Re: [UnschoolingDiscussion] TS
[email protected]
Holly,
We went through a really tough period where he couldn't play well with others
and basically had no friends. All the other kids on the block made fun of
him and shunned him.
We have worked really hard with him on recognizing his behaviors, evaluating
what he wants to gain from them and if that is the appropriate behavior
choice. It hasn't been easy and it has been very intentional, not unschooling at
all, but he was in such misery that it was worth it.
The OT was prescribed for his sensory issues but we found it most helpful in
the skills it taught him to recognize what inputs his body needed and how to
seek them appropriately. An example, when he was younger he had a real problem
with giving everyone ferocious hugs and running up and slamming his body into
people as a way to say hi. Now a small 6 yo giving a ferocious hug to an
adult was not much of a problem but to his peers it appeared to be very
aggressive behavior and a lot of them were scared of him. What the OT did was teach
him to label that need, it is for deep pressure and it is a way the nervous
system is seeking to organize itself. It is a real physical need that he felt but
she taught him other ways to meet that need. One of the best ways was
bouncing full body flat on a trampoline. We learned ways to help him with it also,
I would physically lie on top of him with most of my weight. Believe it or
not it was just what he needed. Now he knows to do isometric exercises and jump
on his pogo stick and various other ways to get that need met, ways that are
more socially acceptable.
As he learned how to regulate his own stress, he learned to be more
empathetic to others. His mind used to be too full of its own noise and needs. As he
grew more empathetic he was able to learn social skills that had eluded him
and he began to develop friends. He is now sought after by the other boys in
the neighborhood, but he still has trouble playing with more than one person for
any length of time. Luckily he has learned to know that and recognize and
claim that so he just tells his friends that he wants to do his own stuff before
a crisis occurs.
Other things we did to help him learn mastery of his body was to do tap dance
for several years, Tae Kwon Do, gymnastics and now ballroom dancing. He
really enjoys the ball room dancing most of all. I think it appeals to his
budding interest in the opposite gender. He told me, half in horror and half in
wonder, "They want you to touch the girls in dancing." He is such a sweet
innocent some times.
He is very philosophical about his tics. He basically feels that if people
don't like him because of his tics, they probably weren't people he wanted to
be friends with anyway. In public we have developed a code of sorts so that I
can alert him if he is ticing a lot and he can choose how to deal with it.
The Depakote(seizure meds) have stopped some of the larger tics, but he has a
lot of smaller ones. We don't even notice most of them anymore.
One piece of information that was very helpful to me in learning about TS was
that it is a spectrum disorder and on that same spectrum is ADHD and
Obsessive Compulsive Disorder, as well as Sensory Integration Dysfunction. So it can
be hard to pin symptoms down exactly. Sometimes we think Douglass is OCD, he
has very compulsive relationships with food textures, but that could also be
Sensory stuff, etc. Labels don't always help except to lead you to new
information.
We have found that giving Douglass the skills to master his own physical
needs helped so much and he has become so calm and accepting of himself that none
of us think if him as having any disorders at all. He is just Douglass and we
love him that way. Luckily without school pressures we can live this way.
Sorry this was so long,
Beth
[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
We went through a really tough period where he couldn't play well with others
and basically had no friends. All the other kids on the block made fun of
him and shunned him.
We have worked really hard with him on recognizing his behaviors, evaluating
what he wants to gain from them and if that is the appropriate behavior
choice. It hasn't been easy and it has been very intentional, not unschooling at
all, but he was in such misery that it was worth it.
The OT was prescribed for his sensory issues but we found it most helpful in
the skills it taught him to recognize what inputs his body needed and how to
seek them appropriately. An example, when he was younger he had a real problem
with giving everyone ferocious hugs and running up and slamming his body into
people as a way to say hi. Now a small 6 yo giving a ferocious hug to an
adult was not much of a problem but to his peers it appeared to be very
aggressive behavior and a lot of them were scared of him. What the OT did was teach
him to label that need, it is for deep pressure and it is a way the nervous
system is seeking to organize itself. It is a real physical need that he felt but
she taught him other ways to meet that need. One of the best ways was
bouncing full body flat on a trampoline. We learned ways to help him with it also,
I would physically lie on top of him with most of my weight. Believe it or
not it was just what he needed. Now he knows to do isometric exercises and jump
on his pogo stick and various other ways to get that need met, ways that are
more socially acceptable.
