela walked into the television room with her homemade guitar (three rubber bands on a plastic plate) and verbally riffed "Smoke on the Water."

Autism Awareness Day and More Productive Thoughts for Those Living with It Every Day

Any day you read this blog is autism awareness day. But, if having a special day floats your boat, then today is it. Everyone is talking about it (even my favorite Bible study author, Beth Moore), so I guess I will do what I always do: blog about autism! By the way, Pamela made the following picture in honor of April and the Easter eggs on the horizon . . .




Before I update Pamela's progress in facing her anxieties, I thought it cool to share news about a scientific study about why autistic toddlers study mouths instead of eyes. An NIH-funded study figured out that they pay attention to lip-sync (the exact match of lip motion and speech sounds), not gestures and facial expressions. I tracked with what Dr. Ami Klin observed, "Toddlers with autism are missing rich social information imparted by these cues, and this is likely to adversely affect the course of their development." Then, I backtracked, fell over, and let loose a primal scream when I read the thoughts of Dr. Thomas R. Insel, "This line of research holds promise for development of new therapies based on redirecting visual attention in children with these disorders." Clearly, Dr. Insel has not been reading my blog for RDI is an already existing therapy that has helped my daughter--a TEEN--to redirect her visual attention!!!

While she has improved tremendously, Pamela still mildly struggles with Steve's unpredictable work schedule, especially during certain times of the month, if you get my drift. Yesterday, Pamela stunned us all with how well she handled another late departure. Since we are also working on attaching feeling and meaning to episodic memory, I decided to spotlight her calm demeanor this morning!

We all got up early to see my sister and her husband off to Pennsylvania. Steve walked into the room with his running clothes on at 7:00: Pamela was not happy. She tried to bully him into skipping his run. Giving them both a lifeline, I said, "I wonder what time Dad is going to run." Steve promised he would run at 7:55. Her one--and only--angry outburst lasted less than a minute. Steve headed out the door on time.

Pamela had NO MORE MELTDOWNS. She ate oatmeal for breakfast, a neighbor stopped by, and then she took a bath. I knew she would ask about Steve after she got dressed, so I asked him when he planned to leave. He told me 11:00. Sure enough, after her bath, she asked, "What about Dad?" and she did not balk at Steve's promise.

He was not quite ready at 11:00 but told me he was close. He suggested I get his laptop backpack, so I showed it to Pamela and smiled. She nodded and smiled because she knew Steve was packing up to go. She was a very calm and very neutral girl.

To avoid becoming static, we simply talked about our morning. I only wrote down facts that Pamela easily connected to her feelings. She finds it harder to narrate the entire episode coherently and to extract meaning from a sea of details. When accessing episodic memory of emotional experiences it is hard for Pamela to figure out the lesson learned that may become a building block for future experiences. What is more meaningful: seeing Dad leave for a run, eating oatmeal, taking a bath, or staying calm all morning? It all depends . . . meaning is subjective. If Pamela was a picky eater and had never eaten oatmeal in her life, then eating oatmeal would win. Steve runs all the time, so that is nothing new. Pamela loves taking a bath. The feelings she felt in those experiences were more of the same. What made this morning special was Pamela's increased ability to regulate her feelings in a situation that frustrates her. That was different and worth building upon on unpredictable days in the future.

One of the criteria for autism according to the DSM-IV which flows out of the struggle to embrace things that are different. Temple Grandin explains how difficult transitions were for her during her teen and adult years, "The really big challenge for me was making the transition from high school to college. People with autism have tremendous difficulty with change." Another adult with autism, Daniel Hawthorne, observes, "One's environment, with its ever-changing nature, can be very disturbing to the psyche of children with autism."

The most exciting moment of the video of our chat was in the final minute when Pamela said, "The different was difficult." Even though she found Steve's late departure difficult, she managed to stay calm and her victory is what I wanted to spotlight. Since Pamela has been sharing with me little things that seem different to her, I think helping her encode positive memories of being resilient in the face of change will enable her to be even more resilient in the future.

