Tuesday, October 26, 2010

An Understanding of Time

Hope may not recognize her numbers or alphabet, but I am sure her difficulties do not include FASD. I have been having difficulties with my hip, and the Dad took over Hope and her physical aggression for the last three days. He used the time out chair and our big red 5 minute timed (thanks, Sherri ). As Hope is tantruming, she pulls on him the same stuff she pulls on me - trying to bite, kicking , throwing things (including the chair), name calling, spitting, etc. He deals with them differently. He does keep her from hurting him, which is easier for him then me, but her time out is based on the number of times he turns over the timer. I don't know if it is an art or a formula I just don't grasp, but during Hope's tantrum, the Dad adds on *Timers* as in "Hope you are up to three timers". After the tantrum ends, Hope needs to sit in the time out chair for as many 5 minute timers as he has said. She has earned up to 30 minutes and has completed them. She knows that 6 timers is a lot longer then 2 timers! This is still a mystery to GB- she still hasn't grasped that a single Hanna Montana show, with commercials, is a half hour, last year, now, next week. GB only has *now*, which makes it very hard to prepare her for anything. Hope knows that today always turns into tomorrow and you can communicate a rough sense of how long she will have to wait by counting *sleeps*.  She can understand around two weeks, 14 sleeps.

Hope still takes constant supervision and hasn't gone a day without a major blow up, but I think her future will be easier than GB's. RAD kids are never easy, but with a RAD kid without other medical conditions, at least you know where the problem is coming from. Since my first RADish came (1986), there is so much more identification of children with RAD and so many more treatments available. I think Hope has a bright future ahead of her.

3 comments:

Kelly said...

Future hope is a wonderful thing. Makes me smile for you and Hope.

Anonymous said...

Very good. Very nice. But not so nice about GB. My Ms A has little grasp of time, but just enough so that I could say something would happen "in a short Barney" (1/2 hour) or "a long Barney" (2 hours). She has slowly added some comprehension, but mostly has just added the vocabulary so that she can fool people who ask her silly questions like "How long has that been hurting?" or "When was the last time you saw it?". It helped a lot that she learned how to tell time, as even if she didn't understand how long the time gap was, she could tell if she'd reached the end because she does understand bigger numbers vs smaller ones. (Not sure when that understanding came in.)
Understanding of time is related to the vestibular system. Keep up the gymnastics. Play balance games. (Have you tried "Simon Says?")
Sigh. There never is enough time to do everything. Never.

Mom 4 Kids said...

I hear you - trying to bite, kicking , throwing things (including the chair), name calling, spitting, etc. Sounds very familiar!