by Maude Leroux | Sep 7, 2016 | Parenting
So many times we hear the words at consultations: “I wish I knew this about Paul many years ago!” or “If only we knew that Linda was struggling so” or “ We really thought Justin simply did not have the motivation to do better” There are many more and I always wonder at these statements. The information we provide is ages old developmental information from long ago studies confirmed in more recent studies. Most of the assessments we use have been around for many years and have proven themselves repeatedly in research. What is going on that families are not getting to the right place of knowledge about their child in a more rapid way?
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Digging a bit deeper I found five possible reasons for this:
- Most agencies, including medical insurance, are allowing less time to complete a thorough developmental assessment. This time allowance causes therapists to do “what they can do” in the time allowed.
- Most therapists have a limited arsenal of assessments that they use over and over on different profiles, diagnosis, ages and stages, not really individualizing their battery for specific reasons for a variety of presenting needs.
- Most authorities now are looking at the student / child’s behavior and making judgment calls on behavior, using a non-descript “eclectic” model of assessment and intervention and do not apply a developmental frame to their individual assessments.
- Educational institutions want to stay “educationally relevant” and want to forget that educational relevance today is dependent on the development of yesterday. The student has to fit into their mold of thinking and not be assessed for where the student is really coming from.
- Because of funding constraints, educational institutions do not refer any student out to an agency that could provide a more detailed evaluation; henceforth families trust that their educational team is doing best by them until they realize one year later they are in exactly the same boat as a year ago. If only the educational institutions would do the calculations of cost of educational support over many years, sometimes including mediation and law suits. If one intervenes early at the right place the initial cost would be higher, but the cost in the longer run would be far less.
What does not work in Linda’s favor is that she is intellectually smart and everyone expects her to learn and behave in a way commensurate to her intelligence. The problem is that our developmental pathways provide the support for us to use our intelligence and while we can apply cognitive strategies to cope, there comes a point when too much coping is simply asking too much of Linda.
The truth of the matter is that if typical development was good enough for the typically developing child, it is going to be good enough for the atypically developing child. Applying a developmental pathways model to assessment and intervention ensures getting to the most likely root causes as to why Paul is learning and behaving differently than his peers. A developmental delay means exactly that. Somewhere in the different stages of building blocks to become an organized school student, Paul’s brain had to develop around any number of processing “glitches” and was not allowed to use the “straight, narrow, and most efficient way of responding to incoming input. If we can get to the original culprit for this as far as humanly possible, then we have a better chance of intervening at the “just right place”.
What does not work in Linda’s favor is that she is intellectually smart and everyone expects her to learn and behave in a way commensurate to her intelligence. The problem is that our developmental pathways provide the support for us to use our intelligence and while we can apply cognitive strategies to cope, there comes a point when too much coping is simply asking too much of Linda. Linda might simply tune out or might act out, becoming anxious and even sometimes aggressive. Then the school or organization refers Linda for a behavior plan for behavior intervention while all this time Linda is screaming for someone to understand what she is going through.
Linda has no way of knowing that her body is receiving and interpreting information differently from her peers. She has only one body with no comparison to make an effective cognitive judgment call. She is fighting an inner battle with what her body is asking of her to compensate for, while cognitively understanding what others are expecting of her. Added to this, as Linda watches her peers, the only judgment call she can make is that she must not be “as smart” as them and the toll starts ticking against developing a strong self esteem. Educational institutions however, very rarely recognize this social-emotional toll even if a teacher is warm, embracing and wanting to support Linda the best she knows how. The problem is that you cannot “attack” what you do not know. It is important to know why Linda is not doing what she is supposed to do, not only for her to be in a better place, but also to demystify for her what she is experiencing in a learning or social environment.
One final note also is that families frequently adopt a “wait and see” approach in the face of difficulties. They want to believe that the free public education is going to pull Paul through. In some cases it does, but in other cases it may “take a village”. Families believe that because the educational institution is not referring out, their child might not need the additional support. But then, years later we will receive that distressed phone call when the parent finally realizes their child may need more support. This “wait and see” approach work against the whole notion of early intervention. Every year that the child has to work harder, they feel more “different” than their peers and their self-esteem suffers. It is important to not wait, but to gain the information you need about your child’s learning behavior as soon as possible. Make sure that your child has a comprehensive evaluation that will add to everyone’s understanding and do not wait until report cards come out in November.
