The Mom I Want to Know

  I'm sitting at IBH (Integrated Behavioral Health) this morning with my oldest daughter, waiting for an appointment with our 3rd new psychiatrist in the past year. On the table of the IBH waiting room is a table full of celebrity magazines. Kim Kardashian stares up at me and the cover article invites me to take an inside look at her life. I look up to see a young boy, probably about 10 or so years-old (my daughter's age) come out of the office and close the door behind him. He has on wide-rimmed glasses and something about him, his lovable quirkiness, makes me wonder if he is on the spectrum like my baby. His mom asks him how his session went, then she gets up to go see when she should bring him back. I can't hear the receptionist's answer, but they must not need to come back for awhile because the mom smiles at her kid and says, "Well, you must be doing good, then. Way to go!" Something about this simple exchange makes me want to know this mom- to become her friend and see how she is navigating not only the already murky waters of raising a pre-teen, but raising one who has the need to see a psychiatrist for whatever reason (ADHD, Asperger's, whatever). I want to say, "You must be doing good too, mom. Way to go!", because I know it's tough. It's tough, not only watching your kid struggle, but also tough not knowing how to help them, especially when you have to maneuver through the hoops and red tape of insurance policies, ever-changing doctor, and waiting lists. This particular mom seemed to be doing this dance well and SHE is the mom whose life I want an inside view of. Not Kim Kardashian with her millions and her paid help. I want to know how this mom copes with having more than she can possibly do in one day and still raise a kid who needs a little extra from her just to grow up and be "normal". I want to know this mom and tell her she absolutely rocks in the way I want to rock. She's a rockstar mom, the kind I want to know, and being a rockstar mom is way better than being Kim Kardashian, and I guarantee it pays way better- just not in a tangible way. 

   

Backward Chaining

One of the most dreaded tasks here at the Wright house has long been the nightly bathing of our girl-child. It has been a major source of frustration for us all. Not only does she hate having to do it (she gets frustrated and quickly loses focus), but it falls at the worst time: the end of the day when everyone is tired from school and work and we are rushing to get everyone fed and bathed, homework done and lunches packed before bedtime while the baby has reached her fussy time and is screaming, causing the dog to start barking and me to want to throw in the towel and move us all to France where we can just splash on the eau de toilet and say to heck with frequent bathing. The easier thing to do is to just bathe her myself, letting her play under the water while I do all the scrubbing and rinsing. But since one of the main points of parenting is to prepare our little ducklings for life on their own, and since I know she is capable of self-care, she has to learn at somepoint snd with the arrival of her baby sister, so came that point. However, we soon found that the harder we pushed her, the more frustrated she (and in turn, we) became and bathtime only got worse, typically ending in her breaking down and her dad or I having to finish bathing her. I mentioned our dilemma to our beloved Dr. Le during one session and she recommended we try something called backward chaining. Basically, it just means breaking down a process into steps and teaching the steps from last to first, one at a time, before moving back to the next step, so that each attempt ends successfully, building confidence with experience. Since each attempt ends on a positive note with praise, the dreaded task becomes less dreaded for all.  Here's how we applied the theory of backward chaining to shower time. 

We broke shower time down into 12 steps. (Looking back now, we probably should have added "get into shower" and maybe reversed steps 1 & 2, but oh well.) 

Having the list written on the shower wall in bathtub crayon (washes off with a little scrubbing) has helped tremendously as my girl-child is a visual learner and also because it takes away the stress of "what comes next?" and helps her to stay focused.

 The first night, I did the first 11 steps for her and then had her turn the water off (step 12). I praised her big and she was proud that she had done well. The next night, I completed the first 10 steps for her and then she rinsed t & b (tootie & booty [step 11]), turned off the water (step 12) and received another big praise. "Hey, this isn't so hard!," we started thinking. We will continue this process, adding in one step each night, until she is doing it all on her own. We were advised to wait until we had mastered just the shower (keep things as simple as possible!) before we made a whole new backward chaining process for the "after shower" tasks of drying off, combing hair, etc. 

