Monday, April 9, 2012
Sunday, April 8, 2012
Can Art Re-Traumatize? - the original... Can Art Re-Traumatize? - Daniel's version (This one's still pretty rough. He's only seen it twice).
...
Scripting doesn't have to replace creativity! Maybe it can even evolve into it...
Visualization Episode - the original... Visualization Episode - Daniel's version
Indomitable Spirit - the original... Indomitable Spirit - Daniel's version
Can Art Re-Traumatize? - the original... Can Art Re-Traumatize? - Daniel's version (This one's still pretty rough. He's only seen it twice).
...
Scripting doesn't have to replace creativity! Maybe it can even evolve into it...
Pretend Play - Coffee!
Indomitable Spirit - the original... Indomitable Spirit - Daniel's version
Can Art Re-Traumatize? - the original... Can Art Re-Traumatize? - Daniel's version (This one's still pretty rough. He's only seen it twice).
...
Scripting doesn't have to replace creativity! Maybe it can even evolve into it...
Pretend Play - Coffee!
Monday, April 2, 2012
Adriana told Rhett they plan to begin transitioning Daniel into the 4-5 yo class today. Transition will be gradual. Transitioning him away from his beloved Monica (1-2 yo class) was excruciating but I have a feeling this will not be. It's loud in that classroom and D has historically struggled with loud sounds, but being with older and same-age peers will probably be good for him on the whole. I hope so!
Birthday Letter to Daniel - Age 4: Thursday, March 22, 2012
Dear Daniel,
Your birthday letter comes late this year. Your parents have been unreasonably busy. Your papa is in massage school and I am building a practice (moving to a new office) and learning a LOT. I'm learning a lot about a lot of things, but being the mom you need me to be is something I always have an antenna up for. In these last 10 months or so, the “topics” for my development as your mom have included Human Design/Manifestors and Autism.
According to Human Design, you are what is called an “Emotional Manifestor.” Your strategy is “to inform” and your life's purpose is to “initiate” - what, I don't know, but you initiate a lot. You have a powerful presence; your personality is well-defined; and your body is remarkably strong. You are visibly muscular, which I must say, I've never seen on a four year old and I swear we're not giving you steroids.
We wanted to help you to get a little more comfortable in your body and develop some more conversational communication skills, so we got you an IEP this year and you've been receiving some services that you really seem to enjoy and benefit from. There's been a need to tweak some things in order to best meet your needs, and as we've done that you have seemed to make even greater strides. Yesterday, we took you for a hard day of testing and they gave you a diagnosis of Autism. We really didn't see that coming, so we're struggling at the moment to get our footing. We're hellbent on not letting you be defined by a bunch of people who have only known you for a day. We're committed to taking what they can offer that we want for you and leaving the rest, only optimism and strengths-based assessments welcome here, thank-you very much! You are a REMARKABLE person.
If you read the definitions of a “Manifestor” and an “autistic person” you'll see that the descriptions are astonishingly similar. It's really quite remarkable! Diagnosis is intended to serve only positive purposes, but in fact, it is very often violent and diminishing, extracting from a person all the specialness and gifts that they have to offer the world. People who talk about "autism" seek to cure, fix, ... They see the person described as autistic as damaged, disabled, .... They seek "ordinary" "indistinguishable from their peers." I find that revolting. Who would want a life like that?!?!
But when people talk about raising their Manifestor child, they talk about celebrating a child's gifts, rejoicing in their child's personal power, capacity to initiate, and seemingly total freedom from co-dependence; they talk about teaching him/her to cope with an excessively controlling society, and to consider others needs when making decisions. I see that as a balanced, sane, and sustainable way to love a human being. In every school of therapy dealing with relationships, there is a core tenant - we must never seek to fix/change another person. I am in relationship with you and thus I must never seek to change or “fix” who you are. That should not be hard. You are not broken.
Autism or manifestor or something else... the words we choose speak volumes about what we believe, and the way a parent describes a child speaks volumes about who that parent believes the child to be. I choose to believe you are Daniel: the perfect, whole, unique, wild, wonderful, powerful, intense, adorable person; I am blessed and honored to parent such a soul! I welcome access to services that support our pursuit of giving you a foundation for joy. I reject any words they might use that inhibit that. I believe this may require that we forego many services, because the purveyors of those services may carry baggage you don't benefit from being asked to carry. Thus, I need to learn to hear through language, to get behind it, to find the spirit behind the words.
