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Words To Cope©... Words Of Encouragement...Words To Help Understand... There are many words that I found really helped Zachary to cope. These include words dealing with the concept of partiality (see fractions info) and words that teach quantity. But, there are other words as well that are very very helpful to Zachary in helping him cope. In working with Zachary, I found specific words to be a great help for him. When frustrated, he came to use these himself to deal with frustration. For example, if something was particularly frustrating, I'd always say: "it's ok...it's ok..." or "try again...", or "you can do it..." or "all done", etc. When things didn't work exactly the way he wanted... for example, when a stack fell over, I'd say: "it's broken" or "it's too tippy". To help him separate a part from the whole (for example - a band aid on the skin), I'd say things like: "it's stuck". Again, that helped him cope with the fact that something which did not belong "was there" and that could better help him cope with the "partial" (i.e. the band-aid) and help him accept it as part of the whole... as something it was ok to have there. Using "all fixed" also helped in many many situation. These are just simple examples of words I used that I found very helpful to Zachary... you can use them in many many situations to help your child cope with the partial s/he has so much difficulty with. "Bye bye" was another one... a word to help "complete a visit" for example... much like "all done". "All done", I found helped tremendously in going from one situation to another... helping with transitions... helping to see completion of one task and time for the next. Words like: "it's stuck" or "it's broken" were a tremendous help to Zachary. Given his inability to cope with partiality in anything until parts are labeled and made entities in and of themselves, I can certainly understand, why these two short phrases, in particular, were among Zachary's favorite in helping him cope with stressful situations. Also - again - helping him to "understand the problem" was also a great help. For example, if Zachary wanted to stack a lot of big Legos and they tipped over, I'd say: "make it sturdy" and show him how to do that as I reinforced the base of his stack and said, "see, now it's study". Soon, as I kept saying "make it sturdy", the frustration pretty well went away and he could cope much more easily with the situation when the blocks tipped over. So, the key is to provide "Words To Cope©" when frustration presents itself. Other words I use are: "it's ok to be different", or "it's ok to be silly", or "let's make it different", or "let's make a funny pile", etc., ...and show him how to make things different, or funny, or silly, etc. Another key phrase I use is "try again". Zachary really caught on to that concept...whenever I give him something he doesn't want to eat, now, he'll say: "try again"... it is so funny! He does the same thing when I try to engage him in activities he doesn't want to do, etc. I guess you could say that's his "favorite saying". I made all these simple words/phrases part of my daily vocabulary...they helped increase flexibility... and that is key! These concepts are concepts parents use everyday with their children, to various degrees, and I suspect, this also helps explain why some kids cope better than others... it's all in the labeling and the use of the "right words". :o) |
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