Gymnastics and Behavioral Support

The girls are doing well this week. Jocelyn is continuing gymnastics and is enjoying it. She had her first falls this week--she fell off the uneven bars (low bar), she fell on her head practicing handstands and somehow hurt her back in the pit. Even with all that, she has been enjoying it enough to write "I love (heart) G" and "Jessica" (her coach) with a drawn picture of her coach on her leg. She's been working hard and can almost do a cartwheel! I told Jocelyn that hers already looks better than mine--although since I also told her I can't do one I'm not sure she's going to see that as a compliment. I did get a smile though.

We went to Olivia's first implementation appointment with the Behavioral Support Clinic. It's tough, but probably for the best. It's tough because we are setting her up to have problems so we can practice dealing with them. For example, there were 3 activities to pick from and 3 people to help her (mom, dad, and the lady at the clinic). Olivia first got to choose what order she did the activities and then who would work with her on each. Of course, I don't think Olivia really understood what she was choosing, but she made the choices and they were placed on a picture board that we could refer to as her "schedule". The time for each activity was 5 minutes. Jason, of course, breezed through his 5 minutes of puzzles with her without problem. Then, Olivia was supposed to color with the clinic staff. That is where the problem began. Our plan is that we continue to 'push through' her fit (completely ignore it--no comments about screaming/hitting/etc.. We are to physically redirect her as needed, but just keep talking in a calm voice about the project we are doing and do what we can to direct her to completing it. We set the timer and continue until the timer is up). So, she was still mad when my 5 minutes came. Another good time. Jason is SO going last next time!!!