Face in the Water

[geminigirl]

Part of the way SPD has manifested for Naomi is that she hates water on her face. That, combined with the proprioceptive challenges she has (also related to SPD,) has made some things, like washing her hair, very difficult. And she loves having long hair, too, so it makes washing carefully even more essential.

One of our recent, small victories at home since starting therapy is that she's been able to take a partial shower. What that means is that she is now able to stand up, lean back and wash her hair-it means less water on her face from the washing, which she loves. She doesn't want to wash the rest of her body that way (and that's fine with me,) but washing her hair standing up with her eyes closed and her head tipped back is a huge change.

She still hates getting her face wet. And she's six. And we're in a place where she's constantly surrounded by swimming pools and water, and it's beyond time to get her in the water and water safe, especially since she's now at an age where she goes places without me. So we talked about swimming lessons again, and I said that Miss Angela (our OT) can probably help us with some skills to learn how to deal with that. And we talked about how her body feels when she gets her face wet, or when she hears the blender, and she talked about her body "Louding" at her...which I think means "yelling." I explained that we can ask Miss Angela to help us find ways to make that yelling calm down, and even sometimes, make it stop. She loved this idea...so in my calendar for next week is to chat with Miss Anglea about the things that we want to do-expand her diet, become comfortable in the water, things like that. What's mindblowing is how we've seen other changes so quickly-handwriting is greatly improved, emotional regulation has grown, things like that. We'd always been able to compensate, but I'm finding that I feel calmer and more relaxed when I'm doing less managing symptoms and a lot more just enjoying things.

Comments

[aelf.livejournal.com]

I find it amusing the way things manifest. Zoe could not handle being in wet clothes, ever. If we were out and it started to rain, she'd start stripping. Take a drink from a water fountain and get a *drop* on her shirt? Off came the shirt. (Which, to be honest, was a bit of improvement over the complete physical meltdown that she had before she learned how to quickly disrobe to get the offending touch away from her.) But swimming? She never had a problem in the world with swimming. Won't put clothes on after swimming, not even in the winter. Although she will wrap herself in a towel now. Progress is progress, right? :)

Her swim instructor when she was a wee thing would recommend letting kids put a damp wash cloth to their faces (completely under the kid's control, kid holds the wash cloth, kid touches it to chin, cheek, whatever) as a way to get used to the idea of water on the face. That might be too much for Naomi, but apparently it works for some kids.

But seriously, if she's freaked out about it, yes, it's important that she get water safe as quickly as possible, but emotional health is also really important. I'd not stress about it (for you or her). I'm betting you see bunches of things start to resolve as other things are worked on. It can be amazing what's linked! But you know all this.

Tangent, I thought SPD was a made up thing we use on the internet to explain our quirky kids (who might often also be diagnosed w/ ASD or ADHD). Is it a real thing in the DSM?

Professional opinion

[sweetmmeblue.livejournal.com]

Firstly, my soapbox: The DSM is not the be all and end all of proof of a thing. It is still a highly flawed document with a highly flawed process of creation and research of what goes in.

SPD, SID, and some of the other sensory difficulties are neurological/physiological in nature, not psychological. This is why OTs and PTs helps so much.

[aelf.livejournal.com]

Oh, I know sensory stuff is often neurological and I fundamentally believe various therapies can help.

I just didn't think sensory stuff was recognized on its own, but as a possible companion to other diagnosable issues. I have tried to keep abreast because if we ever needed to send Zoe to a public school, I'd likely need to pursue an IEP for her & I like be aware of the sorts of things that would be available. My understanding is that if I just said "my kid's a sensory kid" or "has sensory processing disorder" I'd be schluffed off, because as far as accommodations and diagnosable conditions go, it's not a real thing. (Which is funny, since anyone who's ever dealt with a sensory person knows very well it's a real thing. :) )

[sweetmmeblue.livejournal.com]

The diagnosis can also be medical as long as it has an effect in functioning that impacts grades.