Please do not read this as a “bash” against educational systems. We work wonderfully well with a number of schools in our area and there are many well meaning teachers that want to do well by kids and are bending over backwards to support their students. The problem lies in the disconnect between the educational and private sector and many students are falling through the cracks because of it. We need each other to help students thrive and be the best that they can be.
Warm regards,
Maude
by Maude Leroux | Aug 17, 2016 | Parenting
September is around the corner and all of us are enjoying the hot summer month of August while at the back of our minds, the lingering thoughts of a next school year remains. For most going back to school means structure, homework and also seeing friends that we did not see the entire summer. But for some students, back to school seems like “impending doom”! Parents observe anxiety escalating and try to ease the situation, but for the most part feel helpless. Parents that have lived through a struggling last year, are feeling the anxiety themselves and dreading the next year as they achieved some modicum of being “stress free” over the summer.
The first idea is to gain perspective on what school means for your particular situation with your child. Even if you gained ground over the summer, the child’s memory is what he felt during the last school year. He does not think about things he may have learnt over the summer and the great camps he might have had. He is expecting what he left at school to still be there when he returns. In most cases of anxiety, the parent, therapists, and teachers are expected to support him and to be available to “anchor” him in his feelings as they anticipate school starting. It is very important to validate his emotions and allow him to express his feelings without judgment. It is equally important not to gloss over their expressions with an “It will be OK, you will see”. Some parents feel the need to try and take away their child’s anxiety with comments such as these and they do not fully realize how the child is perceiving this type of “soothing”. The child is feeling the emotion of anxiety and when a parent tries to “make it ok”, the child feels that it is not right for him to feel this way and this actually escalates the anxiety. Better to go with: “I hear you, you are nervous about going back to school” and the child feels that someone understands and “gets” him, taking away the additional feeling that everyone else around him does not think he should feel this way, for them it is going to be “OK”!
Second idea: Parents and caregivers naturally want to try and “solve” his anxiety when in actual fact it is only the child that can change his perception of his experience. We must remember that we do not perceive the same experience through the same lens as the child. When the child expresses his nervousness, try to refrain from coming up with a plan for him. Rather acknowledge his emotion with a comment about it and try to open up a conversation to get his thoughts out. Expressing his thoughts is enabling him to sort through it and gain his own sense of control over his thought matter. You could even encourage drawing or writing a story on his own or together with you. Build a Lego constellation while carefully creating an atmosphere of sharing. There is no good parent that would not want to take care of it for their child if they could, and while the inclination is nurturing and caring, it also robs the child of the opportunity of taking care of it himself. He needs to feel in control of his expectations, but cannot do this on his own. Make sure time is made to sit with him to sift through his thoughts, so he could get closer to his own answer for the situation. Having him go with you to go shopping for back to school supplies could be a practical outlet that could initiate opportunities for discussing it with you in a warm, safe way.
We must remember that we do not perceive the same experience through the same lens as the child.
Third Idea: The kind of anxiety she is feeling is not a generalized type of anxiety, but more a performance anxiety. She is looking toward a situation where she has to be confronted with areas of weakness for 6 hours of each day for 5 days each week. She knows her own level of shyness, her own lack of feeling in control in the face of the multi-sensory environment, and the fact that while she is there she is on her own. In addition to this, students with performance anxiety really have a fear of the new and novel experience, a new teacher, a new grade, perhaps even a new school. The new and novel hold the promise of throwing unexpected occurrences their way, and they fear they might not have sufficient time to protect themselves from the onslaught. It is so much better for students like her to be eased into a new school situation with no additional performance demands placed on her, but settling in at first. We ask for IEP teams to consider no homework during the month of September and also not to call on this student in the classroom until she has settled in. Some teachers get it and others do not, but in the case of performance anxiety it is simply a task to be in the class itself; which require a good amount of work on her internal state of mind. Her energy is directed to her anxiety and not as available for the rigor of every day school work. It is important that she bonds with her teacher and knows that her teacher has her back. Some teachers fear she will feel left out if she does not have homework. Students with performance anxiety already feel left out and perhaps better to discuss with her how much she feels up to doing. If the performance anxiety persists she is going to get behind in her understanding of the work anyway and with too much homework, she knows she is facing more hours at home going through the same anxiety. Easing her into the school year and increasing the performance expectation gradually will help to ease the perception of challenge and provide her with a feeling that she could cope with the situation and gain control over her performance anxiety.
