Baby Steps in Guiding with Communication

Steve is taking his first steps in guiding Pamela through his altered communication style--the same steps I took last year! Yesterday, we talked to our consultant by phone about how to help Steve get started. He has a tougher job in some ways because Pamela adjusted to my guidance when we first started homeschooling. With Steve, she is used to wielding the awesome, incredible superpowers of Daddy's little girl. One pout . . . and he caves! LOL! For example, last weekend, when we tried to capture their interactions on film, Pamela refused to do anything dynamic with him (I think because she senses this is the beginning of the end of the Queen Bee's reign). They ended up putting together a puzzle of the United States--a very static activity.

We brainstormed an outdoor activity they can do together that is part of Steve's weekend routine. We settled on Pamela donning a swimsuit and helping him wash the cars (I think it is a winner because Pamela asked what we were doing tomorrow; when I told her about the swimsuit and car wash plan, her entire face lit up with excitement). The neat thing about washing cars is that it is ripe for interaction patterns: simultaneously wash up and down or side to side, alternate I spray and you spray, etc. To focus on avoiding the dreaded QPC (questions, prompts, commands) monster, he thought of the perfect phrase for himself, "Give her time!"

Learning to change your communication style is a mental game! You have to think about what you plan to do in advance! Our strategy is:

• Watch an E-Learning module (only available through consultants) on guided participation.
• Figure out a competent role for Steve and a competent role for Pamela that is collaborative, not one person bossing around the other the entire time.
• Watch some interaction pattern clips so he can see three types (assembly line, reciprocating, and simultaneous) and their variations.
• Figure out the interaction patterns he can fall back on when unsure how to proceed.
• Be mindful of having pregnant pauses and hopeful expectant looks while waiting for her to respond.

Pamela and I are working on separate objectives. We have been breaking down gestures, starting off with receptive gestures to tell us that she is listening and understands. She has mastered pointing out what she sees to establish joint attention with me and nodding or shaking her head when I talk. We have spent the past ten days transferring the responsibility of orientation to her. Whenever Pamela talked to me, I went out of my way to turn my body to her so that we could have face-to-face communication. She now realizes that she needs to orient herself as well. Rather than have a specially framed activity to teach this, I waited for natural opportunities in real life:

• If Pamela started talking from another room, I ignored her until she walked into the room and established face-to-face with me.
• If I was in the middle of something (reading a book while sitting on the couch), I did not look up unless she tapped me on the shoulder.
• If I was in front of the computer or sink, I scaffolded her by taking a few steps back to give her maneuvering room. At first, I gently guided her with my arm until she had face-to-face contact.
• Occasionally, I turn away from her before the conversation and wait for her to orient in my direction.

She now understands her responsibility and, once I capture this in action on film and am satisfied with what I see, I plan to be more natural about it. In most interactions, both people work together to orient themselves and, to spotlight her responsibility, I have been unusually unresponsive!

Since Steve's schedule is so busy (major business meeting next week), I asked David to film Pamela and I shopping, which has scope for lots of face-to-face connection, disconnection, and reconnection. Being the easily embarrassed teen, he was less than thrilled. I thought providing him a better understanding might encourage him to step up. Our consultant told me yesterday that nobody in the RDI world has broken down receptive listening like we have. We are pioneering this aspect of this objective for others down the road. Because Pamela is so comfortable with gestures, we find it worthwhile to linger here for the moment to give her a wider range of communication. I told David that what he films will end up in the RDI computer system and these films will help other parents doing this same objective with their children down the road. To make an impression on David, I told him parents all over the world, in places like Singapore and Australia, are using RDI.

The shared understanding tactic worked! David's eyes widened when he realized the scope of what we do on a daily basis around here. He told me, "Okay, Mom! You've inspired me!"

Shared Understanding

Adults guide children by seeking to create a shared understanding (the million-dollar word is intersubjectivity). In Awakening Children's Minds, Laura Berk points out that "each participant in the dialogue strives to grasp the subjective perspective of the other, an effort that results in a 'meeting of the minds,' in which the partners' thoughts make contact, connect, and coincide" (page 42). With very young children, adults bear greater responsibility for striving for a mutually understood of thinking about a situation. As children mature, they are more able to figure out the perspective of others.

People with autism take longer to figure out that people have their own minds and thoughts. They also have a hard time learning to see the perspective of neurologically typical people because their brains perceive the world so differently. Teaching this ability, theory of mind, can help smooth out and prevent misunderstandings.

The other day, I caught a great example of our effort to reach a shared understanding about glue during the crayon shavings activity. Usually, I let Pamela spread glue with a toothpick because she does not like the feeling of glue on her fingers. I did not realize that we were out of toothpicks. In this clip, she tells me several times that she cannot glue without the toothpicks. I knew this was going to be a problem for her, so I offered to spread the glue with my finger. I gave her a chance to think about trying, and she opted out of this sticky conundrum. I used this as an opportunity to let her know that I do not mind the glue. I described how the glue felt and how glue bothers some people but not others. My camera stopped filming, but you can get a glimpse of how the dialog began. (Google video is acting up again, so I hope I don't have to upload this again.)


Incidentally, Charlotte Mason recommended dialogues to reach a shared understanding in her book, Formation of Character. At the end of the chapter called The Philosopher at Home, father and son take a walk and discuss what the boy could do to avoid being cross. In Inconstant Kitty, the aunt suggests how the mother can encourage her daughter with a short attention span to stick with her dolly tea party longer by letting her know what adults do, "What! The doll's tea-party over! That's not the way grown-up ladies have tea; they sit and talk for a long time. See if you can make your tea-party last twenty minutes by my watch! (page 32)" The adults in Under a Cloud and Dorothy Elmore's Achievement have gentle dialogues to help them figure out how to handle sullen moods. Given time, I could give many more examples.

Ultimately, Charlotte believed that the mind is where all good habits began, "'Sow an act,' we are told, 'reap a habit.' 'Sow a habit, reap a character.' But we must go a step further back, we must sow the idea or notion which makes the act worth while" (page 102). Sowing ideas with a very light hand can only be accomplished through mind to mind communication between children and adults, even if they are the long-dead author of a living book. She covered in great detail one important function of parents, inspiring children:

That he should take direction and inspiration from all the casual life about him, should make our poor words and ways the starting-point from which, and in the direction of which, he develops––this is a thought which makes the best of us hold our breath. There is no way of escape for parents; they must needs be as 'inspirers' to their children, because about them hangs, as its atmosphere about a planet the thought-environment of the child, from which he derives those enduring ideas which express themselves as a life-long 'appetency' towards things sordid or things lovely, things earthly or divine (page 37).