Thanksgiving!

As we were headed back from the Option Institute a couple weeks ago, my personal goals were to relax, enjoy the moment and let go! It was a revelation to us that Aditya had a hard time using restrooms outside. Being cocooned at home for the past 2 + years, it never really occurred to us what a great hindrance this could cause for him, in a social setting! So our goal for him was to be flexible using restrooms outside the home. Knowing that he was motivated about scoring points, we set up a point system for everybody in the family.

After brainstorming a couple days about what to do over the Thanksgiving break to help accomplish this goal, we decided to stay home and relax. I had a great time lazing around with the kids while dad was at work. We encouraged him to go when we were visiting family and friends over the weekend. And he DID IT!

The weather on Saturday looked  promising and we decided to head up to San Francisco. A's sister had been asking to go on a train ride for some time now and we saw a lot of interest from Aditya as well. He chose to go on the train and try using the restroom while we were out, as opposed to staying home with me.
Aditya woke up pretty cranky and super controlling on Saturday . We decided to be flexible and modify our plans, if needed. We left the house with enough time to spare. The train was running late and Aditya was totally OK with it. As luck would have it, about 15 minutes into the ride, the train came to a halt and the driver announced that we would be stuck there for about an hour, because of a fatality. The kids had tons of questions and we all began coming up with different reasons a train could be delayed. We had a fun time discussing that.. reasons ranging from the driver needing to go home and use the restroom to the engine not working properly :) We all had our snacks and then both kids went off to explore the upper deck and bike cars. Aditya was hesitant initially but happily followed, once sister went. After more than an hour, we transferred to another train and finally reached SF 3 hours after we started. After a quick MUNI ride and lunch, we were all set to take the cable car to Ghirardelli Square (Aditya wanted to go there as he had heard a lot about it from one of our volunteers)
As we reached Market and Powell, we realised that the line was closed. We explained it to the kids and as we walked towards Union Square,  we saw a cable car being towed. Aditya pointed it out to us and said that we could take it, it probably started working! But the man working it told us that he was taking it up for repairs and we could find a shuttle at the next bus stop. Aditya looked at us and said, "Let's go for the bus!" On the way, we walked up to Union Square to see the Macy's Christmas tree. It was a really busy place and Aditya told us that he would sit rather than going around. We celebrated him for clearly indicating what he wanted and proceeded. On our way we saw a man dressed as (god knows what, but I have a picture here)...

 Both brother and sister enthusiastically asked us to take a picture of them with him. After that was done, he reminded us about the bus to go to Ghirardelli Square. He thoroughly enjoyed the bus and the connecting cable car ride.
It had been a long day for everybody and we decided to go to Starbucks to get us a cuppa and the kids some milk. Aditya decided that he needed to use the restroom and was patiently waiting in line for about 10 minutes with Dad when.. Somebody threw up and they closed the restroom for the day! Aditya came back coolly and told us that he would go find another restroom with Dad. After a 15 minute search, he finally got to use one.
By then we were all so exhausted that we decided to call it a day. Thankfully, the journey back home was uneventful.
Looking back, I am glad that we believed in both, our and his flexibility. I will forever be grateful that we got to experience this day. He is so ready for so much more! I can't thank the universe enough for our sweet little daughter who is a great teacher, companion and friend to us all.

Aditya is using the Option process on himself!

Salient features of the above picture:
1.  Aditya P is looking at a Stimulus, and his Response, and then finding the belief that is leading him from that stimulus to that response.  The toilet paper (spelled as pepper:-) is the stimulus.   "I do not think it is good for the environment" is the response. "I do not think it is good to use a toilet seat cover" is the belief.   (BY THE WAY, can someone post the link to a certain blog post here 1.5 years ago that has A using and throwing away a dozen sheets of paper every day because he drew a circle imperfectly!)
2. Aditya P is stating that he is not just Aditya but Aditya P
3. Aditya's Potty Challenges.  How cute:-)
4. Aditya had announced the following on Saturday night, "I am going to write a note for you tomorrow at 11AM.  I am going to be honest in that note.  Can you please share everything in that note with William, Bears and Becky, because they do not know my stimulus-es, responses, and beliefs."  He stuck to his timeline, and had this note ready for us by 10 AM.  We are now just doing our job of sharing it with William, Bears and Becky:-)
5. On discussing the picture with Baba, Baba wondered if the heading for belief (that it is not good to use the toilet seat cover) was actually the response. He agreed and said that it was a mistake, and that it is okay to make mistakes:-)
6. There is a big blob of ink between Aditya and s. Whatever that was, the use of ink to erase it is huge.  We used to throw away the paper 1.5 years ago if it had even a slight crease!