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Fourth Idea: Because parents have gone through some years of anxiety at the initiation of each school year and they want to ease the situation, we frequently find that they stop therapies for the month of September to “get into” the new school year. The opposite is needed. Therapies are there for support and now, more than ever, should be continued on a weekly basis as she would be allowed to release pent up anxiety during these sessions. It could be emotional processing sessions, sensory sessions, or physical sessions, but the most important is not to sever the relationships that could anchor her during this time of need. She needs that ongoing relationship to go to that would allow her the space to contain her emotions and give her the relief she needs as she builds up the anxiety in her body over a school day.
Last Idea: Anxiety, whether emotional or sensory, is always helped by a good sensory diet. The parent may need to discuss with his occupational therapist some good ideas to step up to the plate in increasing especially the proprioceptive diet (deep pressure that is calming to the body) for this initial period of time and then to wean it as he settles into the school year. We particularly enjoy teaching families a tactile massage to complete once in the morning and again in the evening. Some students are helped by having an early morning session of OT in the beginning of the day, especially on a Monday to transition back to a school week. The needs will be different for individual profiles, and best to discuss with the occupational therapist on your team.
I sincerely hope these notes are helpful to you, as I know this could sometimes be classified as one of the most difficult times of the year. I wish you a successful transition into the school year for 2016-2017!
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by Maude Leroux | Jul 26, 2016 | Parenting
“Why is it so difficult for Karen to get to a place of calm so she can go to bed at night? We have tried everything and we are exhausted as a family. We know she understands what the expectation is; yet it is virtually impossible for her to get to this point herself. Sometimes she falls asleep from pure exhaustion and we can see how tired she becomes, but she simply cannot turn off the “switch”. Most nights, simply for the sake of all of us, she comes to sleep with us in our bedroom. Honestly, Maude, that is the only way any of us can get rest, even though we know she is old enough to sleep on her own. On occasions when she does fall asleep at a reasonable time, she will wake up in the middle of the night and either yell for us or come to our room and sleep with us.” We can hear the frustration of this family story and know this resonates with so many other families.
Sleep is a wondrous thing. It renews us spirit, flesh and mind and provides a lovely place from which we can attack the next morning’s chores and activities. When this is not possible, we find ourselves running around on pure adrenalin, more stressed than we ought to be, and the energy for working and processing through other needs is simply not available. Children with sleep difficulties simply do not have the same attention to task than their peers the next day and is literally using the available energy to cope with the stress of feeling tired rather than using their energy for the learning process. It is quite remarkable to see how some children cope within these circumstances as they show much more resilience than their behavior gets credit for.
The first step in a sleep-deprived situation is to have it checked out medically and make sure your child does not struggle with conditions such as sleep apnea, breathing regulation or nighttime reflux. This is a condition wherein stomach acid flows up into the esophagus causing discomfort in the chest and throat area and cause waking up in the early hours of the morning. It does not always have to come up in the throat, but could stay in chest area, making it very difficult to determine as an issue.
But if the medical investigation proves a healthy system, the next step would be to check your child’s regulatory or modulation pattern. Sensory modulation is an inability for two major nervous system pathways: Sympathetic (arousal) and Parasympathetic (inhibition) to come together at a “just right” place for an even keel performance in arousal and attention. Think about that first cup of coffee in the morning and what it does for you to wake up. You know what your system needs to get to the “just right” place. Children with modulation difficulties do not. They know they have to get down to rest, but try as they may, that point of calming is ever illusive, causing even more distress and fatigue. In some families this is further exacerbated by the child’s anticipation of bedtime and her inner “knowing” that she is going to seek for this control, but feel hopeless to accomplish it. So just the very mention of bedtime sets this anxious cycle in motion again for yet another night.
