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Specialized Strategies for Students with Special Needs

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Specialized Strategies for Students with Special Needs

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great thank you so much all of you for being here my name is Jasmine basilius I'm the director of curriculum and instruction for the Fruitvale school district and I'm so excited to have Kim bring with us because she lives in Chicago but she's with us today as a resume Amarillo excited I'm I've gotten to know Kim the last 3 years I think now we were working together on multi-tiered systems of support yes that's work that we met I'm working on together and you know I can tell you she's a school psychologist former school psychologist former school counselor but really you know what I've learned from Kim he's a very real person she's a mom she gets the school system side of it she gets the parent side of it she's an advocate for people children and adults and family members and there hasn't been a time where I attended any of her sessions were learned so much from her and been sitting on the edge of my seat taking notes even if I ate I heard it before cuz it's always something you so I am like she said this will be recorded and we'll share after so thank you so much Kim for being with us we really appreciate you thank you Jasmine thank you so much I am such a fan of Jasmine and her district and of the whole area I really love Bakersfield I've been out there a lot of time so I hope to see many of you in person one day and I'm really glad you're joining us in person online right now or maybe watching this as a recording but thanks for joining and so we have one hour I do a lot of things basically I frame the sessions in a way to let you reflect than what you're already doing and we are all always using strategies and sometimes we don't realize what we're already doing so I hope you'll leave this thinking redoing some of that and maybe having the words for it and I'm going to share just a few sort of simple constructs simple sets of strategies that anyone can use any time with their young people at school at home and community and I hope altimate Lee you feel like this helps your young person to have a little more success at school but also more success and a better quality of lice at home and I goes for everyone in the house so wish you well we know these are merely really challenging times Jasmine and I were just chatting a bit before we started and we know so many people have had so much lost in so many ways and our young people in our adults are struggling so we really appreciate you making the time to join today we know your time is precious and it's not an easy thing to do so please take advantage of the fact that you're not on camera and you can stand and stretch and walk around while you're listening to the session make yourself comfortable take care of your knees please we know many of you have a lot on your shoulders right now so thank you so much for taking the time and do our session I will say thank you with these little chain breaks and I'll just put some photos I hope so to make you smile or feel good they should feel kind of lush and cool especially for my friends out there where maybe it's a little hotter right now. This is from upstate New York I was just use some photos from around the country that I hope give you a little paws and a chance to smile so if you came in after the of the official first star I just want to make sure you know that you can find your chat Roxanne DC the bottom of the screen looks like a little bubble says chat and that's where you'll be able to interact with us today so Jasmine and myself are your closest illustrators and you can chat questions comments or needs as we go this hour you can chat to specific people see if it's in a message specifically to Jasmine or to another person on this call and you'll see their name with a little drop down menu and then I don't care you can select everyone really what that should say is all panelist and all attendees so if you want the message to be a public message everyone can see select all panelists all attendees and that's going to help during summer I'm going to give you multiple opportunities where we hope to hear from you and so share as you feel comfortable and it's whatever sent you feel comfortable you can type something into the chat box and then that'll be a little bit of a way we can all sort of soul lies and Sherry share ideas so I'd like to start by asking you what makes your child special now the word special is in unique word and we use it for this indicate of special needs and so that might mean that you might not be thinking of the challenges your child has our children or the needs of the problems that you all might face that's okay to keep that in mind those are some of the things that keep your child special and we're going to be addressing strategies in this session but I also want to ask you to maybe take the next step and what makes your child unique in terms of their strain yes and of course I often say child singular in this session cuz it's just easier to put there but your children right so comment on any and all your children as we go through the session so please be thinking what makes them unique what are some of their strengths are guests and then if you're comfortable I'd love to see you hear from you if you want to type into the chat box and so what a prompt I help you you know what does your child do that makes you or others smile so we're going to get grounded and strength before we jump into focusing on some of the the harder parts of today so you can think see yourself you don't have to type it into the chat box but if you'd like you can go ahead and put some of those words in the chat box what are the things that make your children unique I think it's important for us to keep this in mind as we think of special needs thanks for thinking about this for just a moment and if you are watching it as a recording whenever I give these moments to reflect you are welcome press pause and see how she pause the recording and do some of this reflection on your own take some notes for yourself so thank you for sharing in the chat cuz I was thinking the same thing who makes everyone smile cuz he's so pro-social I love that very loving thank you for sharing funny jokes that's great it's great when our