As he learned how to regulate his own stress, he learned to be more
empathetic to others. His mind used to be too full of its own noise and needs. As he
grew more empathetic he was able to learn social skills that had eluded him
and he began to develop friends. He is now sought after by the other boys in
the neighborhood, but he still has trouble playing with more than one person for
any length of time. Luckily he has learned to know that and recognize and
claim that so he just tells his friends that he wants to do his own stuff before
a crisis occurs.
Other things we did to help him learn mastery of his body was to do tap dance
for several years, Tae Kwon Do, gymnastics and now ballroom dancing. He
really enjoys the ball room dancing most of all. I think it appeals to his
budding interest in the opposite gender. He told me, half in horror and half in
wonder, "They want you to touch the girls in dancing." He is such a sweet
innocent some times.
He is very philosophical about his tics. He basically feels that if people
don't like him because of his tics, they probably weren't people he wanted to
be friends with anyway. In public we have developed a code of sorts so that I
can alert him if he is ticing a lot and he can choose how to deal with it.
The Depakote(seizure meds) have stopped some of the larger tics, but he has a
lot of smaller ones. We don't even notice most of them anymore.
One piece of information that was very helpful to me in learning about TS was
that it is a spectrum disorder and on that same spectrum is ADHD and
Obsessive Compulsive Disorder, as well as Sensory Integration Dysfunction. So it can
be hard to pin symptoms down exactly. Sometimes we think Douglass is OCD, he
has very compulsive relationships with food textures, but that could also be
Sensory stuff, etc. Labels don't always help except to lead you to new
information.
We have found that giving Douglass the skills to master his own physical
needs helped so much and he has become so calm and accepting of himself that none
of us think if him as having any disorders at all. He is just Douglass and we
love him that way. Luckily without school pressures we can live this way.
Sorry this was so long,
Beth
[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
Holly Furgason
--- In [email protected], Quiltsixer@a... wrote:
to say. It's very helpful. This is all so new and we're just trying
find our way around.
The OCD, ADHD, inappropriate touching and other things associated
with TS are what make it hard. People can understand tics and be
sympathetic but the other stuff is hard to take.
Abba does the hugging but also gets in peoples faces a lot- she
doesn't seem to have an idea of personal space. That puts a lot of
people off. Her OCD manifsts itself in cool baths without soap
(thank goodness) and lipgloss. No one understands why I let my 9 yo
go around with her lips painted. They're sure it's part of my
radical lifestyle. :-)
Holly
> Sorry this was so long,I don't know about other list memebers but I appreciate all you had
> Beth
to say. It's very helpful. This is all so new and we're just trying
find our way around.
The OCD, ADHD, inappropriate touching and other things associated
with TS are what make it hard. People can understand tics and be
sympathetic but the other stuff is hard to take.
Abba does the hugging but also gets in peoples faces a lot- she
doesn't seem to have an idea of personal space. That puts a lot of
people off. Her OCD manifsts itself in cool baths without soap
(thank goodness) and lipgloss. No one understands why I let my 9 yo
go around with her lips painted. They're sure it's part of my
radical lifestyle. :-)
Holly
Shannon
Do you think any of the TS stuff could be related to food allergies? The
reason I ask is because my son, Connor has severe food allergies. Before we
found this out, he had tics all the time, he was angry, nobody could touch
him without him coming unglued. Now that he doesn't eat the allergic foods,
all this has gone away. Oh, once in a while, he gets his mouth tic back
because I've not done a good job with his rotation diet. But other than
that, he feels so much better. I don't know if what I described is TS or
not.
Shannon Buckley
Mom to Connor 3-15-97, Carsten born at home 4-27-99/5-19-00 and Quinn born
at home 8-08-02
-----Original Message-----
From: Quiltsixer@... [mailto:Quiltsixer@...]