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Sensory modulation can look different in different children and there is no “one size fits all” approach. Some kids are calmed by a warm bath before bedtime; others are over-aroused by the prospect of a bath. It is best to work with an experienced occupational therapist to determine your child’s particular profile and work on specific ways applicable to your child. Some starter ideas for you:
- Regular bedtime routine No TV or ipad in the bed before expecting to sleep. It actually alerts the brain.
- Dimming the lights in child’s environment an hour before bedtime.
- Soft calming music an hour before bedtime in the child’s hearing vicinity.
- Spending time with the child with joint attention to a calming activity within the hour before bedtime.
- Reading a story and having quiet family time together.
- Warm baths are good for some children.
- Some families find relief from adding a spoon or two of Epsom salts to the bath.
- The smell of lavender is calming to the nervous system, whereas mint is not.
- Ensure the right texture blanket / sheet on child’s bed, well as the bedclothes.
- Also try tight clothing, such as spandex sports clothes that fit snugly and tight on the body.
- Heavier bed blankets might be a good idea for some even in the heat of summer. There are weighted blankets available commercially.
- A night light might work for some.
- I’m not in favor of white noise, but more pink noise.
As an intervention, we frequently like to train families in a tactile integration massage technique that really works well. The calming touch of the parent’s hands going over the body in an organized way that stimulates the nervous system to the point of calm proves to be a great modulator as well as an emotionally connected time between parent and child.
Just the very mention of bedtime sets this anxious cycle in motion again for yet another night.
We also must consider the emotional connection to sleep. Many children feel anxious about separating from the parent for sleep, as there is an innate worry or fear that they will “lose” their anchor if they do. Emotional development requires that we separate from our parent in order to individuate and some children simply cannot get ready for this phase of autonomy and self-sufficiency. They might be having a difficult time working through fears and worries and might be stuck developmentally. Or they might be having difficulty working on the difference between fantasy and reality and therefore their anxious experiences become far larger than their reality. The child might simply feel threatened by a younger sibling taking her mom’s attention away from her, another developmental milestone to conquer. No behavior technique can replace the growth of emotional understanding that has to accompany the ability of the child to separate. The child needs a safe place of understanding to play out these fears and worries, so she can move on.
Getting sufficient sleep is important and all of Karen’s adaptive skills will be impacted, as she fights to stay alert and available and misses other important information. This topic is far more comprehensive than this blog allows, but hopefully it is helpful in getting started in the right direction.
by Maude Leroux | Jul 15, 2016 | Parenting
I just returned from a wonderful meeting of the minds in Arkansas and am reflecting on some of the points we discussed in more depth. One of the questions stood out: “What motivates a child to progress and learn?”
Let’ s start at the very beginning. Babies in and out of utero are hardwired to develop in very certain sequential steps of development. They grow in utero to have different cranial nerves in place to be ready for the birth process. During this phase of development it is very physical / sensational, but it is also emotionally driven by the voice of the mother that the baby experienced in the womb after 5 months in utero. Mommy’s voice is experienced through vibrations in bone conduction through the spinal cord and allows the baby to have an immediate link to her mommy’s voice as soon as she is born. The baby also is ready to receive mommy’s touch through the tactile-proprioceptive system and there the nature of bonding starts. Good healthy development depends both on central nervous system experience of sensations as well as the nurture of mommy and daddy as their first relationships.
We do not have to tell a typically developing child when to start walking, crawling and talking; they simply start going there.
Through the first two years of life, the baby grows and develops rapidly, often with stressful periods as the baby turns into a toddler and starts getting into all kinds of mischief. One very important hallmark of motivation is the concept of intrinsic motivation. We do not have to tell a typically developing child when to start walking, crawling and talking; they simply start going there. There natural innate drive propels them toward development. Only later, when their cognitive skill has developed into more reasoning does extrinsic motivation start making sense to them. Herein lies our conundrum: The atypically developing child turns away from learning to avoid unpleasant or unsuccessful experiences. The more new and novel the task appears, the more reason to want to avoid.