kids can be the ones to cheer us up a little bit sometimes and pathetic that is an awesome skill beautiful strength for young person to have sometimes our young people because of they've gone through because of their challenges it gives them these beautiful strength that they wouldn't have had if they didn't have the challenges so you know not always but sometimes empathy comes in that way when you've had to overcome some of your on me very friendly makes people smile that's beautiful awesome thank you all for sharing I really appreciate that so I'll say thank you with some of these thank you kind of slide and you're welcome to keep typing into the chat box but even when I move on so don't hesitate to continue to chat as I move on so this is my son with the director shirt and my husband and you can see here I married a T-Rex right my husband has multiple of these inflatable costumes and things to be kind of silly at home so my son has autism he's 11 years old he's turning 12 this month has a variety of oranges and has had peanut has overcome many over the 12 years and has found new ones over the 12 years and that's kind of typical for many of our children and so one of the ways we leverage his strength is that he likes to direc Waze or become little play is so he'll have me here I'll be one of his actors and he'll surgearrest me and that strength came to be because he didn't have each when he was younger he developed language very well and so we would do these go to plays as a way to try to get him interested in talking to have him value communication and make it playful and it works along with speech therapy and other support she received and I've been from the he's continued to do ever since and he considers himself a director so I hope that makes sense as a way that we took a sort of a challenge which was delayed speech and we worked on it in a way that was sort of fun along with other service and it's actually now become something that's a strange for him he's actually developed really good vocabulary in in very good language skills so more you'll get to meet more of my family as we go throughout these these three so today's topics we're going to find special needs briefly I'm going to talk with this idea of creating your own support team and empowering youth voice and choice I will talk a bit about supporting School at home and in some self-care strategies for us and our children and our next steps so we're going to jump into each of these areas and each of them I'm going to cover pretty briefly and then give you time to reflect and so you can ready on the chat box to comment on some of these things that we talked about all right so I can look for look for a variety of different definitions of special needs they really think we all came down to this very basic one from the various difficulties and they could be physical and emotional behavioral learning excetera that cause an individual to require additional support or special services or support be in education or in Recreation but really also at home any of you probably have had the experience of having to adapt or accommodate your child at home or in restaurants or when you visit family members so it's really full full life and so what I went to Havasu is just keep in mind as we go throughout this session that conditions do change over time as I explained my son there was in our life where I mean I didn't know if I would ever hear him say Mom and I sort of came to peace with that at some point when he was way past the age that he should have been talking all ready for a couple years really and had not been talking and so when I think of I had this worried that he would never say Mom and now we are we're way past that but now we have new different challenges that I never would have imagined when he was three and four and five so he will do growing and change over time we have to make sure that we don't let a label or stamp on Special Needs kind of imply that something freezes in times of the things your child struggles with today may not be with a struggle within a year or 3 years from now and in fact what is concept in education called response to intervention remember that our children can respond they can respond to what we're teaching them and they can respond how we're supporting them so that those things either get better or actually go away all the way or sometimes they can morph or change a bit into a way that feels like it's the sort of part of their quality of life so it doesn't have to be a barrier and Jess's remember that as a reminder if you're on the session this is not just for families of children who have designated special needs although we are going to focus in the area as well but if you have what's considered a typically developing child we hope that you can still get equal benefit from the strategies were talking about and just remember that we all have special needs in some ways that sometimes and so you know you and your family turn off the Aladdin Broadway about some of these label some people really struggle with with the concept of needing special accommodations with idea of a student have an IEP for their family is it it's not a big struggle for them they were okay with that price started but we just really wanted to kind of normalize it that we all at different points has some special needs and even our young people who are considered gifted often times because of their unique strengths and we need to do some things a little differently for them or give them a National opportunity so it really is a Continuum the my favorite part of all of this is that there is evidence there's research and literature behind this idea that things do get better when we sing bullied and say they can now not everything and not all the way right there that we're all different there's variety there but things can get better when we think believe say that they came in so I just want to share this bit of research three decades of research this author Leah Waters if you're interested in this book is called the strength switch and is a parent is a book for parents and so I may be something you want to take a peek at the bus with the advantages of taking a strength-based approach for young people and adults be to all of these wonderful things into a strength-based approach focusing on how your children can make others smile it even if maybe they don't have much language because so much of building relationships