Pamela's Brain Waking Up OR Terrible Twos? Part II

One reason why I enjoy watching birds is because every day unveils something different. Yesterday, I saw another first: robins drinking from our bird bath, as many as four at one time! Robins are everywhere, a welcome sign of spring, especially since the kids and I are down with head colds. Today, Steve and I saw bluejays for the first time ever, three eating seeds strewn on the brick walkway.

Many people with autism prefer things to stay the same, but Pamela had never expressed this to me until last Friday. I debated whether or not to post the video of her mild meltdown and decided against it. Have you seen fodder on You-Tube, like the Chinese woman who missed her flight?

Steve had face time with the dentist, who is half an hour north of us, before going to work, which is seventy-five minutes south of us. After he left the dentist, he realized he would not have time to make it to his office for an important phone call set for eleven o'clock. He decided to call from home and gave me a heads-up on his imminent arrival. We expected Pamela to have a meltdown, and she did not disappoint us! Steve's routine had been predictable for several days in a row, lulling Pamela into a false sense of schedule security.

I experimented with many strategies to keep her cool. Her meltdown was about a three on the Chinese-woman-at-the-airport scale. I told Pamela while she was playing GameBoy and watching television, hoping distraction would prevent meltdown. I answered her questions indirectly, hoping she would slow down and think. When she began to balk, I closed the distance between us to increase her opportunity for referencing, and I stayed calm in neutral when the fur started flying. I avoided matching her drama with my drama, remaining cool and collected in Mr. Roger's tone of voice. I even gave her a bump out of the outburst by sharing some good news: her Netflix DVD had arrived and you can see how quickly she recovered from round one.


Based on feedback from our consultant, I will be adding more strategies to my parenting tool bag. I plan to cut back on my talking even more and rely on nonverbal broadband channels for comfort, label her feelings in a neutral way, let her know I am there to help her work through those feelings, remind her of previous memories of overcoming angst,and bump her into a positively distracting activity.

After Steve arrived, she melted down in the kitchen, dining room, and bedroom, the intensity increasing to a five on the Chinese-woman-at-the-airport scale. She was upset off and on for about 20 minutes and did things like screech, plop herself on the floor, berate me verbally, and grit her teeth. We had a moment of clarity during one of the bedroom meltdowns. Pamela said, "I want the same! I don't like different." Pamela has NEVER been able to express WHY she gets upset so articulately. She gave me insight into what caused her distress, and I have been reflecting on that morsel it all weekend because what she said is highly puzzling!

• Her anxiety over broken things is diminishing, so our lessons on uncertainty may not be the real mole we need to whack!
• Our flexible schedule does not upset Pamela. We never wake up at the same time, go to bed at the same time, eat meals at the same time, do school at the same time. Our days flow. Some days I work with her first; other days David is first. Every day is different.
• Pamela fixates on Steve's schedule, which has nothing to do with her schedule. He has always had unpredictable hours, but this obsession started last month.

I developed a hypothesis about Pamela's behavior. In January, Steve became more mindful about changing his communication style and working off the same plan as I do in reacting to her outbursts. I suspect Pamela, who perceives way more than she can express, recognizes Steve's change of parenting style. Instead of caving to her will, he now remains calm and neutral and sticks to his plan. She senses losing control of him, even though they still run errands together on weekends when he does indulge some of her more reasonable whims.

I tested this hypothesis in a couple of ways over the weekend. We recently decided to find a new church, so I broke the news to Pamela on Friday. This is a huge change for us since we attended our last church for almost four years. When we went to Wally World after Pamela calmed down, I told her about the new church on the way home. We decided to drive by it and take a peek. She was cool as a cucumber because the difference is not about Steve.

Saturday, Steve followed his weekend ritual: he made a to-do-list that would make Martha Stewart cry. He noticed Pamela bubbled watching him clean the stove, refrigerator, and counters with a special cleaner. She giggled as they headed off to Hardees to pick up breakfast because he was behaving like the same old dad. Later, she discovered his plan to go to Lowe's and asked to join him. Steve had run sevens miles in the morning and told her he needed a siesta before going. Pamela tried to bully him out of it. They were discussing it in the kitchen and Steve said, "See. I'm writing it on my list. 'Take a nap.'" Without missing a beat, Pamela grabbed his pen and scratched it off! Steve did take a catnap, and Pamela did wait patiently with some guiding from me before they left. Then, they went to Lowe's, and Pamela talked Steve into window shopping at Blockbusters on the way home. Before she went to bed, she brought Baby Alive to Steve and told him that her doll was going to watch television with him.

