We found that out by letting him do his own thing then joining in. If he wanted to play a video game, I put the laptop on the floor so he could crawl over and sit and use. No more dragging laptops to the floor ( bad results ) by him.
We learned to go with the play flow and it was DIFFERENT for each kid.
My middle daughter was always content to be in her room playing with her stuffed animals. Setting up scenes, doing voice overs and or conversations.
She loved it and would spend hours. So I did it too, with her toys.
I became one of the voices.
Fast forward 20 years later.
My daughter is a successful Animator in the Animation Guild in Burbank and she makes children’s cartoons. She loves it. Life long dream come true. Her latest animation jobs were for Netflix & Nickelodeon.
My son is a NCAA division 1 swimmer that scholarship got him through his BA and because of the Covid innteruption, he gets to swim a 5th year.
He’s nationally ranked in just a few second away from making Olympic qualifying time.
When he was a small kid, all he wanted to do was go swimming, that culminated in an intense level in highschool. No cars, no girls, just swim, food, home work and sleep. Back up at 6 am to do it again.
2 hours of swimming before school started and after school, food, food and more FOOD and back to the pool.
They are both well balanced adults and extreme focus marks their methods ( and discipline )
Thanks for sharing! I find it helpful to be reminded, by stories like this, that children's interests are there own and letting them pursue them often bring good results.
Beautiful! This is so heart-warming. I hope parents rearing children on the spectrum come across this article. I do want to mention the work of Dr. Stephen Porges, a neuroscientist, who developed a non-invasive acoustic program (Safe & Sound Protocol) that helps autistic children. It often results in reduced need for stimming and greater ability to make eye-contact and communicate.
Thank you again for the voice over 🖤. felt relatable, i could picture this with Rocco, how I have to play along side him, his way, he takes control of his creative play, but knows i’m interested and we can bond.
Thanks for writing this up. Your experience and mine with my son have some similarities. I knew he loved me and his dad, but he wanted to play his way. His way of understanding and learning about the world — well we needed to let him guide us!
I learned so much from this post about bonding with my boys when they seem lost in their world. It's amazing to see the progress made through understanding and joining them in their activities. Excellent work, impressive writing! 🌟👏
So pleased 'joining' produced such positive results for you and your boys. I got the first bit of eye contact from my son by using this as well. Thank you for sharing this, and so beautifully too.
This is really interesting to read and definitely an asset to be used in interaction with most people. If we want someone to engage with us, we need to show interest with them first and that can account for adults as well as children.
Often Autism and ADHD and ADD and my own problem of epilepsy is an issue of inflammation (along with cancers) and the connection between gut and brain activity. Have you ever looked into diet and removing sugars, starchs and grains (particularly bad in this modern world of instant and processed food) to help with it? There is an amazing woman, Dr Natasha Campbell McBride who has shown how much diet can change our world and what damage the chemically damaged and over processed foods around us, is doing to our health (although most of us hate to admit it).
Therefore there are more and more of us with mental health issues and gut/bowel etc. Before it is brushed aside, do look into GAPS Gut and psychology syndrome at GAPS.me. Absolutely fascinating. I work in the grain industry and I have often not wanted to eat the produce we process, not naturally drawn to it, it all just becomes an addiction. Diet has never been talked about with me on my 10 year journey of seizures (I had to look into myself as the NHS is often a plaster system to make money from all our ailments, the more ailments, the more money) and slowly other issues have arisen from the drugs I am told I must take. In my few months of trying out the diet, I feel a world better! Just utterly brilliant. Weight has balanced out, energy levels have normalised and aren't erratic, spots gone, swollenness and hopefully in time the seizures will diminish, but most signifcant right now is the positive attitude despite having a seizure or absence. I finally feel less depression and frustation, just notice it when I cheat and have carbs or sugars again.
Austim, ADHD and ADD are some of the top symptoms that can be helped by taking on this diet - not needed for life, just for healing the gut and then reintroducing things (obviously always good nourishing, well sourced food though, that takes away most chains). Not wishing to change these people, just should it be useful to help manage life and create more freedom as sometimes our diet can only continue to make things worse later in life.
It would be interesting to hear your opinions on it. It has certainly opened my mind and I hope it is useful information to you, maybe you know of it already!
I found this with my son. He is mild ADHD and ADD
We found that out by letting him do his own thing then joining in. If he wanted to play a video game, I put the laptop on the floor so he could crawl over and sit and use. No more dragging laptops to the floor ( bad results ) by him.
We learned to go with the play flow and it was DIFFERENT for each kid.