Sent: Friday, September 05, 2003 9:04 AM
To: [email protected]
Subject: Re: [UnschoolingDiscussion] TS
Holly,
We went through a really tough period where he couldn't play well with
others
and basically had no friends. All the other kids on the block made fun of
him and shunned him.
We have worked really hard with him on recognizing his behaviors, evaluating
what he wants to gain from them and if that is the appropriate behavior
choice. It hasn't been easy and it has been very intentional, not
unschooling at
all, but he was in such misery that it was worth it.
The OT was prescribed for his sensory issues but we found it most helpful in
the skills it taught him to recognize what inputs his body needed and how to
seek them appropriately. An example, when he was younger he had a real
problem
with giving everyone ferocious hugs and running up and slamming his body
into
people as a way to say hi. Now a small 6 yo giving a ferocious hug to an
adult was not much of a problem but to his peers it appeared to be very
aggressive behavior and a lot of them were scared of him. What the OT did
was teach
him to label that need, it is for deep pressure and it is a way the nervous
system is seeking to organize itself. It is a real physical need that he
felt but
she taught him other ways to meet that need. One of the best ways was
bouncing full body flat on a trampoline. We learned ways to help him with
it also,
I would physically lie on top of him with most of my weight. Believe it or
not it was just what he needed. Now he knows to do isometric exercises and
jump
on his pogo stick and various other ways to get that need met, ways that are
more socially acceptable.
As he learned how to regulate his own stress, he learned to be more
empathetic to others. His mind used to be too full of its own noise and
needs. As he
grew more empathetic he was able to learn social skills that had eluded him
and he began to develop friends. He is now sought after by the other boys
in
the neighborhood, but he still has trouble playing with more than one person
for
any length of time. Luckily he has learned to know that and recognize and
claim that so he just tells his friends that he wants to do his own stuff
before
a crisis occurs.
Other things we did to help him learn mastery of his body was to do tap
dance
for several years, Tae Kwon Do, gymnastics and now ballroom dancing. He
really enjoys the ball room dancing most of all. I think it appeals to his
budding interest in the opposite gender. He told me, half in horror and
half in
wonder, "They want you to touch the girls in dancing." He is such a sweet
innocent some times.
He is very philosophical about his tics. He basically feels that if people
don't like him because of his tics, they probably weren't people he wanted
to
be friends with anyway. In public we have developed a code of sorts so that
I
can alert him if he is ticing a lot and he can choose how to deal with it.
The Depakote(seizure meds) have stopped some of the larger tics, but he has
a
lot of smaller ones. We don't even notice most of them anymore.
One piece of information that was very helpful to me in learning about TS
was
that it is a spectrum disorder and on that same spectrum is ADHD and
Obsessive Compulsive Disorder, as well as Sensory Integration Dysfunction.
So it can
be hard to pin symptoms down exactly. Sometimes we think Douglass is OCD,
he
has very compulsive relationships with food textures, but that could also be
Sensory stuff, etc. Labels don't always help except to lead you to new
information.
We have found that giving Douglass the skills to master his own physical
needs helped so much and he has become so calm and accepting of himself that
none
of us think if him as having any disorders at all. He is just Douglass and
we
love him that way. Luckily without school pressures we can live this way.
Sorry this was so long,
Beth
[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
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[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
reason I ask is because my son, Connor has severe food allergies. Before we
found this out, he had tics all the time, he was angry, nobody could touch
him without him coming unglued. Now that he doesn't eat the allergic foods,
all this has gone away. Oh, once in a while, he gets his mouth tic back
because I've not done a good job with his rotation diet. But other than
that, he feels so much better. I don't know if what I described is TS or
not.
Shannon Buckley
Mom to Connor 3-15-97, Carsten born at home 4-27-99/5-19-00 and Quinn born
at home 8-08-02
-----Original Message-----
From: Quiltsixer@... [mailto:Quiltsixer@...]
Sent: Friday, September 05, 2003 9:04 AM
To: [email protected]
Subject: Re: [UnschoolingDiscussion] TS
Holly,
We went through a really tough period where he couldn't play well with
others
and basically had no friends. All the other kids on the block made fun of
him and shunned him.