and connecting other people is the way people make you feel so to really focus Ma on the strength there and then still build up the skills that are needed but to really sort of embrace and focus on the parts that are good that are there are children who are very social aesthetic those are skills that employers are looking for that Partners who's your partners are looking for and so our children may has challenges and other ways but you never know what their life may look like Abby's on leveraging some of these strengths so I hope you were able to read somebody's as I was talking that a recovery from illness greater levels of happiness greater happiness and engagement at school also really a lot of great things I can come from strength-based approach so I would love to hear from you if you're cuz you're comfortable taking me to the chat box so far what does this information make you think or feel what questions are common you want to share in the chat box in just a moment for that and folks are welcome to take your own private notes on your own paper you want to hopefully remember some of the things we just talked about I will share this PowerPoint with Jasmine so like I bet Jasmine can post the PowerPoint and the video together and she'll share with folks you you learn where to find them you can if you want to take him to the chat box you're welcome to but it really isn't invitation you don't you don't have to take him to the chat box but you're welcome to yeah so thank you for the question about the book the book is the strength switch and it's by Aaliyah Waters and so hopefully that will give you what you need to find it the string switch and Jasmine thank you for sharing that you can post a PowerPoint and videos on the district website that's great and that book really is good for for school to write it's not just for Holman for parents but that's her audience of where she's pointing at 2 so hopefully that let you all reflect a little bit on power of a strength-based approach that's awesome I'm not connected with that bug so I'm not I'm not spelling it but I recommended I have it cuz I always need those reminders myself to thank you guys all right so I'm going to move to the second topic this is how we're going to go right we have only one brief our we have about five topics will give each one of them a few minutes and then I'll give you some time to reflect and if you have a thought after that you want to send a chat box you're never too late it's not like that topic pass you can even do it at any point so this idea of a support team I feel like most families are familiar with students having that's cool so your child might have an IEP team or a 504 team you might have been through a student support or Student Success team but you can also make your own team and so some of you might feel like well I have my family and I have my friends and you know and they support us which is totally true and you're blessed to have that  that's beautiful and know that probably lots of things happy with your family and friends and so the idea here in this article you can click on this link to this article and the magazine is a free online magazine called parenting special needs and they have great to Greater magazine sign up to every month they do a virtual magazine and you can click on the links and things and so I believe this came out last month and it's called friends of Brian until you read in the story the mother that they use this Gap process group action planning and they invited people to be on the be part of friends of Brian or you sound Brian's team and they did this throughout his teenage years and now unto his young adulthood they're still continuing and I'll Brian has many challenges he's a young person who has challenges in in almost every domain of Life physically verbally cognitively emotionally so he this family has definitely had a hard time over the years and so with his friends of Brian team does that they get together at their house and they sometimes it's quarterly you afford times a year monthly and the goal is people who get together are there to just talk about how we can improve Brian's quality of life and so use a fairly strength-based approach but you can also list the problems and challenges that we're facing and then that group brainstorms about how can help how other people can help how there might be services in the community and so it's very common is that on this team people might invite past teachers so my son we all had a great relationship with his kindergarten teacher and so after he left kindergarten we continue to invite her to birthday parties and Halloween parties and everything and it was always nice for my son to see her that that part of his life didn't have to move on from that far but that for some kind of State in his life so some of you might have athletic coaches at your children responded well with or a neighbor or maybe a path neighbor from somewhere you used to live a certain family members certain friends so you get to the people who say yes I want to help you the support team around how we can improve the quality of life of the family and the child and if you want to learn more about it you can click on this article to read and really Society we all need help at different points in our journey we need help and so we can consciously formally or informally get a group of people together to help us kind of still our cop while we're filling a cup of our child because it can be exhausting just having any child in your home if they sexually multiple children or children with special needs so does this connect with you at all I'd love to hear from folks in the chat but do you think of this idea maybe having a you know starting to ask invite some people to have a meeting so for example if your child is struggling with the most of the virtual world and you're struggling with homeschooling and lots of other things you might try to have an online you could do an online meeting just have to be in person or you can invite people then you could meet me outside and keep your very existence but yeah I've heard so many cool stories I've heard things out of grandparents meeting grandchildren online in like platform to read them their bedtime story at night so that the mom or dad can do something else at night I've heard of a cousin or an uncle tutoring a child online in an area subject area that the they were really strong it I've heard of