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Words To Cope©... Words Of Encouragement...Words To Help Understand... In working with Zachary, I found specific words to be a great help for him. When frustrated, he came to use these himself to deal with frustration. For example, if something was particularly frustrating, I would always say: "it's ok...it's ok..." or "try again...", or "you can do it..." or "all done", etc. When things did not work exactly the way he wanted... for example, when a stack fell over, I would say: "it's broken" or "it's too tippy". To help him separate a part from the whole (for example - a band aid on the skin), I would say things like: "it's stuck". Again, that helped him cope with the fact that something that did not belong "was there" and that better helped him cope with the "partial" (i.e. the bandage) and helped him accept it as part of the whole... as something it was ok to have there. Using "all fixed" also helped in many, many situation. These were just simple examples of words I used that I found very helpful to Zachary... you could use them in many, many situations to help your child cope with the partial he had so much difficulty with. "Bye-bye" was another one... a word to help "complete a visit" for example... much like "all done". "All done", I found helped tremendously in going from one situation to another... helping with transitions... helping to see completion of one task and time for the next. Words like: "it's stuck" or "it's broken" were especially important to Zachary. Given his inability to cope with partiality in anything until parts were labeled and made entities in and of themselves, I could certainly understand, why these two short phrases, in particular, were among Zachary's favorite in helping him cope with stressful situations. Things that to him did not appear to belong were just “stuck” or “broken”, until they could be better explained and understood. Also - again - helping him to "understand the problem" was a great help. For example, if Zachary wanted to stack a lot of big Legos and they tipped over, I would say: "make it sturdy" and show him how to do that as I reinforced the base of his stack and said, "see, now it's study". Soon, as I kept saying "make it sturdy", the frustration pretty well went away and he could cope much more easily with the situation when the blocks tipped over. So, the key was to provide "Words To Cope©" when frustration presented itself. Other words I used were: "it's ok to be different", or "it's ok to be silly", or "let's make it different", or "let's make a funny pile", etc., ...as I showed him how to make things different, or funny, or silly, etc. Another key phrase I used was "try again". Zachary really caught on to that concept...whenever I gave him something he did not want to eat, now, he would say: "try again"... it was so funny! He did the same thing when I tried to engage him in activities he did not want to do, etc. I guess you could say that's his "favorite saying". When he could not do something on his own and needed my help, he caught on to the “you can do it” phrase I used with him… only now, he said: “you can do it, mom”. :o) I made all these simple words/phrases part of my daily vocabulary...they helped increase flexibility... and that was key! These concepts were concepts parents used everyday with their children, to various degrees, and I suspected, this also helped explain why some children coped better than others... it was all in the labeling, the use of the "right words" and in explanations (i.e., of purpose, etc.). :o) |
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