[geminigirl]

It's not in the DSM, and there's no ICD code for it in ICD-9 or ICD-10. There's a diagnosis in the diagnostic manual for birth to three that has to do with regulation of sensory processing...and despite my mentioning it back then to our pediatrician, I was shouting into the void...getting her diagnosed back then might have been helpful though. People say it's on the autism spectrum, people theorize it's part of childhood anxiety, a component or a variant of ADHD, there's even research on adults looking hypersensitivity to sensory stimuli and Fibromyalgia. It's been described in occupational therapy literature since the mid 20th century though. And in some regards, I'm glad it took so long to get us into therapy-it's easy to look at a 2 or 3 year old who cries when the vacuum cleaner turns on (a little harder to look at one like mine where the mere sight of the vaccuum cleaner sent her into a meltdown, but still closer to the range of normal for 2 or 3.) It's much harder to do that for a 5 or 6 year old kid.

I'm all for emotional health-and that's why I'm probably going to seek out private swim lessons, or a lesson where she and Miriam (who doesn't have the same challenges) can be in the water together, rather than a typical for her age group lesson, but around here, where there's a lake, retention pond or swimming pool wherever we go, she has to be able, at a minimum to cope with falling in, getting upright and treading or floating until she can get help. At nearly-six, and wanting to go on playdates and Girl Scout trips without me, and asking to go to the Daisy overnight minicamp they're having this summer, I need to make sure she has those skills. It's gotten to the point for us where it's a safety issue, and while her emotional health has to be considered, I can't allow a safety issue to consider unchecked-I just have to be more thoughtful about how to deal with it.

[geminigirl]

And we're likely to push for an ADHD evaluation this spring when we see the pediatrician anyway-my feeling is that if that's a problem, I'd rather get her into a position now where she's able to learn the coping skills to manage it-skills that she'll need whether or not medication becomes something to consider. I've seen how difficult it was for Andrew to try and cope without ever having learned those skills, and I've seen the difference it's made in all sorts of ways to finally know what's going on and to be able to understand and to manage it. The other side of that is because there's no actual ICD code or DSM recognized diagnosis or anything like that for SPD, we can probably get accomodations for SPD included on there if we need to. It's possible I could go in under "other health impairments" because she's got allergies with an EpiPen, but it's much harder that way.

[aelf.livejournal.com]

If you have good doctors who won't get all "medicate medicate!" I think it can be really valuable to have a diagnosis. It seems like, especially for things like ADHD, things work fine, until they don't. And once things start falling, they can fall really far really fast. Unfortunately, they often start falling apart at ages when kids are particularly vulnerable to developing poor self image, so being able to jump in with "hey, we'd been doing x,y, and z, but they aren't cutting it anymore" rather than trying to start from 0 could be good.

Good luck with the swimming. I didn't realize she wanted to be doing things solo, that would influence me to push harder to get it sorted out too. Zoe's still not trying to get rid of me, she's such an only child.

[geminigirl]

Our pediatrician is very much not a "medicate, medicate" type. I think he's sometimes too far on the other end of the spectrum, but I'm a decent advocate for my kids.

And yes, that whole thing about falling apart-that's so important. I'd rather know and be able to move right away if it happens rather than have to try and figure out why it's falling apart and then plan and move.

She is such an independent kid. I love it, and it frightens me at the same time, because she still needs reminders about how to make good decisions but sometimes she leaps first and then looks.

YAY!

[sweetmmeblue.livejournal.com]

I'm so glad this is helping. As an adult with sensory issues learning how to manage the emotional overload that stimuli cause is great. Glad you got her in OT now and are seeing such quick results.

Re: YAY!

[geminigirl]

I've generally found coping mechanisms for mine, but there are definitely times when I'm overwhelmed and want to just hide in the bathroom (and now that my kids are big enough, I've been known to do that.) She's a remarkable kid though and is much more able to explain what she's feeling than I ever was...or else I'm just more receptive than my mother was. I just want her to have the opportunity to learn the skills sooner rather than create them out of thin air.

[n3m3sis42.livejournal.com]

Yayyyyyy for improvement and less anxiety for both you and Naomi.

I kind of wonder if Max has SPD. I kind of wonder if I do.

[lovingboth]

Hooray and good luck for more progress.

It's very common for kids to not want to get their faces too wet. The swimming lessons JA did started with getting them to splash water on their faces. That took a lesson in itself for some of them.

She went through a long period of hating having her hair washed, to the point that I'd wrap her in a towel, so she couldn't struggle too much. The lessons made hair washing a lot easier. As did the idea that she washed my hair first each time...