Category Archives: Twice Exceptional
Spring Break?
This week is Spring Break for the girls, which is sort of like a vacation for me too. The treadmill slows down a bit. I don’t have to crack the whip and get Lily out the door to school at the break of dawn. I don’t have to worry so much about getting homework done every night. But I am still concerned that there’s schoolwork she’s supposed to be working on this week. She doesn’t think she does, but you never know. Plus, I feel like she must still have makeup work to do from her sick days 2 weeks ago.
Lily stayed home from school 3 days because she was sick. Of course, I was instantly worried about her falling behind in school. I emailed her teachers to get her assignments and then I looked in her backpack. Big mistake.
Of course, the backpack is stuffed full because she brings EVERYTHING home EVERY night, so she won’t forget anything. But there’s also a big, messy stack of loose papers in there and that makes me wonder which ones are assignments past due because she forgot to turn them in and which ones are assignments she’s supposed to be working on, but has forgotten about. I need to sit down and go through it with her. She told me she thought she was caught up, but the online parent portal still has her missing assignments. Lily doesn’t really seem to know.
That’s one of the hardest part of helping her. I want to be able to prompt her and support her in remembering until she learns and develops the Executive Function skills to do that herself, but I never really know what’s going on with her school assignments and neither does she. We–Lily, the school and I, have just not been able to come up with a system yet that works for her. She gets frustrated and discouraged because organizational systems are imposed on her and they don’t seem to work. She also feels that accepting help and using tools to support her organization means that people are once again trying to ‘fix’ her.
Of course, she has the same planner that all her classmates have, but it’s blank. Lily hates writing in it. I think that’s pretty common with these kinds of kids. She tries to keep it all in her head. I try to encourage her to use Google calendar or other digital tools, since I’m guessing that’s what she’ll use eventually, but nothing has worked so far.
It’s hard to scaffold the support of her Executive Functioning at school when we don’t have a system in place. I suppose it takes trial and error, after all, there are adults who have yet to find an ideal system. But I think this piece of her twice exceptional school career is going to be huge for her.
Next week is Lily’s annual IEP review meeting. I’m supposed to bring my thoughts on her goals for next year. Organization is at the top of my list. After her success in 6th grade this year, we know that she’s learning. Her scores on the acuity tests that predict her performance on state assessment tests increased dramatically this year. She’s getting very good scores on her quizzes and tests in class. But she’s still struggling and doing poorly getting assignments turned in. That’s hard to watch when I know that she has really learned the material.
Next year, the demands on Lily’s Executive Functioning skills are only going to increase and that has me concerned. She’s going to need more support and scaffolding to be successful and that’s what I hope to address at next week’s IEP meeting.
Queen of Jeggings
Reading a post from CaffeinatedAutismMom on the SPDNetwork.com called ‘Meltdowns Happen’, brought back memories of just a few lovely Lily freak outs, most of them because she was unable to control her emotional response to sensory overload. Didn’t realize that until later, but looking back, it’s obvious.
Of course, as an infant, I remember her crying and crying at the slightest noise, or, as a toddler, crying when the trash truck honked its horn, running away from her Daisy Scouts meeting in Kindergarten because it was too chaotic and loud, holding her hands over her ears and shaking during school events in the gymnasium, hating the school bus because it was so loud, getting out of the pool and refusing to participate during swim team tryouts because, again, too loud and chaotic.
We figured out pretty early that Lily was sensitive to noise. But, it wasn’t until 2nd grade or so that we realized she liked soft clothing. In 4th grade, she refused to wear jeans anymore and I had to search out soft pants with an adjustable waist. She had one shirt she loved to wear and I figured out that it was Modal fiber, which IS very soft. In 5th grade, when I asked her why she always pulled a hoodie up over her head, Lily told me that it blocked the bright overhead lights at school, muffled loud sounds and made her feel good. Now that she’s in 6th grade, Lily has become the Queen of Jeggings. They’re perfect for her sensory needs. Soft, skinny, tight and of course, stylish.
Now that she’s 11, Lily’s meltdowns (in public anyway) are few and far between. Occupational Therapy has helped and so has daily movement. Lily’s learned coping skills. She’s learned to advocate for herself and she regulates her emotions better now. Sometimes she’ll remove herself from a situation when she realizes it’s making her uncomfortable. We’re still always on the lookout for triggers though and so are her teachers and the friends and family who know her. Sometimes just warning her that an event might be loud is enough. Now, if she does end up in a loud and chaotic situation, her discomfort usually shows up as irritability or agitation.
