Self-Regulation

Our children grow and mature right before our eyes, but sometimes we might miss some of the small details. Ashley reminded me of one of those small details last Saturday!

As I mentioned in yesterday’s post, Saturday was the annual Dreamcatcher’s holiday party. The party was held at our house, which is a good size but not huge by any means. And we had a whole bunch of people packed in there! Even though we could have moved between several rooms, all the parents, all the children, and all the childcare workers ended up in our family room. Some sat on couches but most sat on the floor.

It was quite loud what with all the children and all the noisy toys turned on, and I was really interested to see how Ashley was going to handle that. When she was younger, five minutes of such a stimulating environment would have been all she could handle, and the result would have been a meltdown. But on Saturday, she sat right in the middle of the fun for two hours!

The amazing thing however came at the end of those two hours. Ashley got up, walked out of the family room and headed to the living room. In there, she stretched out on the couch with one of her vibrating toys and did a little of her ‘Stevie Wonder Stim’ – rolling her head from side to side.

She stayed there for the next hour, happy as could be, and as folks were leaving, she got up and was in a great mood.

She knew – she really knew – when she had enough of the stimulation. She knew – really knew – what to do to center herself again. Self-regulation of this sort is HUGE for a child with deafblindness, and shows real maturity and understanding on her part.

My little girl is becoming a fine young woman!