My middle daughter was always content to be in her room playing with her stuffed animals. Setting up scenes, doing voice overs and or conversations.
She loved it and would spend hours. So I did it too, with her toys.
I became one of the voices.
Fast forward 20 years later.
My daughter is a successful Animator in the Animation Guild in Burbank and she makes children’s cartoons. She loves it. Life long dream come true. Her latest animation jobs were for Netflix & Nickelodeon.
My son is a NCAA division 1 swimmer that scholarship got him through his BA and because of the Covid innteruption, he gets to swim a 5th year.
He’s nationally ranked in just a few second away from making Olympic qualifying time.
When he was a small kid, all he wanted to do was go swimming, that culminated in an intense level in highschool. No cars, no girls, just swim, food, home work and sleep. Back up at 6 am to do it again.
2 hours of swimming before school started and after school, food, food and more FOOD and back to the pool.
They are both well balanced adults and extreme focus marks their methods ( and discipline )
Great story and good advice.
Amazing, thanks for sharing that. You must be very proud ❤️
Thanks for sharing! I find it helpful to be reminded, by stories like this, that children's interests are there own and letting them pursue them often bring good results.
Beautiful! This is so heart-warming. I hope parents rearing children on the spectrum come across this article. I do want to mention the work of Dr. Stephen Porges, a neuroscientist, who developed a non-invasive acoustic program (Safe & Sound Protocol) that helps autistic children. It often results in reduced need for stimming and greater ability to make eye-contact and communicate.
A very powerful piece, and shows what a loving, compassionate person you are.
Thank you ❤️
Thank you again for the voice over 🖤. felt relatable, i could picture this with Rocco, how I have to play along side him, his way, he takes control of his creative play, but knows i’m interested and we can bond.
Our lives are very child led :-)
Wonderful! And a good lesson for us all - to learn to join with the world & not work blindlessly to twist it to our rates.
*tastes!
Thanks for writing this up. Your experience and mine with my son have some similarities. I knew he loved me and his dad, but he wanted to play his way. His way of understanding and learning about the world — well we needed to let him guide us!
WOW.
Well done. So helpful for others to understand. My thoughts from a 34 year educator of children with disabilities.
I learned so much from this post about bonding with my boys when they seem lost in their world. It's amazing to see the progress made through understanding and joining them in their activities. Excellent work, impressive writing! 🌟👏
Wow, I wish I'd learned to play along about ten years earlier.
So pleased 'joining' produced such positive results for you and your boys. I got the first bit of eye contact from my son by using this as well. Thank you for sharing this, and so beautifully too.
So fascinating... thank you for being so generous and helpful.. I loved how you shared your solution. Very much appreciated!
This is really interesting to read and definitely an asset to be used in interaction with most people. If we want someone to engage with us, we need to show interest with them first and that can account for adults as well as children.
Often Autism and ADHD and ADD and my own problem of epilepsy is an issue of inflammation (along with cancers) and the connection between gut and brain activity. Have you ever looked into diet and removing sugars, starchs and grains (particularly bad in this modern world of instant and processed food) to help with it? There is an amazing woman, Dr Natasha Campbell McBride who has shown how much diet can change our world and what damage the chemically damaged and over processed foods around us, is doing to our health (although most of us hate to admit it).
Therefore there are more and more of us with mental health issues and gut/bowel etc. Before it is brushed aside, do look into GAPS Gut and psychology syndrome at GAPS.me. Absolutely fascinating. I work in the grain industry and I have often not wanted to eat the produce we process, not naturally drawn to it, it all just becomes an addiction. Diet has never been talked about with me on my 10 year journey of seizures (I had to look into myself as the NHS is often a plaster system to make money from all our ailments, the more ailments, the more money) and slowly other issues have arisen from the drugs I am told I must take. In my few months of trying out the diet, I feel a world better! Just utterly brilliant. Weight has balanced out, energy levels have normalised and aren't erratic, spots gone, swollenness and hopefully in time the seizures will diminish, but most signifcant right now is the positive attitude despite having a seizure or absence. I finally feel less depression and frustation, just notice it when I cheat and have carbs or sugars again.
Austim, ADHD and ADD are some of the top symptoms that can be helped by taking on this diet - not needed for life, just for healing the gut and then reintroducing things (obviously always good nourishing, well sourced food though, that takes away most chains). Not wishing to change these people, just should it be useful to help manage life and create more freedom as sometimes our diet can only continue to make things worse later in life.
It would be interesting to hear your opinions on it. It has certainly opened my mind and I hope it is useful information to you, maybe you know of it already!