You remain as you have always been, compassionate and calm. You still accept limits with remarkably little difficulty, and still don't have many tantrums. We've learned not to set you up for tantrums too. One important way we do that is by making sure to let you get enough sleep; we keep our lives pretty routine. We're trying to incorporate more outside time into our whole family's weekend routines and to ensure that all the people in your caregiving/care-receiving routine are positive, non-anxious, and good for you.
There have been some areas this last year in which you have seemed to have a special interest, topics and explorations that have given you particular joy. For the first half of the year or so, these were mostly musical. You requested lots of instruments and played or played with the ones you had quite a bit (piano, guitar, recorder, violin, cello) but then you came upon an interest in memorizing all the podcasts from a gluten free cooking series, then numbers (you can count to at least 200 now, probably higher but you lose interest), now you've memorized all the existing podcasts from “3 Minute Art Therapy,” and have decided you're willing to get potty trained. That one came slowly but I'm grateful that it has arrived.
I close this letter with the same prayer I have prayed for you all year. I pray “that you will continue to explore the wonderful world with eyes, heart, and mind wide open; that you keep exploring the whole range of yourself: athleticism and musicality, solemnity and exuberance, sense of humor and soulfulness; and that you live into your gentleness, trust your intuition, and embrace the adventures that await you every day.”
Love, Mama
Your birthday letter comes late this year. Your parents have been unreasonably busy. Your papa is in massage school and I am building a practice (moving to a new office) and learning a LOT. I'm learning a lot about a lot of things, but being the mom you need me to be is something I always have an antenna up for. In these last 10 months or so, the “topics” for my development as your mom have included Human Design/Manifestors and Autism.
According to Human Design, you are what is called an “Emotional Manifestor.” Your strategy is “to inform” and your life's purpose is to “initiate” - what, I don't know, but you initiate a lot. You have a powerful presence; your personality is well-defined; and your body is remarkably strong. You are visibly muscular, which I must say, I've never seen on a four year old and I swear we're not giving you steroids.
We wanted to help you to get a little more comfortable in your body and develop some more conversational communication skills, so we got you an IEP this year and you've been receiving some services that you really seem to enjoy and benefit from. There's been a need to tweak some things in order to best meet your needs, and as we've done that you have seemed to make even greater strides. Yesterday, we took you for a hard day of testing and they gave you a diagnosis of Autism. We really didn't see that coming, so we're struggling at the moment to get our footing. We're hellbent on not letting you be defined by a bunch of people who have only known you for a day. We're committed to taking what they can offer that we want for you and leaving the rest, only optimism and strengths-based assessments welcome here, thank-you very much! You are a REMARKABLE person.
If you read the definitions of a “Manifestor” and an “autistic person” you'll see that the descriptions are astonishingly similar. It's really quite remarkable! Diagnosis is intended to serve only positive purposes, but in fact, it is very often violent and diminishing, extracting from a person all the specialness and gifts that they have to offer the world. People who talk about "autism" seek to cure, fix, ... They see the person described as autistic as damaged, disabled, .... They seek "ordinary" "indistinguishable from their peers." I find that revolting. Who would want a life like that?!?!
But when people talk about raising their Manifestor child, they talk about celebrating a child's gifts, rejoicing in their child's personal power, capacity to initiate, and seemingly total freedom from co-dependence; they talk about teaching him/her to cope with an excessively controlling society, and to consider others needs when making decisions. I see that as a balanced, sane, and sustainable way to love a human being. In every school of therapy dealing with relationships, there is a core tenant - we must never seek to fix/change another person. I am in relationship with you and thus I must never seek to change or “fix” who you are. That should not be hard. You are not broken.
Autism or manifestor or something else... the words we choose speak volumes about what we believe, and the way a parent describes a child speaks volumes about who that parent believes the child to be. I choose to believe you are Daniel: the perfect, whole, unique, wild, wonderful, powerful, intense, adorable person; I am blessed and honored to parent such a soul! I welcome access to services that support our pursuit of giving you a foundation for joy. I reject any words they might use that inhibit that. I believe this may require that we forego many services, because the purveyors of those services may carry baggage you don't benefit from being asked to carry. Thus, I need to learn to hear through language, to get behind it, to find the spirit behind the words.
You remain as you have always been, compassionate and calm. You still accept limits with remarkably little difficulty, and still don't have many tantrums. We've learned not to set you up for tantrums too. One important way we do that is by making sure to let you get enough sleep; we keep our lives pretty routine. We're trying to incorporate more outside time into our whole family's weekend routines and to ensure that all the people in your caregiving/care-receiving routine are positive, non-anxious, and good for you.
