Saturday Oct. 23, 1999. 10:00 am — 12:00 PM

I think this week overall went pretty well. I have to admit it was a little more difficult for me, due to the fact that I had a limited amount of sleep the previous night. I suppose this was a ‘good learning opportunity’ because obviously parents of human exceptional children have off days, and they have to deal with them the same as other days.

I’ll start out again by describing the affective part of the visit. I think the more time I spend hanging out with Zach and Devereaux, the more attached I get to them. We played duck, duck, goose this week, and it was a lot of fun. Zach still can’t run, so when ever he or I were picked to be the goose, I grabbed him under one of my arms, and we went tearing off after Dev. Not only did we both enjoy the experience, but I got a free work out at no extra charge.

Zach is a fun kid to hang around. He is almost always happy and laughing. One of his favorite games to play is the ‘no laugh’ game. He will start laughing and I will tell him that there is no laughing allowed. Of course this inspires him to laugh more, and the cycle continues.

I think I’ll move on to the behavior form of reflection. Besides the obvious getting more sleep before a visit, I’m not sure I have a lot of insight on what I would change to improve the process. I think things are going well; I’m having fun, and the boys are having fun.

Now it’s time for the cognitive form of reflection. In class we talked about behavior issues. This is an interesting topic for me. When I was teaching Zach in church, I felt that I was dealing with a lot of behavior problems. It was really hard to ‘control’ Zach in the given environment. The more I interact with Zach now, the less I think that he has behavior problems. As I said earlier, he is a happy kid, and he really does want to remain that way. However, he has a lot of energy, and in a church environment, energy isn’t always what is considered appropriate.

It’s interesting to see the differences in behavior between Zach and Devereaux. When Zach doesn’t get what he wants, (which isn’t too often in this environment), he’ll start to cry or talk in an angry tone of voice. But it’s really easy to find a solution that will make it better. For example, he’ll be mad because it’s not his turn to take a picture. But I tell remind him that it will be his turn after Devereaux takes one picture, and he is once again content.

Devereaux on the other hand, is perfectly willing to stay angry. He will insist that he isn’t going to go to the park, or he isn’t going to tie his shoes, or he isn’t going to pick up his toys. It’s a lot more difficult to reason with him.

I’m really grateful that Zach is such a good kid. I have a lot of respect for others who care for children that both have exceptional traits and behavior issues.


Saturday November 30, 1999 10:00 am — 12:00 PM

I’ll jump right in today with the affective form of reflection. Zach did one of the coolest things this week, and I’ve been telling all of my family and friends about it because I think it is so great. Zach and I were waiting for Dev to finish getting ready, and Zach wanted to show me his somersault. So he said, "Sister May watch me, watch me." I told him that I was watching, and then he did a perfect somersault. Following his achievement, he instructed me to clap my hands. I clapped my hands and cheered, and then in a very low, controlled, sophisticated voice, he said, "Thank you <pause> Thank you <pause> Thank You <pause>." Then in his normal voice he started the cycle again with "Watch me, watch me." It was great.

We went to the park again this week, and luckily there weren’t a lot of people there, because Zach and Dev discovered that if they shouted really loud, that there was an echo caused by the side of the building. Their favorite thing to shout was "Somebody ate my toes". I’m not sure what the significance of that statement was, but it was neat to see them explore the best volume for causing an echo.

I feel like skipping over the behavior form of dimension, because I don’t know as if I have anything really relevant to say about it. However, I will try to make some sort of connection. I think it’s important that the environment stays positive. Zach and Dev are in school 5 days a week, and I really don’t want to make spending time with me to do my homework turn into a chore for them. This being said, I think it’s good that we are able to spend so much time in the park, which is still a pleasant thing for them to do. In fact Devereaux was sad because pretty soon it would be winter and then we wouldn’t have anything to do. I told him that he was right. It would be too cold to just play at the park so we would be forced to do things like make snowmen and go sledding. I guess maybe he decided that scenario wouldn’t be so horrible after all.

The last form of reflection is that of cognitive. I think that maybe I forgot to write down the journal entry question for this week, or maybe I just got off a week on my writing. So instead I think I will talk a little bit about what we’ve been talking about in class, about hearing and sight impairments.

If Zach were blind or hearing impaired in addition to his current exceptionalities, life would be a lot more difficult for me. I don’t know sign language, and communication might prove more difficult. However, I think regardless of the impairments, I would still go visit, and we would find things that Zach could do, and we would have a good time. I don’t think there are many things you could do to Zach that would keep him down and I think that he would find a way to make the situation brighter.

 

Saturday November 6, 1999 10:00 am — 12:00 PM

Starting with the affective form of reflection, this week was another fun week. I showed up on Zach’s doorstep and he was truly delighted to see me there. It ‘s such a great feeling to feel love from little kids. However, Dev made sure that I was brought back down to earth by shouting, "You can tell Sister May I’m not going to the park today". Apparently he was in the middle of watching a show, and that would have to take first priority.

We had a lot of fun at the park when we got there. Along with going on the swings and the usual activities, we also got into a nice leaf fight (which I definitely won :)

As well, there were some other children at the park, and I found it very interesting to see how Zach interacted with them. Zach and Dev were on the swings and there were three girls swinging on the bars. Zach and Dev cheered them on, saying things like "do it again, do it again", and "one more time". The girls really liked the attention, and when we ran into them later on, when they were playing on the stage in the park, they asked if Zach and Dev could play with them. I agreed, and they sang Rudolf the Red Nose Reindeer, and played Ring around the Rosy. Also there was one point in time when Zach grabbed one of the girls hands and they walked together across the stage. The other girls cooed and said "o, how cute". (I should point out that the girls were several years older than Zach and Dev). I really like to see other children treating Zach as a normal kid, because that’s really what he is.

Next I’ll move onto the behavior form of reflection. Now that I think about it, maybe there is something that I should strive to do more. Especially in the last couple of weeks I’ve kind of eased up on trying to be a teacher figure. Although I still bring my camera, and the boys still are taking pictures, I haven’t been designing visits so that they are learning about how the camera is working and so forth. Even though I really enjoy hanging out with them, and even though I feel that good things are coming from it, it would be nice if they could take something new away from the experience.

I’ll finish with the cognitive form of reflection. This week we talked a lot about other health impairments. I’ve recently had first hand experience of that with Zach. I admit it does add a lot of difficulty. It’s a lot better now that Zach is walking. I remember those first couple of weeks were I was continually having to be aware of our circumstances and whether or not it was wheelchair accessible and whether or not Zach was going to get hurt again, and on and on and on. I think the more impairment a child has, the more difficult it becomes in caring for the child. However, I think in those situations, as I said earlier, you do what you have to do. I would make the accommodations if necessary, and find ways in which Zach could still have a fun time. It would take more planning and more energy, but it could be done.