people doing we are family even have done zoom-karaoke to have these fun online night and so thank you for considering how you might be able to be helped from this and so yep friends of Brian is in the article so thank you so much Jasmine the link is in the bottom of that slide and not take you to this article call friends and Brian which is in a magazine called parenting special needs and I have that link for you all in here as well all right so just so far we just talked about this idea of trying to keep some of us strength approach even as we think of our children with special needs and how how many parts of our life that can help and then this idea of can we get people to help us and to not feel bad about needing how we all need help at different times I'm going to help picture makes you smile and think this was taken from Ventura County right nearby you and less you kind of stretch take a deep breath as we move on to our third topic perfect and thank you all for commenting in a chat box and talking with each other awesome I love thank you for sharing that young people who are playing with friends at playing online with some of the video games and then someone saying there in a zoo mom's group I love that many moms mentioned they feel isolated and so it's nice to have time to connect thank you all for sharing the chat box even if you don't want to type in the chat box you might want open so you can see the things that our people are sharing so everyone thank you so much for putting that out there I think you know we all feel differently about these things some people might feel they might feel bad that they hate that they need or want a group they might have some Social Challenges where they feel uncomfortable doing that themselves and so does see that there are so many ways to do it anonymously with your camera on with your camera off create your own group or you can join another girl I just know it's it's totally normal typical Timmy and want a little extra support I know in my family when I found is that my husband and I needed other people to help us other than us having Jess each other because we were both exhausted are there were times my son went or he would not sleep and we're walking sleep deprived for 4 years of our lives and so our cups were so empty we couldn't chill each others and so we needed both to get help and support from neighbor from friends so that then we have a little bit more of there and to give a little more love and support to each other but it's such a common situation and family so this is one of my favorite topics which is the idea of student voice and so alberici with here and I'm going to talk with the application at home and so I hope you find this exciting that I'll Research indicates that students who believe they have a voice so just feeling I have a voice even if they don't use it. They don't answer it if they believe they have a voice they are seven times more likely to be academically motivated and student voice leads to an increased likelihood that students will experience self-worth engagement and purpose and the more that we can do to give students Choice control challenge opportunities Etc and you know this opportunity to collaborate and work with I will get Brayden motivation and engagement minute leads to higher levels of effort persistence and achievement so we really want our teachers to be providing as much voice and show are young people as possible and school right now especially while they're learning online cuz our young people don't really want to sign in to just listen to someone they'd rather interact most of them but I would love for you to think of how you can take this I'm as well and so I'll give lots of examples and and some of them are not going to be good fits for you so please know they truly are just examples and then you can find the right version for you do the children ever have a say what goes on the grocery list do they ever have a say in what's going to be for dinner on certain nights or what show we're going to watch do they get recreational option do you stay so where would you like would you like to do this or this I want to go for a walk where do you think we should go for a walk and sew in the smallest ways to store you're going to read at bedtime you know you could even be with Tramadol or so I need we're going to have a meeting with a family Amber this Friday I want to stay connected with family which family member would you like to talk to so all the all the little and they'd ways that we can let young people choose and for young people who don't have a lot of verbal skills that can be through pointing that can be through pictures so whatever way that you get some communication out of your young people to try to build that into being as much Choice as possible so you can watch these later if you'd like there are two links here to on a two videos that my son my son was interviewed so this is all Ryan and so I reset a Ryan has autism and did have some pretty significant speech challenges and now he does not but he does have a lot of anxiety so we really deal with a lot of anxiety at home and so we've talked him some skills that he is keeping other people in these two videos and so this where is because this young girl Kaylee has she also has autism and she has speech delay and she is interviewing Orion and so that's one of them and then the other one Orion the interview and I share this because I used to use strategies on my son without him really knowing so I use positive reinforcement with my son but he wasn't he didn't really know what it was weird I've used a lot of what we call PBIS are positive behavior supports in schools I've used the strategies at home but he didn't know that I didn't talk to him about the fact that I was using a strategy and I look back and realize I could have called him a lot more I have made it more clear what I was doing at different times and so we try to do that now and so it's never too late you know one of the strategies or Ryan says in these videos is don't should on yourself be careful about the studs of and so there are things I could have done differently as a parent but I try not to focus on the shows of the past and instead think okay if I want to reconcile that how can I do that into the future and so now I try to explain saying to my son what we're doing and why and so we use some of these strategies around his anxiety and we don't do it to him