There have been some areas this last year in which you have seemed to have a special interest, topics and explorations that have given you particular joy. For the first half of the year or so, these were mostly musical. You requested lots of instruments and played or played with the ones you had quite a bit (piano, guitar, recorder, violin, cello) but then you came upon an interest in memorizing all the podcasts from a gluten free cooking series, then numbers (you can count to at least 200 now, probably higher but you lose interest), now you've memorized all the existing podcasts from “3 Minute Art Therapy,” and have decided you're willing to get potty trained. That one came slowly but I'm grateful that it has arrived.
I close this letter with the same prayer I have prayed for you all year. I pray “that you will continue to explore the wonderful world with eyes, heart, and mind wide open; that you keep exploring the whole range of yourself: athleticism and musicality, solemnity and exuberance, sense of humor and soulfulness; and that you live into your gentleness, trust your intuition, and embrace the adventures that await you every day.”
Love, Mama
Birthday Letter to Daniel - Age 3: February 9, 2011
Sweet Daniel,Yesterday, you turned three! You have grown – virtually overnight, like, in the last month! – from a toddler into a little boy. Sometimes I look over, and I can already see you as a man.
You are deeply compassionate, very affectionate, calm, and never aggressive (as people so often say that boys will be). You accept limits with remarkably little difficulty, and have tantrums ONLY if your parents fell down on the job and deprived you of adequate sleep. You have very good boundaries. You say things like “Don’t hit me!” to other kids; you never hit back. You are very brave but very cautious. By this, I mean that you stare for a really long time at a tall thing before you climb it, or at a new person before you approach them. But excluding only a few challenges (selected with parental assistance and your own wisdom), you almost always make the climb or the approach. Throughout your life, you’ve rarely initiated touch with others (either affectionate or aggressive), but you’re more and more often coming to me or your Papa and just wrapping your sweet arms around us. It is bliss. Of course, you’ve always been up for sweet snuggles :-).
Your favorite word lately is “No!” – always emphatic, exclamation point required. And you adore music - singing and drumming, some piano, and you’re desperate to be big enough to hold that guitar like the grown-ups do. (That will be sooner than you think thanks to the birthday present Grandma and Grandpa are giving you)! Drawing’s not your favorite thing, but you like it well enough. You enjoy building things with lego-type toys. You still especially love crosses and of course, “Bear.” In recent developments, you LOVE playing soccer! It’s by far your favorite thing. You can entertain yourself for a really long time just kicking around the soccer ball out back. I bet the neighbors wish you’d do this wearing pants.
My prayers for you are that you will continue to explore the wonderful world with eyes, heart, and mind wide open; that you keep exploring the whole range of yourself: athleticism and musicality, solemnity and exuberance, sense of humor and soulfulness; and that you live into your gentleness, trust your intuition, and embrace the adventures that await you every day.
Love, Mama
You are deeply compassionate, very affectionate, calm, and never aggressive (as people so often say that boys will be). You accept limits with remarkably little difficulty, and have tantrums ONLY if your parents fell down on the job and deprived you of adequate sleep. You have very good boundaries. You say things like “Don’t hit me!” to other kids; you never hit back. You are very brave but very cautious. By this, I mean that you stare for a really long time at a tall thing before you climb it, or at a new person before you approach them. But excluding only a few challenges (selected with parental assistance and your own wisdom), you almost always make the climb or the approach. Throughout your life, you’ve rarely initiated touch with others (either affectionate or aggressive), but you’re more and more often coming to me or your Papa and just wrapping your sweet arms around us. It is bliss. Of course, you’ve always been up for sweet snuggles :-).
Your favorite word lately is “No!” – always emphatic, exclamation point required. And you adore music - singing and drumming, some piano, and you’re desperate to be big enough to hold that guitar like the grown-ups do. (That will be sooner than you think thanks to the birthday present Grandma and Grandpa are giving you)! Drawing’s not your favorite thing, but you like it well enough. You enjoy building things with lego-type toys. You still especially love crosses and of course, “Bear.” In recent developments, you LOVE playing soccer! It’s by far your favorite thing. You can entertain yourself for a really long time just kicking around the soccer ball out back. I bet the neighbors wish you’d do this wearing pants.
My prayers for you are that you will continue to explore the wonderful world with eyes, heart, and mind wide open; that you keep exploring the whole range of yourself: athleticism and musicality, solemnity and exuberance, sense of humor and soulfulness; and that you live into your gentleness, trust your intuition, and embrace the adventures that await you every day.
Love, Mama
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