 To keep up with our progress and add in motivational rewards along the way , we made the chart below (I'm obviously no artist but it serves its purpose).

We drew the chart in timeline fashion and we work our way back from right to left. After she completes each step, she gets to "take ownership" of it's completion by drawing a picture of choice (checkmark, smiley , etc.) in the box for that step. After each few steps, there is a reward. After the first 5 steps were mastered, we had "UNO Night at the Wright House". After mastering the next 3 steps, she got her choice of a toy, bowling or Zen-Beri yogurt. (Last week was insanely busy so we will have our Zen-Beri date this week and then fill in that box as right now she's still owed that reward.) We are now only 2 steps away from her doing it all by herself. Tonight, I will just turn the water on for her (step 1) and she will do the rest. While I may still have to give her some verbal cues along the way, I will give those less and less each shower as I also reduce my physical proximity during the shower. I've started leaving the room instead of hovering over her and just sticking my head in at times to make sure she is still on task. She will earn a park play date with ice cream for herself and a friend when she completes all 12 steps on her own and when she does the whole shower process on her own 4 times (without verbal cues), she gets the big doozie reward of a trip to her choice of water park. 

 So far, this process has helped us tremendously and I have been excited to share because while it seems so simple now, I never would have thought of it on my own. She no longer goes straight into, "I can't do it"-meltdown mode because she has already done everything  except the 1 new task for the night and she knows it will be a simple one. If we do have trouble with a step, we just try it again the next night and don't get upset about it. The main thing to remember is to keep it positive!

What's Up With the Name?

Welcome to the I am the Mom-Bomb.com Blog. In this first issue we will address some basic questions that should be asked of any blog:

1. Why did you decide to start this blog?

2. What is the blog going to be about?

3. What's up with the name?

4. Do you really think you are the "Mom-Bomb.com"?

Let's start by answering question #1. Easy answer: All my friends were getting a blog and I wanted one, too. Really. That's pretty much it.

#2. What am I going to blog about? Mostly my kids, our life and the projects and we do. A more appropriate name for this blog might have been, "Life for Idiots", because I feel like that's my basic skill level when it comes to teaching anything about life. So, maybe I should say it's going to be about the trials and errors of raising a child on the autism spectrum and her little sister. We will learn together as we go because as they say, "If you know one kid with autism, you know one kid with autism." Kids on the spectrum are all so very different and they forget to give us a roadmap when they give us their diagnosis. So, we try this, try that, have some fun as we go, and apparently write a blog about it. For future blogs, I plan on sharing some ideas that have helped tremendously with getting the girl-child as I will affectionately call her (we also have the fur-baby -although the girl-child will be quick to tell you that poodles have hair, not fur, and the Tooter-baby [yes, she will hate me for that name later in life]) to bathe herself and brush her teeth, two things I hope parents of atypical children do not take for granted because in our world, it's like climbing Mt. Everest at times. We have also done some fun Pinterest projects I want to share as well as some oh-so-yummy but easy treats.

3. What's up with the name? I am the mom.com was taken. The girl-child (as you will see she is extremely bright and witty) helped me come up with the name.

4. Do I really think I am the Mom-Bomb.com? Absolutely, not. As already indicated, I realize that I have no clue what I am doing the majority of the time. All I really know how to do is love my babies with all I have and "keep on swimming" which brings me to another main purpose of this blog: to remind us all that sometimes, even when you feel like a total L-7 weenie, confused and lost as all get-out, you still have to pull it together, pull your shoulders back, chin up, (maybe even look in the mirror all Stuart Smalley-like) and tell yourself, "I am the Mom-Bomb.com" (or something similar) and just do the best you can.

I am looking forward to sharing this adventure of life and all it's wackiness with you. Hopefully, you'll run across something you can use or atleast learn what I have: God always knows what we need. For me, it was a child who needed me just a little bit more. As I try to teach her, she daily teaches me more!

With my loves (thanks to Allyson Holliday for the photography!)

The Hair-not fur-Baby and the Tooter-Baby:

The Girl-Child: