From Katrina: Did that title encourage you to read my blog? I love celebrations, and wanna know a secret? I love to be celebrated, come on, be honest who doesn't? Hearing someone tell me how great a job I did is a big motivator for me to do more of the same. And do you want to know something else? Its a big motivator for my husband too, this amazing man makes me breakfast almost every morning, his breakfast burritos are soo good, of course I have to tell him. Even though he makes me breakfast every day, I always thank him...he loves to hear it and it works for me. The more I celebrate my husband the more likely he is to make me another burrito tomorrow.
This is the same with our children. They are autistic, this essentially means that they have a hard time relating - looking, talking, attending; thus-every time they do this they are overcoming a barrier to be with us. This is amazing!!!! Celebrating our children acknowledges that have made an effort towards being with us. Often times when children have advanced into higher stages, parents or volunteers drop the celebrations, why? Does it stop being exciting that our children are relating to us? I hope not. Are we no longer wanting to encourage them to continue to look or talk? I doubt it. Therefore celebrations are key in any stage of development.
Here at the Autism Treatment Center of America we really want every child to know how amazing we think they are. We celebrate as much as we can (its so funny too because my friends are often celebrating my 7 month old baby's eye contact- she really is a great looker though:) ) I really encourage you to tell your child frequently how great you think they are, and add in a celebration from me too!
I think you all are fantastic for celebrating your children!
Love,
Katrina
Katrina,
ReplyDeletethanks for the reminder. Both of my elementary school age kids are neurotypical, but I spend a lot of time in SonRise play rooms, and so I often find myself a bit pleasantly shocked when my own kids look me in the eye while using full paragraphs to tell me things and so forth. Sometimes I slip into celebrating things that are really easy for them, and they find this a bit funny, and kind of gently mock me with my own words "Nice looking at me, dad!". I am *so* profoundly grateful to get to hang out so much in SonRise playrooms. It makes my whole life so full of celebration, joy, amazement, wonder.