we do it with him and so he's really learn the strategies he uses them on his own spontaneous I now and I can even teach others about them that's the idea of giving voice and choice is making sure our young people are fully included in in life in everything with us so I'm going to pause the screen sharing for one moment I wanted to I want to make sure that I had this set up to give audio to you and when a very brief video and this is a parrot and a mother and son talking about choice and using strength so I'm going to ask a jazz can you give me Anna chat can you all see this lie that says student strength yes perfect thank you so much all right so and then I'm going to start to play an audio should be good with Jasmine just like you did Saigon in case it's not working well and this link this is just about 2 minutes I almost 3 minutes so you'll hear from this mother talking about how she helped her son who's a teenager leverage history into an assignment he had led to him getting an internship and so I'm all talk with you about this a little bit after you see it Doterra I hear you say these matter practice his matter I mean to have some consistency across the way schools do things but that it also really matters to know how that family functions it makes me think of how learn a lot about cultural sensitivity and across cultures and households and families so how have schools you don't do better with that how would they no more about their families and what's valuable to their families like there is a very strong thread that drives you and your family a spirituality for the school to know that when dude would help them in the way that they work with you could you share more about that idea of understanding the children you serve in the family you serve from a strength days and absolutely so faith is a big thing in our family and stole a fax Judah was raised on fake principle so as I spend time or when they School spend time getting to know I don't know we can those times in a meet and greet for we can have up I think schools going to have like a gathering up up chatting around coffee or something something about food or something that will allow it's a district to get to know the family to who they are because with Judah anything along the space line he's going to store and see you can take and it can be spread it over discipline but the foundation in the corps will be faced but if they don't know that or we haven't had a chance to share that they will be assigning different projects across the curriculum but not hitting to the the core or where they need to be for him to show on Wow you know how to do that I remember where you did at a square and he needed to understand about a project working on an internship and it was dealing with murals because what we did and I shared with him I said okay so what we did is we took the faith-based scriptures Google clip on the word image of a picture or mirror if you will scripture off and then he was able to elaborate on that and validate that he knew about that project without me even being that she was able to do it independently once I took his strength right directions to what their criteria Waze and then showed him how to deliver it and independent way awesome how did you do in that interview I asked the question that she asked me and she was really nice about it and then that's how I'm going to ever went to those questions and that's how I got hired for the job and I very excited about that it was a wonderful humbling experience than just blessing iPhone thank you for letting me share that with you so I said that because Terry was making a point that when you know a child strength you can connect almost anything to those strengths so the way I said Orion is a director of my son and learning something new I can try to weave that into some plays so he gets to practice those Concepts and practice thinking about those things we do that with academics as well when he's learning a new content we try have him bring it into a play and then it helps him remember it better us we'd love to hear from you if you want to take him to the chat box what are your thoughts around this idea of using students strengths and their voice to give them whoever possible and if this is a strategy that might especially help young people with special needs to develop some autonomy to develop you know good feelings about themselves is self-regard but also for any young people as he really empowering them and so it also works for adults to write we all appreciate when people no more strings and they value them and when we have voice Prince Royce so thank you for thinking about that a bit LOL you're welcome to type into the chat box at any point or be taking your own notes about how we can leverage strengths I love this thank you for sharing is Mama I use music when learning math because it helps your son to remember and he loves music that's such a great and you know there's a lot that music and math have in common actually right which is a fun fun information on some young people don't realize that you need to make music but it also inspires the brain that triggers the brain while you going to focus on the work so that's a great example I am so many more out there so please everyone don't hesitate to share those examples in the chat box on you might give an idea to another family member who's on here so we wanted to think about Universe idea specialized Reggie's I I had to be very careful creating this session that I didn't give you a list of things to do or try because I don't know who's listening and hopefully lots of people will be listening just posted and you could have children in preschool you have children in 12th grade on you can have children with physical challenges or academic challenges or all of the above and so when are young people are so different it can actually kind of feel a little disrespectful as some make me sorry to stay here are the things you can do and try so I hope everything so far sounded like it would fit regardless of your child and your family's characteristics and where to stay in that same vein right now so when we come to the skills in the goals that your young people are working on many of you probably have a child who has a special plan at school they might have an IEP and individualized education program but even if you're listening and your child is not does not have designated special needs there's another type of plan that your child part of at school and that could just be asked in a teacher what does standards are for the school year and what your child is expected to be able to know and do by the end of the school year so whether your child has their own unique plan or is the plan for the class or the grade you can ask for those copies turn the school and then you probably have your copies of IEPs etcetera and then you can ask the school for help I'm saying translate those school-specific things to settings and so they're all kinds of specialized instructors at The District's at that have all kinds of strategies and ideas in mine that they could look at the goals your child has for school and give you some ideas on how to work on those things and there's some things that mine that just not be that logical for it for those of us who want a specialist in this area and so I know I was surprised over time to learn you know my son had a hard time gripping the pencil and he still dies if we bought the little things that'll help him hold it but it's still not a strength of his well Play-Doh playing with something like Play-Doh helps to strengthen your hands and fingers and so that makes it easier to the NBA how to grow stronger grass for the pencil you'll see things like the reading so whether that's actually trying to teach him people too so I saw someone on here so's and there's there's different versions where you can use yarn to try to create things that that acts even the reading like a shoe putting the shoelace in that that that generalize has to help are young people with some of the skills they need at school regarding typing writing set up so there's some fun ways that we could work on school goals at home regardless of what the school goals are and I'm sure many of you have creative ideas already so please don't hesitate to put them in the chat box young people who are struggling with math we can do real life math applications at home then wait that are meaningful for them my son loves food and he thought he'd like stands food whenever he can have it and so going to the grocery store with his father we when he was younger he would practice reading the names of the cheese is and then he would look at the cost of things and help with the groceries yes I know you can't do that every time you go grocery shopping often times were in a hurry but there are some really creative ways that we can use our skills that school is helping us work on we can also work on strengthening them at home and you have all kinds of specialists at the district who would love to give you those ideas so please don't hesitate to ask them for some of those fun fun ways and then the other thing is I would be really what are young people about what goals they have at school and how they think they could help work on strengthening those things at home so just like I was saying earlier sometimes we do things to our young people instead of wisdom it's important that your young people know what are what are their IEP goals what are the things that they should be able to should be able to know and do at the end of each school year so they can come along with us in those goals and working on those skills so this there's an article here at the bottom you can click on so once you have the fees PowerPoint you can quit directly on these links from a father's perspective so he's saying offered talking and writing in this article and so there's something called Universal Design for Learning on your welcome to look up more on that or not you don't you don't have to go any further than this by but there's a whole body work on this if you're interested and basically what they say that when it comes to all children but especially children with special needs really all children we went to look at providing information in multiple ways letting show us with a no in multiple ways and engaging our children in multiple ways so it's this idea of giving again some choice and Variety in really individualizing we provide our young people how we information back from them and how we engage with them around whether a school work or practicing their social skills or bedtime right so you'll be here you can read his articles for their basically saying you know for some young people they rather get the information through text or audio or video instead of us just telling them so we can all be I know I know I'm guilty sometimes of saying something to Exxon in assuming he understood me assuming that he got the message he's gotten better actually saying to me you know he'll say things like my brain feels jumbled you know I'm I'm stuck I feel it's feels Frozen that's a huge skill to be able to stay that to someone because then I can pause and work with him on that and that's very new strengths that he did that he's Acquired and so then I can pause and ask him to send them to Allstate in my son I'll say can you say that back to me what did I just ask you or what did I just say and I don't do in a punitive way but it's to see if he heard me see if he understood me and I him repeating it unless his brain listen better send more when you stay at yourself and so I've gotten better at she would be called checking for understanding at home so if you say go clean your room we want to pause and say so wait a minute what does clean your room mean what are the three things we agree pick up everything off the floor no food and bed made right in this cleaning off right or did dusting are you including dusting right so I think checking for understanding a long way in a lot of things including some possible behavioral emotional challenges and then letting young people show us what they know in ways that are strong for them and so my son likes to practice and again is sort of like a play for somewhere I knew you were going to do something new TSA wait let me practice and he'll act out what it is I just said so I might say we're going to go with her neighbors remember us a 62 way now and have to keep our masks on and you can say to them are you can do you know a distance love instead of giving hugs we we spent years teaching kind of helping my son to be okay hugging people and how we have to undo all those hugs riches challenging so we gave him a different way and so he does this share my light kind of move until we would practice that cuz it's really hard to learn to stop hugging him that we had just worked on a lot of hugs so thin you all so much for