Intentional Learning

Whew, life is busy. 

So, it feels good to spend some intentional time learning and leaning into how we can best support Teddy. This intentional time makes life even busier, but it's a worthwhile way to spend our time.

This month we started parent training through a local organization. Parent training is a component of Applied Behavioral Analysis (ABA) training, and it can also be a standalone component. Although we're on the waitlist for actual therapy services, this gives us 1 hour a week to learn about ABA components and start practicing some of the techniques. I love that we're doing it in our home with Teddy present, so we can brainstorm on specific situations. What we've found to be helpful, in and of itself, is simply taking an hour each week to talk through situations and collaborate on how we could handle things differently to better support Teddy. 

So often, in the moment with high emotions, it's a matter of just surviving that moment and getting through the to-do list for the day. This intentionality and collaboration with both parents and a trained therapist helps us slow down to do better. We know none of this will chance anything overnight, but we're getting ideas and hopefully will see progress over time. (Heck, I've had 3 days where Teddy has come inside after school without flopping on the ground in the past week!)

Now I'm at day 2 of a 3-day statewide Autism conference. I'm a learner by nature, and this is a great way for me to embrace this new diagnosis for Teddy. It's refreshing in a unique way to attend this conference because some of the social norms don't exist here. In fact, this was the start of the conference for me:

This is brilliant!

Seriously, I think every conference should have these stickers. Let's be real. I'd probably be yellow at some conferences. I've seen people doing the things they enjoy that help them focus (like building Legos) during sessions. There's more fidgets (or focus toys depending on your viewpoint) than you can imagine. There's so many helpful vendors here in the exhibition hall to learn about amazing things, even if they don't apply to Teddy. 

It's a lot of information to process, but I'm grateful for the opportunity to pause and invest in learning.