Friday 10 June 2016

Relaxing the Rules

We're had another Good Day today.

Terrible nights sleep again for all of us last night what with hayfever and the heat, so we had quite a chilled morning.  I let the kids watch a bit of telly (I think giving them a gradual transition from holidays back to working is making for much calmer, happier kids...)  

After they'd watched their fill (less than an hour!) - they turned off and just went about their own pursuits.  DS went outside to try and make a bow and arrow, and DD settled down at the table to work on her project about Egypt for her Geography Study Group this month. She has decided to do it on tourism in Egypt so spent some time researching and pulling together her project on that, ready for her presentation at the group.

We packed away around lunch time, and as the shopping had been delivered that morning, we decided (DS's idea) to make fruit kebabs -



So much fun, and delicious as well :-) 

My kids always find it difficult to manage any transitions, so even just something simple and fun like making and eating fruit kebabs took over an hour to settle and reset.  It was easier with DS than DD - she cannot self regulate at all and takes any level of excitement or pleasure to the absolute extreme.  It took about 4 times of saying the same thing, until eventually I had to step in and ask her to spend time in her room until we were ready to go to the park.  DS on the other hand, sat and made this lovely picture of a Tiki statue while he was waiting - 



And it gave me a good idea about a possible aid to help her more with everyday transitions (meal times for example are different - after every meal time DD will throw herself around and act impulsively, probably a reaction to sitting 'contained' for a period of time, plus the surge of energy she gets from eating..) Anyway, I will work on that and share it in a future post :-)

Once I was ready we decided took our bikes over to a nice quiet park we sometimes go to.  We nearly always have it to ourselves if we go during the week and the kids love to have free reign in the skate park while I can use the Urban Gym equipment.  Really nice to not just be sitting around while they play, but actually being able to do something myself too -


When they'd had enough bike riding, they turned their attentions to the long jump!


It's so nice having the freedom on these nice days, to just take off to a park and enjoy the open spaces together.  Especially because one of the biggest things DS struggles with are crowds and noise, DD too (though she'd never admit it!) :-) 

And then we came home to read a few Greek Myths together - Pandora's Box, King Midas, Arachne the Spider and The Minotaur.

A Good Day :-)

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