Oh, and the option process is being used to analyze why he is having a challenge using the toilet outside of his home- be it school, a restaurant, or the magical Son Rise house 2 weeks ago.  We are beyond impressed that he is saying he thinks he has "potty challenges" and he is using the Option Process to discover why!

A wonderful week of learning and growing!

During his first intensive in September 2010,  Aditya grew immensely in just a week. (Actually, he began growing there in a week in a way that never really stopped for the next 14 months!)

But in our visit to the magical Son Rise House last week,  we think we (parents) are the ones who grew immensely!

For one, we figured out, thanks to Aditya's wonderful and talented Son Rise friends, his core challenges as at this time, and how to go help him with those.

But the light-bulb moment came when we figured out (through dialogues with our teachers) that there really is no way to recover him from autism without total acceptance of his autism.  Also, no doubt that his full recovery is our WANT, but when we make it a NEED, it stops us from being in the loving and accepting (and hence, the most effective for his recovery) attitude!  

In fact, when we turn any want into a need, it means we want something, except we are also suggesting we will be unhappy if we do not get it.  This is a form of fear.  Once there is fear, our primal instinct to save us from anything "scary" kicks in and keeps us from going for the same thing that we so dearly WANT!  Mind-blowing!

Day#4: Aditya in a "dual session" with Officer James and Ella

This morning, Aai and Baba got training from senior teacher William on how to conduct a dual session, with a focus on Aditya's goal of "flexibility within a variety of activities". 

When he is around peers, Aditya is currently (well, as of last week) hesitant to approach them and offer something he can do in the game they are playing, or that they all can do to begin with.  He is tentative rather than solidly knocking on their doors.

In our dual session we were going to act a bit more like 6 year olds.  We would basically begin by playing a pretend-play scenario he is comfortable with-- a story of Officer James and Ella another 6 year old who calls her dad "Bologna" because of which he gets angry and takes her away to jail! (By the way,  Officer James is a character developed by his Son Rise friend Adin and Aditya. )

Once we began this role play, we would then not invite Aditya, just play like we are 6 year olds.  Aai would lead the session, and Baba would follow her lead.  The challenge for Aditya was to see the game happening in the other corner of the room, and follow along and join the game by offering something to do, when "that" moment came.  Wow... could he do it?

We began the session, and Aditya at once began talking to the mirror and saying, "Now pretend that..."  When Aai-Baba continued to play in their little corner instead of honoring his request which he made to the mirror, he made another swing by his parents.  Finally when that did not work out, he came and grabbed Baba's (who was playing Officer James) hand and yelling "help help" as if to invite the cop to do something.... as part of the ongoing story! 

Mind blowing!  Aditya figured it out!  He figured out how to come up with a role for himself on the fly, and then offer it in an inviting way so his peers would be really excited about it.

Of course, he did not do this throughout the session.  He did get stuck when Aai announced they were going to play a different game.  But he has demonstrated that he can do this totally neuro-typical thing of "figuring out" the game and showing up in an exciting way!

Go Aditya! This sounds like you really are in stage 5... as you have been saying you want to be for the last several months now!

Day#3: Aditya's program has a stage 5 goal now!

The team decided last night that Aditya has come far enough that he needs new goals!

The team also figured out where Aditya has the biggest challenge.  He is stuck when faced with unstructured situations, and especially around peers. So his new Son Rise program goal is, inspiring him to be flexible (and spontaneous) within a variety of activities including those where we do not provide a structure, and he has to provide an input into creating that structure!  This can be a challenge for even us, his parents and program team members, because until now, we have been going in with themes and activities to get him interested, after which we then build, request, inspire growth, etc.  The new challenge would be to take a step back, and act purposefully passive for a bit longer... so that he gets a chance to spontaneously offer something to do!

Aai-Baba got a chance to go to the playroom and work on this new goal right away with guidance from Son Rise program teacher Becky, and then got spot-on feedback as well.  

One more dual session to help him handle two (or more) peers at a time.

And then, one more big news... Aditya used the bathroom! (He did send his facilitator Michelle into a time out so he could do this private business with utmost comfort... and that's cool at Son Rise house!)

Day#2: Aditya learned about the Option Process

Stimulus- Belief- Response!

Three words that summarize the Option Process. The principle of not judging us or others, but examine and try to uncover the beliefs that leads us from an event to the action that we take about it, or the feeling that we feel about it.  The foundation of the Son Rise program!