Clearly, Pamela loves bossing her daddy around and I do think controlling his schedule is another way to manipulate him. And that brings us to my theory on the terrible twos, which I will cover in my next post.

What to Do When You Don't Have $20,000 for a Week of Therapy?

Figuring out how to guide children with autism in their thinking is never easy. The Bilson family found their daughter had developed the habit of tantrums whenever she did not get her way. Figuring out how to set limits to avoid letting an autistic child dominate a family is not easy. Watching the "before" video of their daughter Marissa reminded me of how Helen Keller controlled her family before Annie Sullivan arrived on the scene. What I find most fascinating about this video is how closely Marissa pays attention to how people react to her screaming to see if they are ready to cave to her whims. I wonder if Pamela never developed that habit because she was not as adept at referencing our reactions.

The Bilson family received five days of counseling, worth $20,000, from an ABA therapist. Because CNN filmed and aired this story, the service provider of the therapy waived the fees. So, what do the rest of us do?

In our case, we are finding that RDI helps us with Pamela's toughest issue, anxiety, a big problem for many people with autism. Dr. Temple Grandin, a well-respected expert on autism (who also happens to have autism), said that in her late twenties, "Anxiety and panic attacks got worse and worse. It was like a constant state of stage fright." Low-dose antidepressants have kept her anxiety at bay ever since. However, she recommends other alternatives like weighted blankets and other sensory integration equipment for younger children. When Pamela was young, we found sensory integration techniques critical in helping keep her from melting down.

Our approach is to teach Pamela to reference us when she is anxious, which I have chronicled all last month. Everyone in the family, including her brother David, is learning how to remain calm and neutral because it helps Pamela calm down. Rather than giving Pamela treats for becoming regulated, we focus on guiding her thinking about how people are feeling. If we are not panicking, then there is no reason for her to panic. Moods can be highly contagious, and we have noticed a pattern. If one of us wakes up on the wrong side of the bed, Pamela catches that mood and becomes out-of-sorts. If one of us gets upset because something is not going our way, Pamela becomes more susceptible to screaming when something does not go her way. We are all becoming more mindful of how we pass around moods like cold germs. To recap our efforts, I started off explaining resiliency in a messy world, handling Pamela's trigger words, whacking one uncertainty at a time, and practicing what if scenarios.

We are starting to see progress on the uncertainty front. For example, with trigger words, last week, I still had to warn her in advance that I was going to say the upsetting words. Here is an example of how she reacted when I forgot! My bad!


This week I noticed I no longer needed to give her warnings about saying trigger words. Pamela is starting to stay calm when she sees I am calm. In fact, she acts downright playful here!


However, I still have to limit the number of trigger words and treat lightly around topics that create major anxieties for Pamela (such as the radio station going silent for thirty minutes). Here I go from selling the dogs to being sick to the broken radio.


Earlier in the month, Pamela had started to get anxious whenever Steve ran before work because sometimes he left the house later than usual. She was even more bothered when he worked from home (which he does from time to time). While she has not conquered this new anxiety, she is improving.

Yesterday morning, Steve caught Pamela completely surprised. He left early (like 6:15 AM) to go to an early morning Rotary Meeting (a new gig of his). It was held about 20 minutes from home. Steve decided to return home and switch to the car that consumes less gas since the office is another hour from the location of the meeting. He did not warn either Pamela or I in advance. The worst thing you can do is surprise her like that! As soon as I saw him in the driveway, I got the camera ready and, when he came him, I let him know I would film. Pamela was startled but Steve handled it very well. He reassured her about his intentions to go to work and plans to switch cars first.


We still have a long way to go in whacking the anxiety moles, but now the entire family has a game plan and we are mindful of how we can help Pamela overcome her anxieties and how our negative moods influence her mood. Even better, it doesn't cost us $20,000!

Cheers!

