OK so we all know that kids that eat each too much sugar can be a lot more hyperactive and aggressive. According to a number of sites and research articles this is due to a child's lower tolerance to change in sugar levels. So if, of course, a child consumes a large amount of sugar as they come down they become agitated and hyper due to an increased amount of adrenaline. With autistic kids this can mean very erratic and violent behaviour. While of course I am most certainly no expert and advise anyone reading this to do their own research into the topic I can speak of our own experiences with Seraphin and her sister. I have mentioned before about Seraphin's tendency to eat when stressed and worried. It was not until recently that put some serious steps in place to help control these urges and realise the link in extreme behaviour. Some favourites of Seraphins are, pasta, breads, chocolate, sugar (the white powdery stuff directly), dry biscuits (Clix etc...), sweet biscuits and lollies. We took the extreme step of moving ALL of these types of foods from the pantry to our walk in robe and installed a lock with key. This of course meant that in most cases the children would need to ask for a parent to unlock the walk in robe to be able to get a treat. As the walk in robe is in our bedroom this of course also meant they could not sneak midnight snacks. It took a good solid couple of weeks although after a bit of time we did notice a significant decrease in extreme behavioural out bursts from Seraphin and her younger sibling. Seraphin has also now started to not loose weight but get closer to the normal range in weight for height and age. So while there still seems to be some debate about diet among professionals, we have definitely found that a lower sugar intact and more consistent diet has improved our children's behaviour. Although I will leave it up to our readers to decide for themselves. ;) I'll leave you with the latest video from Seraphin, a speed art Rangoli. If you don't know what that is, don't worry I didn't either until I checked this video met the requirements of her Art assignment. ;)
As many readers would know we started the process of home schooling this term after the last of Seraphin's schools requested us to withdraw her after an incident. While that decision was disappointing I will say that Seraphin has been thriving in many aspects since then.
So we downloaded a number of curriculum information specifications for year 8 and started assigning work based on the Victorian curriculum. The first week or two were quite challenging trying to keep Seraphin motivated. She refused to do the work and when looking deeper... She was bored. So we decided to allow Seraphin to try Year 9 maths and science.
Homeschooling made the change easy and Seraphin quickly got into work. The challenge was to keep her focused during the day as she loves her computer games. As we did last year we decided to use computer time as a reward for completing objectives.
Microsoft's Family Safety settings in Windows 8 and 10 allow you to do this quite simply. She has 1 hour per day unlimited access. When she finishes her work she sends of the completed work to me and then puts a request in for more time. I can then click a link in an email from anywhere that I am and give her access.
Here is what we learnt from the experience:
Set clear goals for each day
Make sure subjects work is clear defined. Such as Questions 1-5 on pg 53
Set clear rewards for when that work is complete.
e.g. An extra 2 hours when work is complete
Plan a weeks worth of work at a time
Don't overwhelm them
Her first science assessment was to choose an experiment and follow experiment planning method. She of course chose to do it as YouTube video as seen on the previous post.
... It All Falls in a Heap! But there are things to learn from failure... (One of my favourite sayings) Well this is one of those posts that is part rant, part sharing some learning's. Since my last post we have had some great positives but this post is based on the last challenging week.... So to some background and a little rant. After a few hiccups at Seraphin's 2015 school we decided to change schools for the last term. The first term at the new school went swimmingly. The school implemented all the tools we discussed including the bracelet strategy and a some devices used for comfort and listening to music (including some headphones that she wore everywhere, mainly around the neck). Due to this team work she felt comfortable and had a reasonably good term 4 in 2015 making a couple of new friends and flying ahead in academics. Things were looking fantastic....
The new school year started and things were looking great again. Famous last words.... A new teacher had started at the school. The problem being that the teacher wasn't aware of a number of tools implemented the previous year as comfort mechanisms such as the headphones and music. Unfortunately the teacher tried to take the items from Seraphin and well those with any experience in our world would know what happened next... Suffice it to say, Seraphin is no longer at the school, 2 weeks into the new school year. Now, dont get me wrong I don't blame the teacher, I did at first, although after some investigation we found that the comfort items were not listed in the individual learning plan (ILP). She wasn't to know, but was this fair for Seraphin?
Now I'm not going to answer that question in the post as you can well imagine what we think the answer is. I would to discuss the learning's that we as parents took from this experience. Get a copy of your childs ILP. Don't expect the school to send you a copy. Demand a copy to ensure it is kept up to date. Ensure the ILP is kept up to date. Again don't expect the school to keep it up to date. We had found that school B was using information from an assessment completed 4 years prior not actual information given via email or verbally by the parents. We also found that they didn't update Seraphin's ILP until after the incident that caused the school to ask us to withdraw her. Include Your Professional Support in the plan. One thing we had trouble grappling with at the start was allowing the school to contact our child's support services for guidance. Unfortunately this does seem to be required. We have found that if schools do not specifically have information and strategies written by professionals they wont implement it. Why not trust parents? I guess our advice as parents doesn't cover them for insurance/litigation. Now a question to the readers. Is home schooling an option?
