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Face in the Water
Mar. 5th, 2014 07:08 pmPart 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.
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.