Steve left for work early, so his opportunity to work on uncertainty was EASY. Mine was not! The radio station was acting up while she was eating lunch. I did the calm, neutral demeanor, and it was just not working for her. So, I scaffolded her more than usual. The station it went off and on about three times. Every time, I tried what we have been doing. When she did not calm down easily, I turned on the other radio (I have two in the kitchen--one is better with AM, the other with FM). Then when the one station came back we could switch and not have dead air. She handled that well.

I had an impromptu tutoring session with one of the twins from next door. At one point, when he was showing David his karate moves, Pamela went up to him and asked, "What's your name?" and after he answered her question, she followed up with "Where are you from?"

We ate dinner at my folk's house with friends from church. For the first time ever, Pamela joined in on the toast. We did not point anything out to her and did not even expect her to participate (shame on us!). Pamela noticed that everyone was picking up their glasses to toast, so she raised her glass of water. Steve and I clinked glasses with hers. She did not know to drink, so then I clinked her glass and took a sip of mine and said, "Your turn!" She did it! Then, she followed-up with Steve.

A couple of times, she started to get nervous about a trigger word, but I did the whole-part reminder and she settled down. It was so smooth the two guests did not realize Pamela was anxious.

Score One Victory in the Whac-A-Mole Game!

Baby David's gift, a Thomas the Train Duple Starter Set, arrived in the mail, so Steve and Pamela opened it yesterday. Pamela was excited but not over the top like she was with Baby Alive's gift, probably due to the nature of the gift more than anything we have done! The goal for Steve was to slow down and use nonverbals. He did a fantastic job and even gave her space for thinking and responding. Pamela referenced me a lot at first, but then shifted to Steve!

On the Whac-A-Mole Game front, Steve practiced how to guide Pamela when uncertain about whether or not he goes to work and what time he leaves. He talked her through various scenarios and did some role-playing. Pamela was very attentive: she played along but gave real signs of her displeasure at moments of uncertainty.

How did today go? GREAT! Last Monday was a very difficult day because of uncertainty and Steve's job. Today, we had nearly the exact same scenario as last week, except last Monday was miserable for us all:

He was not sure whether or not he would make the long commute to work or work from home today. Pamela was not happy. She could have handled a decision one way or another or a time at which he planned to make his decision. Steve truly did not know all morning, so it gave me the opportunity to work on guiding Pamela's thinking about not knowing. I was not entirely successful at helping her stay calm because we were addressing one of her high level anxieties. She went through about three cycles of fifteen-minute crying spells! . . . It was a very difficult morning seeing her struggle with this, but it was true uncertainty lurking beneath all of the tears. The funny thing is that Steve ended up leaving to go to work but only went to a wi-fi spot in town. He was home in an hour, which she knows is implausible.

Today went much, much better! This morning was also ripe with uncertainty. Pamela did much better because we all gave her the calm neutral affect about when Steve was leaving for work. He really wanted to stay in town and attend a luncheon featuring the new sheriff. So, he left the house at 10:00 to find a place to work in town. Both of us worked to keep Pamela regulated. For example, Steve told her he would be able to answer her question at 9:30. I had to leave for a dental cleaning at 9:20 and could not run interference. So, I suggested she could take a shower and she agreed.

Steve came home "from work" early and Pamela was not happy but she did not scream and cry like last week. She knew he never left Manning. He had to run errands and he invited her to join him. When they returned home, Steve needed peace and quiet for a conference call so Pamela and I went to my folk's house.

We did not whack the anxiety mole into the ground forever, but today gave us hope.

Whac-A-Mole

Last November, Pamela let go of her 18-month infatuation with the sacred hour right around the time we started working on uncertainty. Now, we are working on helping Pamela handle trigger words, which are also related to the uncertainty found in staying on one house, getting sick, etc. Our RDI consultant pointed out that Pamela's anxieties are like the Whac-A-Mole game: when Pamela discovers she can live one category of anxiety, another pops up. We suspect that she is testing out various areas of her life and we hope she will make the big milestone discovery: when you feel anxious, you can stop, watch and listen, think, reflect, change your thoughts, stay calm and neutral, realize you only know part of the story, and/or read the body language of people around you. The new anxiety revolves around whether or not Steve plans to make the 2.5-hour round trip to the office and, if so, what time he plans to leave. Steve and I have work to do on this over the weekend, and I will share how it goes next week.

