Guidelines To Teach And Parent With

Guidelines to teach and parent with:

  - Do not correct them all the time. There are times when they just need to learn from their own mistakes.

  - Do not help them all the time. Let them try to figure it out for themselves. This will improve thinking skills.

  - Make a habit of using more positive words a day.

  - There is never a good reason to raise your voice. If you feel the need to do so you may have said to much without action. By action, I mean prompts or redirecting.

 - Avoid using don't and stop when you can redirect without saying a word.

 - Do not say their name more than 2 times. If you have to do so, that tells you that you need to use, yes here it comes again, prompting or redirecting. (There again try not to use too many words.)

 - Always give them an ending point and a reinforcer when teaching.



Be blessed!!

What Can Cause Meltdowns And What To Do

So last time I wrote about staying calm during a meltdown.  But what causes a meltdown? Actually, many things can cause one. So if many things can cause it, how do you know what to do?  How would I get a plan? Well if you don't at least have a good idea of what causes it, your plan you create will not be that good or there is good chance that it will not work. So I know that you're confused. See if this might help.

You have to do observations and some deep thinking to try to figure out the antecedent (this is what happen before the behavior.)
When you know what happened before the behavior, this helps to determine what causes the behavior.

Here are some things to watch for:
Sensory Overload
Not Understanding Social Issues or Clues
Lack of  Communication
Schedule Messed Up
Compulsive Behavioral Interruption

These are a few things to watch for.

Let’s break down some of these causes and talk about what could help.

Sensory Overload - If a loud noise is causing overload.
Minimize when and how much they are in the middle of the load noise. If you know that loud noise will occur, and their communication is progressed enough where you know they understand, tell them ahead of time that it will be loud.
Make appoint to have opportunities to desensitize them to the noise that bothers them. Do this by introduces them to the noise at a low tone for very short time. Slowly increase the sound until it just does not both them anymore.
P.S. You can not take away sensory issues but you can just replace it with something more appropriate or socially acceptable.

Social Skills -  Teach them social skills.  This can be as simple as showing them flash cards of emotions and teaching them what they are according where they are in their stage of learning. (Always meet them where they are) and yes this process can take along time just be patient!
Use social stories to help explain the situations.
Look up social story. If you have questions feel free to comment.
Use videos of kids playing. Watch with them and explain as you watch.
Try to minimize the social skill situation there in until their skills get better. Slowly introduce them to more and more situations and people. Always push but be careful not to push them over the edge. You just have to learn where that point is.

Lack of Communication -  Wow! This is a big one. You have got to teach them some form of communication.  My favorite is a communication device. I've never seen one child that could not learn to use this. NO it does not replace their own words but research shows it helps them use their own words.  Of course I'm referring to non-verbal kids or adults. I really like this topic so send me questions or comments.

Schedule - If they meltdown because of being off schedule, give them visual schedules. Let them take it off the board to see what is happening next. Again please comment with questions if this does not make sense.

P.S. One of my upcoming topics soon will be on Dyslexia.  I have Dyslexia and I want to talk about what it's like to live with it. I have someone who helps me with my pots and I rarely put anything out to public without someone close to me proofreading it.

Peace

Isaiah 26:3

“You will keep him in perfect peace, whose mind is stayed on You, because he trusts in You.”

I have been working with children and adults with special needs for 14 years. I have a son of my own with special needs that is 23. Some of these children and adults can be a handful at times. So the big question is how do you have patience, how do you stay calm when they are melting down, and what if you have more than one that is having a meltdown?

It sounds so simple and here it is. You need a plan. When you know what your goals are and you have an agenda, you're not guessing at what to do. This will help you to stay calm. If you work with these children and adults, you know that staying calm for you as a caregiver is extremely important to the atmosphere and to them being able to calm themselves.  In return, this will reduce the time of the meltdown. 

Counting you are the caregiver what do I mean calm yourself? By counting learn ways to keep yourself calm in the middle what seems like chaos. I will talk about this in an upcoming post. 

The more you do this the easier it gets. 

My next post will help you learn how to prevent a meltdown.