This topic of sensory sensitivities also made me think of an interview I did with Jeffrey Freed. He’s an educational therapist and the co-author of the book, ‘Right-Brained Children in a Left-Brained World.’ He’s also what you would call Twice Exceptional. He talks about his sensory issues as an adult and a child.
Xbox Kinect as a Sensory Tool?
Because both of my 2E girls have sensory issues, their OT suggests that it would be a good idea for them to do some sort of movement before school in the morning. The benefits of just a few minutes of activity are supposed to last for hours, helping them to be organized, calm and focused at school.
It’s been hard in the winter just getting them out of the house in the dark and cold, so I thought that the Xbox Kinect might be a good way to tempt them into moving in the mornings.
We purposely never had any kind of gaming device, because we knew that our girls would get hooked. But when we thought about the sensory benefits and the fact that I could use it to workout in the mornings at home, we decided to buy one. So far, it’s been a great success.
There seem to be lots of games that require left/right coordination which will be great for Zoolander’s bi-lateral confusion. Seems to be a good workout for all of us too… and the best part is that Zoolander, at least, has been rushing to get ready for school in the morning so she’ll have free-time to play. Sweet.
Peanut Butter in the Bathtub
Living with a twice exceptional kid who has ADHD & Executive Functioning difficulties means that many times the final step of any process is never completed. Toilet is never flushed. Bath never drained. Milk sitting out. Medicine bottles without lids. This gets more exaggerated when Lily has a friend over.
Lily doesn’t have a lot of close friends. Her best friend moved away when she was 2nd grade and she still hasn’t gotten over it. Her old BFF was the perfect partner for Lily—calm, organized and wise. Lily hasn’t found anyone to take her place. But there’s a girl who lives nearby who often asks Lily to play.
She is similar to Lily in some ways… she can be unfocused, but is very creative. I like that they play in an age-appropriate, creative, imaginative way. It’s never about boys, clothes, makeup or cell phones. They climb trees, ice skate, build forts and invent craft projects.
This girl spent the night recently and the two of them made a path through the house, strewn with their creative projects, which I only discovered later. I was out of the picture because I tweaked my back earlier in the day and was stuck laying down, waiting out the muscle spasms. Little did I know what was going on upstairs. I should have guessed.
The next morning, I was bummed to see that it looked like a tornado had gone through the house. The dining room table was covered with their art project that involved a hot glue gun, toothpicks and paint. They had made pancakes and there was pool of syrup in the microwave, a plate of half-eaten pancakes on the floor, and a glass of syrup stuck to the stovetop. There were costumes all over the living room floor and in the office, tape, scissors and glue sticks were spilled out of a drawer. The final straw came when I went to take a bath, which I thought would be easier on my back, and found a ring of something disgusting in the tub. Turns out it was peanut butter. Of course.
The girls apparently had a ‘spa’ in the bathroom. Their crusty bowl of peanut butter and chocolate was still on the bathroom counter.
On one hand, I admire their creativity, but on the other, I was furious The house was spotless 2 days ago, because I splurged and had a cleaning person come in. Now, it was trashed again.
Not that she doesn’t make messes constantly anyway, but when Lily has a friend over, she becomes so focused on playing that she thinks of nothing else. She doesn’t stop to think things through. Lily was so pre-occupied with having fun with her friend that it didn’t occur to her that giving each other peanut butter-chocolate facials was probably not such a good idea. Cleaning up her messes doesn’t even cross her mind.
I brought this up with Dr. K in our session with him this week. As soon as I started, Lily began to get angry and defensive. Dr. K stopped her and asked her to listen to what I had to say without getting emotional. They’ve been working on this a lot lately and Lily is getting much better at controlling her emotional response to criticism.
Dr. K tells her to put a ‘mellow bubble’ around herself when she listens. He also tells her she has to learn that it’s okay for people to get upset with her when she makes mistakes. If she doesn’t use the tools she has and makes a mistake that affects other people, they will get upset with her and she needs to apologize and try to do better next time. All good lessons for ADHD folks, who sometimes go through life with people upset with them for being late, forgetting things and making messes.
As far as the slumber party mess-making, Dr. K reminded Lily about one of his mantras for ADHD kids.. DO IT NOW. I think Lily usually intends to clean up her messes ‘later’ but then she forgets.
His other advice for ADHD kids—SAME WAY EVERY TIME, an attempt to create routine and reduce forgetfulness.
It was a great discussion and Lily is making huge strides in controlling her emotions, but I don’t think there’s an end to the mess-making anytime soon.
Brainhugger 