taking you to the chat box I love the fun and activities that I'm seeing in there and ways to help work on some of your finger hand strength and skill and where you can find some of these materials right often times they are quite an expensive at some of these stories and it's great so someone saying you know my son will my son asked me to text a list of what I expect when he does his chores I love that that's such a great example so that's his venue he prefer rather than you saying it and you know sometimes we come across like we're lecturing even when we don't need and so for some young people they would rather have the written list or the texted list or even the pictures of what it is you can even do the chores ahead of time and take pictures of what it should look like when it's done and go back to the young people this is what your room looks like when its clean this is what the dishes look like you know and trust me I know everyone has a different range from my son he can't really do a lot of chores but it's taking care of his own thing so cleaning up after himself is about as far as we are right now so and then just finally gives examples about using things like a visual schedule where you can actually put things on a wall of what needs to be done during the day and in some people some young people love to be able to cross or the flip it over or the move it down on the list so it's a way to sort of actively engage in the plan for the day so thank you for all for sharing in the chat please do continue we have about 10 minutes left and we have about two areas left and we're going to cover so please don't hesitate to type in the chat what do you thinking and feeling right now as we talked about a variety skills and strategies and what we just talked that was how to strengthen with school does at home and of course it's for the benefit of our children now and in the future and so yeah children only have 6 or so hours at school everyday until we're not advocating for our like a lot of homework at home but instead skill development you can help your child do at home since they say thank you here and remember this is a time you can stretch take a deep breath I hope you're able to jot down a few ideas and strategies of things you might be able to use all right so there is a lot of literature behind this concept of family quality of life and in fact I worked at Jasmine reference earlier this idea of he is our kibbutz some people might say is the science of behavior applied at school and at home in the community and the goal of that work is to improve the quality of life of everyone the young people the parents. the teachers the school leaders and so this is just a little reminder to all of you is as we try to change the behaviors of our young people as we try to help them grow and develop and improve in a variety of ways we want to make sure that that happens without shame and as much as possible without negativity or stress and so although there are going to be times that you probably use negative consequences with your young people or punishment they make a bad choice you might provide a punishment or negative consequence just know that that's that is in a different category than what we call interventions and supports make sure that we had as many or more interventions and supports as we do punishments or Consequences and that in fact the science of behavior indicates that although punishing a behavior can help minimize the likelihood that it will occur again it's faster and more effective to make problem behaviors not occur again through a call interventions and supports and as many of the things that you all just shared in the chat I'm very clear about what you expect with a chores showing pictures about what you expect may be providing positive reinforcement for doing the chores maybe doing what's called her it'll help where you do it with them you say clean your room and you both start together and then once they start moving you slowly stop and back out and back away so you help him over the hurdle of getting started a lots of us have that, we have a work email some kind of work we're going we might be delaying getting started once you get started you can typically keep going so it's better to work on increasing a Young Person's strengths and skills then is to just decrease their weaknesses or challenges and so it's a little bit of in a way it's words but it's really more than words it's taking the emphasis a different way so instead of taking a young person who doesn't really like can writing and just having them practice handwriting handwriting handwriting handwriting which might make them not like handwriting at some point you could take the stuff away and as they said in the chat you could use the tweezers and play around if you do an little piece of art with tweezers and the cotton balls and glue them and do some threading play with some Play-Doh and then go back and do writing so we're we're working on the skill but in a way that feels a little has a little more joy little more engagement from our young people and so I really want to take that same idea of quality of life and have you all Appliance to yourselves as well as it's all and so you don't our mood in art Reggie does affect our environment in that happens for all of us right we've all been there when we're in a good mood and our spouse comes home or a child comes home and they're grumpy and we feel grumpy but nothing has when to change your mood except that their energy kind of affected the environment so I say this because you don't for my husband and I sometimes we have to we tag team and will say okay now I need to tag out or maybe let me help you hang out so you know I've had really long work days and I'm really tired and I'm with my son and I'm doing my best and have a good time with him but I'm just so tired I'm starting to get more grumpy I'm so sorry to be more negative my husband notices that he might say do you want me to tag you out do you want just a quick break and I was very defensive about that in the beginning and so I know all of you you know it's okay if you or your loved ones feel that way sometimes know I can do it you know and then I started realizing you know it's not good for my son if my husband can tag now and I know sometimes that can't happen right are our spouses at work or where we live alone we don't have the help so so please know that's why I'm talk I'm trying to