Observe your child

From Kate Wilde: In the spirit of this new year and decade, see your children on the Autism spectrum a new today. So much of our life with our children is caught up in doing. Either caring for your child's many physical needs, keeping them clean, warm and save. Or actively playing with them, whether it is joining them in their "isms" or responding to their many questions, or playing rough and tumble with them. That we can sometimes lose sight of really seeing them for who they are today.

Here at the Autism Treatment Center of America not only do we spend time playing 1:1 with the children, but we spend time observing a child play with another person. This gives us time to really see who this child is, how they are responding to different situations without having to respond as well.

Find 20 minutes this week, to really observe your child, this could be when they are playing with your partner or another family member, or if you are running a Son-Rise Program with one of your volunteers.

Look for what they are enjoying, do they respond more when the person they are playing with talks loudly or softly. Do they look more when the person has big gestures, what object do they play with the most. Often times when we give feedback to our volunteers we are looking more closely at the volunteer, in this case reverse it and seek to learn more about your child.

Enjoy observing your beautiful children!

with love

Kate