Wednesday, November 13, 2013

Explain to me why every three year old does not come with a Behavioral Therapist

LeiLei and I just got back from the Behavioral Therapist office and once again I am asking myself why every child does not come with a Behavioral Therapist. I don't care if they are biological or adopted children every child could benefit. Now don't get me wrong, most of the work the Therapist has you do is completely on the parents. So if you think the Therapist will magically fix issues, and all you will have to do is drive the child to and from the appointment you will quickly be disappointed.

Once again the entire session was the Therapist and I sitting in her office going into detail my concerns with LeiLei. LeiLei is there but she is in a room (by herself) playing with toys. You can imagine my shock when she first told my then 3 year old that if she needed us she was to knock on our door and wait for someone to answer. She was not to barge in on mommy and therapist. Amazingly, she does it. We always hear her door open and then within a few seconds she is knocking on our door. Today was quite amazing, only twice within the hour did she knock on our door. I was super proud mommy!

Last session she gave me the following homework:
1) Use High Rates of Praise
2) Begin to use Descriptive Praise
3) Use Precision Commands = Name, PLEASE (behavior I want her to do). Thank You. Only give her 20 seconds to comply. Crazy, right? Only 20 seconds!!!

I tried very hard to implement all of this into our daily life, and we saw a slight improvement. Even her teacher pulled me aside and said she seems to be doing a bit better at school. Wow, this stuff works! I still have my what I like to call my knee jerk moments. Those moments when you react without thinking. Last week my friend and I were taking our kids to the park, when LeiLei decided to act up in the car ride and I had a knee jerk moment. Probably threatening to throw away her favorite minky or maybe even all of her toys if she did not stop, shoot I may have even threatened to pull the car over. That is when my girlfriend looked at me and said "what would the Therapist have to say about that". Of course we both broke out into giggles. Hey, I am not perfect!

Todays homework:
1) Use High Rates of Praise only in regards to her normal negative behavior.
2) Use Precision Commands, and now follow up with Need Commands, if I have the time that allows for a correction.

The plan is to have one more session with just LeiLei, and then we will start having sessions with sister JayJay. Now that should be interesting! I don't know if the Therapist does baby steps for the sake of the children or the parents. Either way I am thankful. I don't think I could handle behavioral modification on multiple children. Eventually we will add brother Ademan into the sessions. It is a lot of work, but I will be overjoyed if my children can learn how to control themselves (and learn their triggers) at an early age.

2 comments:

  1. Wow, the therapist sounds amazing, so glad you found her. Does she do adults too? :)

    ReplyDelete

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