silent treatment

It’s not something I thought I would ever have to worry about but it appears my non-verbal child is actually giving someone “the silent treatment”.

Mac is still a little sad that he isn’t working with his previous aide ‘R’ any longer.

Despite the fact we regularly go to visit ‘R’ at her new workplace – which just happens to be our favourite ‘cake store’ – Mac is not letting it go.

‘R’ is always so excited to see him, and yet he simply turns his head to the side so as not to make eye contact or, if she uses his foot switches, he won’t move his feet.

It really is a tough stance  he is taking.

Shawn sat down with him on the weekend and talked to him about it.  He explained how ‘R’ didn’t leave the school by choice, how it was a financial decision based on being offered reduced hours and how sad ‘R’ was to have to make that very tough personal decision.

He explained how it is actually a little unkind of Mac to be mean to ‘R’ no matter how sad he might feel.  Somehow, I think Mac remains unconvinced.

So, ‘R’ is coming out to our house for afternoon tea on Wednesday.  She is going to meet Mac at school and then follow us home (next time she might actually collect him from school but as she doesn’t know the way, and Mac can’t give directions, we felt it was smarter for her just to follow this time).

Hopefully this will go some way to assuring Mac that ‘R’ will remain part of his life and let him see that she truly has moved into the “friend” role which is way better than a “paid to care” role.

That’s not to say that those working with Mac don’t care for him, but what we need him to learn is that until he starts hiring and firing his own personal support people he has no control of whether they stay or go, whether they are there one day and not the next.  In his current situation these decisions rest purely in the hands of the School Principal and those in charge of rostering.  He needs to know even though people might want to work with him they don’t really have control over where and when they work with him.

It is all about building resilience, recognising the difference between the roles of a paid person and someone who wants to just ‘be there’ and learning how to cope with those sorts of changes.

Hard lessons for a seven year old – but important all the same.

communication, manners, respect

It’s funny how things you think are obvious and straight forward are not.  

We had an instance where one of Mac’s very good friends (in the year above him) went home from school in tears because she had been sent away from Mac because she didn’t introduce herself to him.  She has known him for nearly four years and they have an amazing relationship.  She speaks to him in a volume you can hardly hear – holding his hand the whole time, he responds with gurgles and glaars just meant for her ears.  It is a devine relationship… magical almost.

So we were disheartened to hear of her plight.  It wasn’t Mac’s main aide – she absolutely ‘gets it’ about communication, manners and respect.

So we put together a ‘crib sheet’ just as a reminder.

I am not sure how it has been received – it is fairly direct, but hopefully educational at the same time.   We didn’t want to single out the aide in question – let’s face it the problem is primarily based around seeing “ideals” as rules.  We felt we needed to ‘nip it in the bud’ and not let it get away on us.  

From our perspective there is too much at stake to not take it seriously.

Any comments most welcome.

Communication IDEALS & I-DON’TS