I’ve had people ask me about Elizabeth
How do new things for the future or keep pushing her to achieve?
Truly, she pushes herself at this point but I do keep looking for things that could enrich her world.
After I think of something she and I talk it through and if she is good with it we can pursue it.
The elderly
A term Elizabeth learned and borrowed from a famous show on Nickelodeon years ago.
Truth is one of her loves, has been working with the elderly as well as with children and cooking.
We have worked on skills to have her be successful in all of those areas but with COVID , it was hard because we could not arrange work time or volunteer time with elderly.
But just this past Sunday, she did get the chance.
She worked in an assisted living facility as a volunteer.
She worked and passed out ice cream treats to the participants who had just done an activity.
It took a bit of work for us to have her get to this point of volunteering. Since we needed to communicate all the wonderful parts and pieces of Elizabeth to the activity director. You know, how she works, her disorders, things she is great at and things she would rather not do.
Then she interviewed Elizabeth
Then we picked an event off of the calendar!
She was excited, I was excited
And like clockwork, Elizabeth got anxious
Really it was her sensory processing disorder showing itself again.
That SPD, shows itself in times where there is a new thing even if she wants to do it, SPD will still be there and come out of hiding.
So we kept talking about it and she ended up doing a wonderful job.
She loved it actually and they all loved her.
But in the throes of her anxiety, I am glad we know who she is and how she works.
Because we can offer things to her to take her anxiety down.
For Elizabeth she loves vibrating pillows. There are many kinds of these pillows available.
She will sit and hug a pillow and listen to some therapy music. And it calms her system.
She will talk to me about her feelings.
She can use an emotions chart that has faces on it to help her share how she feels if she can’t quite get the words out.
And close to the day of the event we try to keep demands on her pretty low.
But the truth is, sometimes she just has to get there to feel better.
She just has to get in and get started to see it is all okay and that she is good and really, to see just how amazing she is.
That goes for so many of our children, sometimes they actually just have to get there to see that this new thing will actually all be okay.
So now, after the success, she can volunteer when she wants and I know there’ll be no anxiety.
And yes , I am blessed to be able to keep looking for these new things for her and keep her world growing and keep the push going.
I am blessed that she wants to do these new things and keep exploring new things. Stressful or not to her!
She is really worth it all. A sentiment that I am sure you feel about your child.
See you next month