We have worked really hard with him on recognizing his behaviors, evaluating
what he wants to gain from them and if that is the appropriate behavior
choice. It hasn't been easy and it has been very intentional, not
unschooling at
all, but he was in such misery that it was worth it.
The OT was prescribed for his sensory issues but we found it most helpful in
the skills it taught him to recognize what inputs his body needed and how to
seek them appropriately. An example, when he was younger he had a real
problem
with giving everyone ferocious hugs and running up and slamming his body
into
people as a way to say hi. Now a small 6 yo giving a ferocious hug to an
adult was not much of a problem but to his peers it appeared to be very
aggressive behavior and a lot of them were scared of him. What the OT did
was teach
him to label that need, it is for deep pressure and it is a way the nervous
system is seeking to organize itself. It is a real physical need that he
felt but
she taught him other ways to meet that need. One of the best ways was
bouncing full body flat on a trampoline. We learned ways to help him with
it also,
I would physically lie on top of him with most of my weight. Believe it or
not it was just what he needed. Now he knows to do isometric exercises and
jump
on his pogo stick and various other ways to get that need met, ways that are
more socially acceptable.
As he learned how to regulate his own stress, he learned to be more
empathetic to others. His mind used to be too full of its own noise and
needs. As he
grew more empathetic he was able to learn social skills that had eluded him
and he began to develop friends. He is now sought after by the other boys
in
the neighborhood, but he still has trouble playing with more than one person
for
any length of time. Luckily he has learned to know that and recognize and
claim that so he just tells his friends that he wants to do his own stuff
before
a crisis occurs.
Other things we did to help him learn mastery of his body was to do tap
dance
for several years, Tae Kwon Do, gymnastics and now ballroom dancing. He
really enjoys the ball room dancing most of all. I think it appeals to his
budding interest in the opposite gender. He told me, half in horror and
half in
wonder, "They want you to touch the girls in dancing." He is such a sweet
innocent some times.
He is very philosophical about his tics. He basically feels that if people
don't like him because of his tics, they probably weren't people he wanted
to
be friends with anyway. In public we have developed a code of sorts so that
I
can alert him if he is ticing a lot and he can choose how to deal with it.
The Depakote(seizure meds) have stopped some of the larger tics, but he has
a
lot of smaller ones. We don't even notice most of them anymore.
One piece of information that was very helpful to me in learning about TS
was
that it is a spectrum disorder and on that same spectrum is ADHD and
Obsessive Compulsive Disorder, as well as Sensory Integration Dysfunction.
So it can
be hard to pin symptoms down exactly. Sometimes we think Douglass is OCD,
he
has very compulsive relationships with food textures, but that could also be
Sensory stuff, etc. Labels don't always help except to lead you to new
information.
We have found that giving Douglass the skills to master his own physical
needs helped so much and he has become so calm and accepting of himself that
none
of us think if him as having any disorders at all. He is just Douglass and
we
love him that way. Luckily without school pressures we can live this way.
Sorry this was so long,
Beth
[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
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[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
Holly Furgason
--- In [email protected], "Shannon"
<davenshan@m...> wrote:
Abba's TS definitely has an autoimmune componenet and isn't that what
allergies are?
The
soon is homeopathy. I don't know if it will help but too many people
have offered their services and I can't see how it could hurt. I
really do think it would be great to have a TS unschooling list to
talk about things like this at length. If anybody is interested let
me know privately and I'll set one up.
Holly
<davenshan@m...> wrote:
> Do you think any of the TS stuff could be related to foodallergies?
Abba's TS definitely has an autoimmune componenet and isn't that what
allergies are?
The
> reason I ask is because my son, Connor has severe food allergies.Before we
> found this out, he had tics all the time, he was angry, nobodycould touch
> him without him coming unglued. Now that he doesn't eat theallergic foods,
> all this has gone away.I'd love to hear more about his. One of the thngs we'll be trying
soon is homeopathy. I don't know if it will help but too many people
have offered their services and I can't see how it could hurt. I
really do think it would be great to have a TS unschooling list to
talk about things like this at length. If anybody is interested let
me know privately and I'll set one up.
Holly