Today, Aditya, Camilla, and Kim had fun discussing and exploring this fun way of understanding why Aditya (or others in his life) feel or act in certain ways when some things happen.  And we are soooo glad to say.... Aditya seems to have totally got it!

He also had his first dual session today (i.e. he played with 2 facilitators at the same time) so that he could exercise and grow his skills of following the gaze, and allowing one person in the group to lead while others follow, etc.

Kim also introduced some rough and tumble play (pretending to be a 6 year old herself) so he feels comfortable and gets used with how other 6 year olds do play, say at his school. He also had fun with some hands on exercises saying NO to a boy who comes from the behind on the slide, and tries to push him!  Finally, there were friendly rough-and-tumble exchanges, toy car crashes,  and even games around super-heroes, action figures, and dinosaurs-- all very "6 year old" things!

At the same time, Aditya has been showing resistance to using the bathroom attached to his playroom.  All of the facilitators, and Aai-Baba too, are having fun showing him he actually has the best bathroom in the whole Son Rise house!

Earlier in the day,  Baba had a blast playing "There is a machine for that" (a game he came up with) which was a quiz game mixed with renowned cricketers bowling yorkers to each other.   Aai had her own game-  that of "rip tag" where they had lots of fun pretending that his friends had some kind of trouble (e.g. their lunch fell off on the ground) so that Aditya could then do something about it (such as comfort the friend).

Aditya taught a thing or two about Monopoly and cricket to his volunteers on Day#1

Juliet was his first facilitator today, and told us that almost a year after his last intensive,  she was amazed by how much he had changed.  She said he knew more about Monopoly than her, and in general, too it took her some time to figure out what his current challenges are!

He taught Amanda rules of cricket, and then the two went on to discuss weights of different people in kgs and pounds:-)

A little later he was playing with his old friend Camila, and she noted down a number of cool things about him as a person which he volunteered:-) (Used to be his goal.)  They also had lunch together in the playroom.

Aai and Baba then took turns playing, and got extremely helpful, spot-on feedback from our senior teacher William!

Aditya then had a blast playing with Michelle making food on a toy cooker/stovetop (talking about food being another huge motivation for our little guy)!

At the end of the day, old friend Susan played Aditya's amazing game of $550 Bank (telling each other challenging things to do and then rewarding each other with any amount between $1 and $550.99!)  She then brought out her game of reading clues and guessing which animal, where the winner would get to act like the animal.  Aditya was adorable wearing the tiger hood and the horse head!  (He would have refused to do anything like this a year ago.)

After all facilitators left, Aai and Baba had fun looking inside the toilet flush tank (with Aditya peeking) and then testing out if a basketball can actually get flushed away by the toilet (with Aditya upset about it and telling us a clear NO about it which we celebrated and honored).  Both of these he is paranoid about.  This fear manifests itself in him not wanting to use any toilet except his own home.

Aditya had also made cards especially for all his facilitator he knew were going to play with him, so the staff members  at Son Rise who are full of 3E's got even more reasons to celebrate him.

All in all, a great beginning to our second intensive!

Son Rise, here we are, excited to play another innings!

We are at the Son Rise house, for Aditya's intensive program #2.  The last time we were here, what we saw was nothing short of a miracle!  We go in with great anticipation (but no set expectations) for yet another wonderful week!

We began the day today by playing a limited over game of cricket in the playroom here!  There is something magical  about this place.  Without me even trying,  he was "specially" flexible today, e.g.
1. He ALWAYS pretends to be the Indian cricket team,  but today he picked a multi-national team headed by Ricky Ponting of Australia, and picked his other players as Gautam Gambhir of India, Alistar Cook of England,  Ajantha Mendis of Sri Lanka. He then asked "and who is someone who plays for Pakistan" and then chose his fifth player to be Shahid Afridi. By the way, he also allowed playing with only 5 players and only for 5 limited overs each, so that we could then go out for lunch. (He always plays with 10 players).
2. He allowed me to pick a team of his own loving Son Rise friends to be in the "other" team:  Michael, Adin, Julia, Sarah.... and then he proposed... Mom!  Woo-hoo! Who knew he could come up with something like this on the spur of the moment?
3. He played with a ball different than he is used to.  A ball that moved a lot faster.
4. After receiving the "dinasaur" in the playroom as his trophy for beating me, he gave me a musical instrument in the playroom as my runners up prize.  We took some pictures, and he told us who (all three of us) he wanted in the picture!
5. He ASKED to wear a hat when I (pretending to be Manju) put on a hat and a jacket. He would wear no hat, no matter what, until now, while playing cricket.

And we totally believe this beautiful change in him is only the beginning!