Day 4- Therapy

Today is the first opportunity for me to blog about therapy. To be quite honest with you, it will be blogged about quite a bit. He goes twice a week for up to three hours at a time. Occupational and Speech both days and on Wednesdays he has Feeding Group.

I have to pick him up from school early which presents us with our first challenge. As a boy who THRIVES and I do mean THRIVES on routine, leaving school early is not what he wants to do. He feels as though he is missing the final part of the day. I pick him up about 20 minutes early and he only misses clean up and reading circle, but that is enough for him to feel uneasy. Most kids would LOVE to leave school early. I hear the entire night, "What if Mrs. T hands out an assignment after I leave? What if she tells us tomorrow is pajama day and I miss it?" This is a routine we go through EVERY time we leave school early for therapy. Although Mrs. T is very good about communicating with me everyday and he had tremendous respect, love and adoration for her, he still is extremely worried he will miss something.

The second challenge is convincing him that therapy is not a punishment, but is meant to help him. He doesn't like going because it's 'boring' and takes away from his TV time. He sees kids there that are far worse in speech and physical abilities and I know that it scares him. It shouldn't, but it does. I fear that he is afraid he will become them. At age 6, you don't understand that they were born that way.

Those are my two main challenges when I take him to therapy, twice a week. During the summer he goes to therapy school and that presents more challenges along the way.

I know deep in my heart that he needs therapy. It will be an ongoing production that is going to teach him the social skills and behavioral skills he needs to be a productive adult.

Until then, I will spend my days convincing a six year old that it's ok to miss a little bit of school, when you are going to therapy.