I have not talked about Charlotte Mason in awhile, but what we are really doing is working on habits of the mind, one she did not cover. I find many of Charlotte's thoughts on habit training helpful:

But habit, to be the lever to lift the child, must work contrary to nature, or at any rate, independently of her.

Pamela's initial inclination is to overreact to uncertainty. What we are doing is building a lever she can use to lift herself out of the habit of melting down when uncertain!

How is the dilatory child to be cured? Time? She will know better as she grows older? Not a bit of it: "And the next, more dilatory" will be the story of her days, except for occasional spurts. Punishments? No; your dilatory person is a fatalist. 'What can't be cured must be endured,' he says, but he will endure without any effort to cure. Rewards? No; to him a reward is a punishment presented under another aspect: the possible reward he realises as actual; there it is, within his grasp, so to say; in foregoing the reward he is punished; and he bears the punishment. What remains to be tried when neither time, reward, nor punishment is effectual?

Like Charlotte, I prefer working on Pamela's thought life rather than an elaborate (and what I would find exhausting because of my inconsistency) system of rewards and punishments. Nor do I wish to endure her overreactions because they are as hard on her as they are on us!

That panacea of the educationist: 'One custom overcometh another.' This inveterate dawdling is a habit to be supplanted only by the contrary habit, and the mother must devote herself for a few weeks to this cure as steadily and untiringly as she would to the nursing of her child through measles.

Every day Steve has the opportunity to go to work, we have an opportunity to replace the habit of overreaction with new habits (the ones listed earlier). I will need to be very consistent in nursing her through this while Steve will need to work on avoiding QPCs and slowing down long enough to help her learn new habits.

Snow! Dolls! Birds!

This is not dandruff . . .
Get ready to smile!
I got up early (6:15 AM) and worked on Steve's laptop in the kitchen. As soon as Steve turned off the house alarm, Pamela spent the next hour, running in and out of the house, checking the skies. This does not surprise me because she spends part of every morning paying attention to the weather. Of course, we know what REAL snow is and what we saw to day was not REAL snow! However, because light flurries are so rare for this part of Carolina, as Pamela well knows, we were very excited!




Today, we worked on helping Pamela adjust to the excitement of her dolls. We noticed that Pamela did not spend any time watching television all day yesterday because the dolls were on a box on a chair in the room wired for cable. I decided to move them randomly from one spot to another during the day. When I put them on the shelf with her videos, she actually touched them and moved them to the red chair. After David laid them on her bed, she carried them back to the red chair. Later in the evening, she took an extended peek (maybe, ten seconds) at the autograph.



Last Friday, I was thrilled to see a painted bunting for the first time and surprised when a Cooper's hawk slammed into our window. The cold must be driving birds of all sorts to our feeder. Today, I saw a male American goldfinch in addition to the usual suspects. My friend, the painted bunting, fed on millet (his favorite seed) for quite some time. He has been showing up regularly starting at 7:30 AM and feeding off and on during the day. I am going to try to leave the handicam on the porch early tomorrow morning to see if I can get better footage. However, I do not think I can top footage of the bunting feeding with snowflakes flurrying!

Update on Uncertainty

Snow Showers:
I am gearing up for the possibility of snow showers tomorrow. Pamela knows that it sometimes snows in weird places like Louisiana (last month, Steve's parents who live there snapped this photograph). Having lived in Minnesota, Pennsylvania, Connecticut, Colorado, and Alaska, she definitely knows what snow is and what it means. However, she does not expect snow here in our town. I have my handicam ready for any more conversations on uncertainty, bright and early tomorrow morning.

Loonette and Molly:
Two weeks ago, Pamela and Baby Alive opened presents that completely overwhelmed her! For two weeks, she has not been able to do anything more than take a quick peek in the boxes and run off. Last night, Steve decided to take the two dolls out of the box and Pamela did not freak out and smiled at us. However, we noticed that Pamela was not able to sit in the same room with them. So, tomorrow, I plan to move them into a different room to see if the pattern continues.

