Substitution: Out Goes Sameness In Goes Daring Action

FROM SIMONE - In many team sports when a team is struggling to equalize a match or needs to win a game, the coach will make a substitution, he will try new tactics, bring new people in, do something it hasn't been done before.

The Son-Rise Program is as dynamic as a team sport. Although we have a Social Curriculum and the Developmental Model to help us pinpoint where our children are at the moment and the next step we could take, sometimes we need to, just like a coach would, change the tactics and shake the game up.

Most of us would like our children to be more varied in their activities of choice, eat a more varied diet or choose different toys but have you stopped to look at your own actions? How many times we eat exactly the same dishes, bought in the same shops, or cooked in the same way, play the same games with our children and so on?

If we are daring our children to change we need to change first and changing means not just willing to change, sure that is important, but really dare to take action.

In our Program, we have just been concentrating in potty training while the weather is warm and we realized that we haven't heard many new words. Words have been repetitive and we have been joining as you normally do with repetitive and exclusive speech. I however during a feedback session realized that although Thiago's speech was repetitive he was being interactive, looking at the volunteer, being playful and she was interacting with him but joining his speech. I then got everyone together and suggested that we for a moment forgot there was such a thing as vocal isms and every time Thiago opened his mouth we celebrated, gave him something, did something and the results were dramatic.

If there is an area in your Program that needs shaking up don't wait for tomorrow there's no time like the present, observe and just dare to do it differently as they always repeat in the training courses: If you do what you've always done you will get what you've always got.

What are you going to do differently in your Program today? I think I'll wait 5 seconds longer for a response when I make a request than I usually do and see what happens! Create an intention every time you go in the playroom and experiment you never know what could happen!