Willa Ryan

----- Original Message -----
From: "Joanne" <billyandjoanne@...>
This happened slowly, not overnight. Food was the first and easiest
issue for me to loosen control because my middle daughter came to us
with an eating disorder and I was determined to help her with it. >>

My experience was similar. My 6th child has medical disabilities and ended
up with a G tube and severe feeding issues from sensory integration
disorder. He would gag when someone brought food into the room. I
basically unschooled his eating. Strewed lots of good food experiences,
didn't push anything, let him help cook if he wanted to, in our family
environment where food was seen to be enjoyable and relationship-oriented.
He started off eating only M&Ms and ramen noodles and moved out from there.
Because his younger brother grew up in that environment, he got the same
access to a range of food. Both kids enjoy all different kinds of food and
will try all kinds of new things without fear, and over the long term eat a
pretty healthy balance.

Video games and TV have been more of a concern for me.

But right now, at this moment my husband is trying to encourage my 6yo son
to watch a video -- he just got his G-tube removed and activity makes the
opening leak. But my 6yo wants to play instead : ). Videos just don't
have enough mystique for him for our purposes right now : ). Partly it is
because he has spent a lot of time in the hospital where pretty much all he
COULD do was watch TV/videos. It completely lost the charm of the limited,
for him.

I stopped the VG and video restrictions for the other kids a few weeks ago.
For the older kids (I have 3 teens) it hardly made any difference at all.
If anything, they play less than they did when they had a "fixed" time.
The 10yo played a lot at first and now tells me he gets bored if he plays
too long, so after a while he'll go on to something else.

The 3yo is the one who seems to want to play almost all day, still. I
remember my other ones going through a similar stage at about the same age,
when they discovered they could manipulate the controls by themselves and
make the screen do things. It gave them a feeling of power. They could
hardly stay away. It is amazing for me to see what he can do on a
computer or game console, but it's also uncomfortable for me to see that
he'd rather play on the gamecube than go outside.

I'm glad for the support as I work through this discomfort. All this was
counter-intuitional but it is resolving the way others predicted it would.

JMJ
Willa

Melissa

Willa,
I wanted to say thanks for such a great email. It was nice to read
something where you've gone both ways and shown that kids do work
through issues. Especially mentioning the power issue with your 3yo.
We see a lot of that with my 4yo and 2yo, that's really why they are
playing. And for pointing out that it *is* counterintuitive!

Congrats too, on the feeding tube. Bre has DSI, and at one point
professionals were pointing us towards forced feedings. We really did
not like that issue, but unschooled her eating, provided lots of
opportunity and praise for being brave, and she has one of the most
extensive diets I've seen in an autistic child. Now, on bad sensory
days she really does push more towards her favorite comfort foods,
almost all goldfish and chocolate chips, but I've seen her push aside
dessert for a big bowl of broccoli!


Melissa
Mom to Josh (11), Breanna (8), Emily (7), Rachel (6), Sam (4), Dan
(2), and Avari Rose

share our lives at
http://360.yahoo.com/multimomma



On May 25, 2006, at 5:49 PM, Willa Ryan wrote:

>
> ----- Original Message ----- !
> From: "Joanne" <billyandjoanne@...>
> This happened slowly, not overnight. Food was the first and easiest
> issue for me to loosen control because my middle daughter came to us
> with an eating disorder and I was determined to help her with it. >>
>
> My experience was similar. My 6th child has medical disabilities
> and ended
> up with a G tube and severe feeding issues from sensory integration
> disorder. He would gag when someone brought food into the room. I
> basically unschooled his eating. Strewed lots of good food
> experiences,
> didn't push anything, let him help cook if he wanted to, in our family
> environment where food was seen to be enjoyable and relationship-
> oriented.
> He started off eating only M&Ms and ramen noodles and moved out
> from there.
> Because his younger brother grew up in that environment, he got the
> same
> access to a range of food. Both kids enjoy all different kinds of
> food and
> will try all kinds of new things without fear, and over the long
> term eat a
> pretty healthy balance.
>
> Video games and TV have been more of a concern for me.
>
> But right now, at this moment my husband is trying to encourage my
> 6yo son
> to watch a video -- he just got his G-tube removed and activity
> makes the
> opening leak. But my 6yo wants to play instead : ). Videos
> just don't
> have enough mystique for him for our purposes right now : ).
> Partly it is
> because he has spent a lot of time in the hospital where pretty
> much all he
> COULD do was watch TV/videos. It completely lost the charm of the
> limited,
> for him.
>
> I stopped the VG and video restrictions for the other kids a few
> weeks ago.
> For the older kids (I have 3 teens) it hardly made any difference
> at all.
> If anything, they play less than they did when they had a "fixed"
> time.
> The 10yo played a lot at first and now tells me he gets bored if he
> plays
> too long, so after a while he'll go on to something else.
>
> The 3yo is the one who seems to want to play almost all day,
> still. I
> remember my other ones going through a similar stage at about the
> same age,
> when they discovered they could manipulate the controls by
> themselves and
> make the screen do things. It gave them a feeling of power. They
> could
> hardly stay away. It is amazing for me to see what he can do on a
> computer or game console, but it's also uncomfortable for me to see
> that
> he'd rather play on the gamecube than go outside.
>
> I'm glad for the support as I work through this discomfort. All
> this was
> counter-intuitional but it is resolving the way others predicted it
> would.
>
> JMJ
> Willa
>

katherand2003

Yes Willa. Ds is almost 3 (july 10th) and he is glued to the
computer. Every night, dh unhooks the electricity and tells ds it's
broken. *sigh* Anyhoodle. Dh is trying to get ds to sleep at night
rather than stay up on the computer.

I facilitate ds having as much computer time as he wants during the
day while dh is away at work. After surges of playing A LOT for 3 or
4 months now, ds has been slowing down lately. I see ds's playing
patterns riding a little rollercoaster and it looks likely that ds
will slow down more and more over time. But I expect his interest to
look pretty intense for a while yet.

He does lots of other stuff too. Watches videos, wants stuff to eat,
rides his bike, jumps on the couch, converses with Elmo and George
(stuffed toys), fingerpaints on the front porch and so on. At first
for a couple months there, it was nothing if not the computer. The
last couple days it's been nothing but his new Thomas and Friends
video and playing online at the Thomas and Friends website.

Kathe



--- In [email protected], "Willa Ryan" <willa@...> wrote:
>
> The 3yo is the one who seems to want to play almost all day, still. I
> remember my other ones going through a similar stage at about the
same age,
> when they discovered they could manipulate the controls by
themselves and
> make the screen do things. It gave them a feeling of power. They
could
> hardly stay away. It is amazing for me to see what he can do on a
> computer or game console, but it's also uncomfortable for me to see
that
> he'd rather play on the gamecube than go outside.
>
> I'm glad for the support as I work through this discomfort. All
this was
> counter-intuitional but it is resolving the way others predicted it
would.
>
> JMJ
> Willa
>

[email protected]

-----Original Message-----
From: katherand2003 <katherand@...>

Yes Willa. Ds is almost 3 (july 10th) and he is glued to the
computer. Every night, dh unhooks the electricity and tells ds it's
broken. *sigh* Anyhoodle. Dh is trying to get ds to sleep at night
rather than stay up on the computer.
-=-=-=--

This will evenually end up being much more detrimental to the
father/child relationship than the father can possibly imagine!


~Kelly

Kelly Lovejoy
Conference Coordinator
Live and Learn Unschooling Conference
http://liveandlearnconference.org

"The hardest problem for the brain is not learning, but forgetting. No
matter how hard we try, we can't deliberately forget something we have
learned, and that is catastrophic if we learn that we can't learn."
~Frank Smith