Stay or Go:
Pamela had a very tough morning. Steve was concerned about two things on the home front: a heating unit that had ice on it and contractors making preparations to pour a driveway. He was not sure whether or not he would make the long commute to work or work from home today. Pamela was not happy. She could have handled a decision one way or another or a time at which he planned to make his decision. Steve truly did not know all morning, so it gave me the opportunity to work on guiding Pamela's thinking about not knowing. I was not entirely successful at helping her stay calm because we were addressing one of her high level anxieties. She went through about three cycles of fifteen-minute crying spells! Here is what I tried:

• I slowed down my interactions with her to spotlight my calm, neutral attitude about not knowing Steve's plans. I let her know I was okay.
• I reassured her with physical reassurance (hugs, back rubs, etc.) and kind words.
• I told her I understood that this was hard for her. She even apologized a couple of times and I told her that I thought she was brave.
• I said it was okay to cry because she was upset. She compared the situation to when a channel goes out or when cable acts up. I knew this was her way of saying this was extremely high anxiety.
• We tried talking about other things (like making pizza for lunch and shopping for the ingredients).
• I respect her need to be alone when asked unless she was using it as a guise to go pester her dad for an answer, in which case I tracked her like a bloodhound!

It was a very difficult morning seeing her struggle with this, but it was true uncertainty lurking beneath all of the tears. The funny thing is that Steve ended up leaving to go to work but only went to a wi-fi spot in town. He was home in an hour, which she knows is implausible. She told me that her dad did not go to work. She was fine and laughing when I told her it was a joke and gave her a big wink. More than anything, I think she was okay because he had finally made a decision!

Trigger Words:
Another element of uncertainty revolves around trigger words, or words that create such anxiety in Pamela that she automatically overreacts with loud and high-pitched screeching. Usually, she does this when she is playing on the computer, watching television, or listening to a conversation on the phone. Our consultant quickly spotted the consistent pattern in all of these incidents: Pamela had only part of the story! So, my objective is for her to learn how to create space around the trigger word to give her time to apply some whole-part thinking before reacting.

In the following two videos, we talk about Pamela's reaction to trigger words. Because I had her full attention, she did not scream when I said her trigger words. She enjoyed the topics we picked and stayed calm and neutral the entire time. She did not seem anxious or worried. She gave thoughtful answers, except when she was quite tracking with me. Sometimes, Pamela automatically replied "because I said so" which I think is a substitute for "I have no clue". However, once I rephrased what I was saying, she usually gave me a thoughtful reply. She especially loved the story about "selling the dogs" and enjoyed practicing hearing me talk on the phone. She usually does not talk that much when I am on the phone, so she knew it was pretend.

Never Bleach Your Hose!

We live in a MESSIER world! Today I learned that bleaching your hose turns them the color of a pumpkin. I guess I can save them for Halloween because orange is not my color! In early December, my Dell laptop kept unseating its hard drive, even when we gingerly treated it like a desktop. I grew so tired of dealing with it, I gave it the silent treatment for a month before finally sending it off the Dell spa in Houston, where I hope they will teach it to be in a better mood. And, I keep wondering what is more resilient in a MESSIER world, a Mac or a PC?

MESSIER stands for Multiple, Ever-changing, Simultaneous, Surprising, Imperfect, Emotional and Relative in lingua RDI (NOTE: scroll down to Clip #205 and watch the video once you register, which is free.) All of us have to learn to fly by the seat of our pants when dealing with inevitable and ever-changing problems. RDI, which is based upon a guided participation model of parenting, teaches parents resiliency so that they can guide their children in learning that trait. Last weekend, my consultant brainstormed with her local families at a meeting and they came up with a list of qualities that describe a good guide. First on the list was resilient:

Resilient: They know that there is no specific number of exposures to the concept that they are teaching that will determine competency in their apprentice. Some concepts will come quickly and easily, and others will require many more exposures than expected ("On the 10,000th try, there was light." –Thomas Edison). A good guide sticks with it and does not give up.

Last week, we experienced two examples of Pamela, Steve, and I learning to be resilient. On Saturday (January 3), we bought a new kitchen table and I envisioned how to work the experience into our whole-part thinking. While Pamela was playing on the computer and tuned out of what was happening in the kitchen, we took the old table to the curb. I set up everything and called Pamela. We walked to the door and looked outside. We identified the known and unknown part of the story (where the old table was and what might be in the kitchen).