get us together help from other places but to be able to accept the help because it's not a selfish thing to get some time out for ourselves and to be able to take a little break sometimes and it can be very short break sometimes 5 minutes 15 minutes goes a really long way so when we do let ourselves recharge and sometimes I'll just ask my son I need to close my eyes I need to rest my eyes for 10 minutes and so he's been waiting for me all day to hang out and I'll say I'd I need 10 minutes and I'll set the timer on my phone and so you know it's very young children might be harder to ask them for that but as your children get a little bit older I think it's also good to kind of work on their empathy it's okay to let them have empathy for you and your knees until when we're recharged were more likely to prevent and deescalate problems vs Escalade them so I know is for me when I'm really tired and grumpy if my sons something I more likely to respond to it negatively which sense are sets him into a spiral and you got to where I am, I can respond to in a slightly better way that still says he knows stop it and let's do something different but it doesn't trigger him into starting to get kind of whiny so we can prevent problems also when we are recharged knows more likely will feel kind and pathetic and just in general think clearly so if you want to hear from other family members and experts around this idea self-care this is a group called The Home and Community Positive Behavior Support Network you see a website here Home and Community Positive Behavior Support Network I'm part of that group as they offer all kinds of support for families for implementing strategies at home and we're doing a live family chat on self-care on November 10th at 5 p.m. time zone before we find self care. You're welcome to check out same idea that we want to make sure we all have what we need to be our best for our children with special needs because it's it's hard no matter what but some days some moments and with some children it's even harder so the thing I'd encourage you to what about is making a list of things or activities that you personally enjoy help you relax energize you or make you feel like you've had a break and maybe ask the other caregivers in your home to do the same thing for them to make a list of these things they like enjoy feel like a break and you could ask your children the same and once everyone has their list of the things that make them feel good and you to give parameters has to be something you can do at home ask me something that's free re then you can make a plan of how can people request something from their list so what's the plan for you know you might have your your children had a long day at school are they allowed to stay I need self I need something from my list even if it's 15 minutes before they do more of their school work and you set the rules right has to be 15 minutes or 30 minutes or 5 minutes but just to teach them even had to pay attention to their own body Boston our young people end up melting down getting angry getting stress because we just never talked them that they can say I feel empty I feel exhausted I feel mad I need to make sure you have your list of things that energizing and calming they could choose so it for them what they had to do school work soon but they feel exhausted they might want to do something from their energizing list instead of something from there, less so they might outside for a few minutes or do a balancing game and so I put here a few things that you could consider for simultaneous self-care I know some of you you might not have other adults in the home or they might not be home office to give you that break so I do this with my son sometimes I'll do something that gives us both a break at the same time so for example offering a cuddle break from school work so if you feel stressed and overwhelmed and your child Red Wing to Justin can we do a cuddle break and just sit on the couch and hug to hold hands talk be silly pickle whatever it is that feels right for you and your child and just have that little bit of energy boost makes you sick what makes you feel better and then you both go back so what you need to do asking your child to read you a bedtime story. And this is one of my son many times I'm so tired at the end of the day he needs to practice reading anyways choose a book that is within their reading level and they think it's so funny that they're reading you a bedtime story and they feel kind of adult about that they might yoga exercise Etc so we that you will consider making that list thinking of what would make you feel good or was trying to give you some self-care so that then you have the energy to share with others thank you all for taking you to the chat box continue to share any little strategies an idea you've used to take care of yourselves and as we say goodbye just a reminder some possible next steps for you would be to refine a redefine how you sing and talk about special needs and that's when your children can hear you and that's even your own mind being able to hear may be creating a support team and how you might incorporate voice and school goals at as well as some self-care strategies so please consider those things and then consider joining us for the next two webinars the next two are going to be a little more specific and that's going to be about home routines and then waste to minimize challenging behavior and there was like I said he'll be even a little more skill space and again once I can apply to any young people regardless of their age or their special needs Jazz thank you Kim so much for your time on the website once we have it already and you can access it I definitely invite you to attend our next sessions with her on Tuesday as well it'll be the next if you saving all the information is on the district website I meant we just have the best Fruitvale families I love seeing all these families that are here today they're amazing and I know where all the team we have our counselors here therapist is here director special ed is here support and we all we all are in this together we're all learning together and reach out if you need anything at all and we just appreciate all of our families and again tonight at 6:30 or let someone know thank you so much Kim thank you so much thank you everyone for being here and talk to you soon

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