Then, a calamity happened. At least, that is what Pamela would call it. While I was setting up the kitchen with the camera and turning on the lights, Pamela flipped on the television and noticed ETV was acting up. She had a nasty tantrum (about ten minutes), and I worked very hard to calm her. When she was collected enough to process it, we did some spontaneous whole-part thinking about the persnickety PBS station. I made sure to introduce the whole as "ETV gets better" because I thought it would be easier for her to handle "when?" as the unknown (not if!).

While I did get her back on track with the table known-unknown, she had lost the joy in it, was still worried about ETV, but managed to play along with me quite forelornly. When we got back to the office, she turned on the television and found out that all was well with ETV.

The Tables and ETV


When I posted earlier in the month about Baby Alive's gifts, little did I know that the Big Comfy Couch care package would generate so much excitement. Pamela requested the Loonette doll (the known part of the story) but had no idea about Loonette's doll Molly and the autograph (the unknown). Last Monday morning (January 5) when we recorded more whole-part thinking, I could tell Pamela was very excited so I thought it prudent to talk about that emotion and preview it a bit. We agreed to open the presents when Steve came to home that night. That night, Pamela's excitement was so intense, she could not take it! She could only tolerate peeking at one gift at a time and running from the room! We tried to talk to about it several times but she said, "In prison," which means she felt trapped. The next day, she managed to tell us that she would be able to discuss it in a week . . .

Baby Alive's Gifts


The most exciting moment for us was later that night. In the heat of the moment of intense joy, we told Pamela she was too excited but we never acted negatively or came down on her. Before she headed to bed, Pamela must have been thinking about what we were thinking about her. She must have felt bad for running off so much. Why? Pamela told us, "I'm not bad. Excited, not bad." Steve smiled and said that he loved her and gave her a big hug and kiss. I smiled and reassured her that I was proud because it is very hard to control excitement.

We have come full circle with Pamela in her intense reactions over presents. When she was six months old, we bought a nifty rattle for her. Steve pulled it out of the box, and Pamela freaked out! She cried and cried like he was handling a viper. He promptly put the rattle away. We pulled it out for her a month later, and she was better able to handle her excitement long enough to play with the toy.

P.S. We have patiently waited a week. While we have observed Pamela sneaking peeks at her gifts, she is still to excited to pull them out of the boxes!

The Rest of the Story

I talked to my consultant about an issue that we would like to address, and I thought it might be a separate objective from the "I don't know" work we have been doing. Basically, Pamela half-hears a conversation on the phone or from another room and then yells loudly "You're not sick!" if she hears the word "cold." It does not matter whether the person said, "I feel cold" or "the weather is cold" or "Billy Bob got over his cold." She has certain trigger words and, when she hears them, she overreacts in a high-pitched mini-rant. After my consultant gathered together more details, she helped me see that this issue fits in perfectly with our "I don't know" work. Only, I didn't know it! LOL!

Up until now, we were working on helping Pamela feel comfortable with times in which she feels uncertain. Now, we are taking it to another level: sometimes, we only hear part of a story and, instead of overreacting, we can choose a different option: read the faces of other people to see if they are calm, reflect on past experiences, wait and listen for more information, wait and ask a question, etc. If she learns to do this, she might recognize that hearing the word "cold" is only part of the story and she might pause and reflect before going into red alert.

When I begin thinking about how to teach this, I realized it is not much different from the "whole-part" thinking we do for addition and subtraction word problems in our math curriculum, Making Math Meaningful. The key is to find neutral situations that are not triggers for red alert and to slow down the moment around which we discuss whole-part thinking. The video of our shopping trip will make this much clearer. Pamela knew what was on her list and how much money she had. She did not know what was on my shopping list nor how much money I planned to spend.

A couple of things on the video caught my attention. Pamela has a hard time focusing on my nonverbals in an overstimulating environment like Walmart! She and I normally walk rapidly through the store, but she slowed down very nicely behind a woman taking her sweet time. Pamela referenced me when she was not quite sure of what to do during checkout. (And, don't you love how well she does at checkout!)