In order to gain such children back into the world of learning, many different theories have developed. One large theory comes from behavioral science and postulates that atypically developing children require extrinsic motivation to gain skill. So in essence it is a “top-down” approach. We appeal to the child’s cognitive understanding in order to understand that if they do a certain action, they will be rewarded. It goes further in thinking that with enough repetition of this action; it will develop into skill. Sometimes it does, but using extrinsic reward depends on the amount of actions a skilled therapist can pose to the child, which is not always integrative. How can you through extrinsic reward achieve a nervous system ability of looking and listening to a speaker at the same time as eliminating background information that should quickly be judged as non-important? The drive to develop skill comes from intrinsic motivation; it is innate and cannot be replaced by human interference. At best it develops a splinter skill that cannot be generalized to other skills.
The atypically developing child turns away from learning to avoid unpleasant or unsuccessful experiences. The more new and novel the task appears, the more reason to want to avoid.
For me, it is all about intrinsic motivation, even though I agree behavioral intervention has its place. Developmentalists postulate that if typical development was going to be good enough for the typical child, it should be good enough for the atypically developing child. This can be trickier than to figure out a behavior plan, which would be based on what we can observe and see, but once you harness the mind into wanting to use that innate drive, more integration occurs as it was naturally meant. You see the child’s drive coming forward and start leading the way while we support the weaknesses that causes stumbling blocks. It becomes a lovely dance of the child leading, feeling in control, and us intervening at the just right level to support that important intrinsic motivation.
For me, the answer lies in a solid evaluation of the child’s hierarchy of needs, matching the child’s developmental level, implementing methodologies that will motivate the child’s inner drive to succeed, and key to this: Relationships! The child has to connect with you in order to want to learn from you.
by Maude Leroux | Jul 6, 2016 | Parenting
“I am the great big wizard and I will change you into a tiny little mouse and you will go into the cave and live there forever!! And I will never, ever let you see anyone again!” So saying Gregory picks up his stick, turns so his cape could swirl, waves his hand and the deed is done. I am now forever to be a mouse dwelling in a cave. Anyone looking into our session would know we were having fun, but also wonder how this could contribute to his development overall. Critics of the world of play for children believe that though it is fun it is taking valuable time away from learning the essentials in life and children should be learning, not playing. But what if you are learning and playing at the same time?
Play is the work of the child; it is a childhood occupation. Gregory’s first objective was to learn about the props he was using, the different features and how to apply this to function. While this would really help in his essays one day, he is also building his descriptive language around different objects at the same time. As he plays out longer and longer sequences of play, he is learning to stay on task, to engage in one topic at a time, to build language around this topic, while also figuring out the sequential aspects of a story. These are really important building blocks for building sustained attention to task, a much needed skill for academics one day.
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When Gregory reaches out to play with me or with his parent or peer, he is learning the art of conversational turn taking. He has to share his plan, and has to field our interference to his plan and find his way around the obstacles we can present, causing him to become a problem solver and needing to consider the needs of others. He has to develop empathy and insight into the perspective of others, a really important building block for social skills, but also building the ability to work in a group, to be a part of a team and to see the value of working towards a common goal. Gregory is also learning to stand his ground and to use the language he needs to explain why his plan would work better. Self-assertiveness is a skill not easily taught any other way.
Play allows for a world where mistakes can be made and easily forgiven or corrected. You can die and be resurrected, no big deal! It allows for plots of sequences that trains his young mind to form a story with a beginning, middle and end, another important building block for language organization and reading comprehension. He learns to use his visual space and construct his play from scenes in his mind that is now represented in imaginary play. He learns to visualize what is not visually available in front of him, which helps him to develop drawing, and later, reading and writing. Visualization is also very important for math, as would be following the correct sequences to obtain your end result. In play you learn to “see” the end goal and plan towards it, developing your ability to remain goal persistent.
It is simply easier to work difficult things out in play rather than real life and it is very clear that when a child has missed these essential building blocks in play, it is more difficult for them to consider social nuances in conversation with others
Play is the best place for Gregory to figure out the hard things in life. When his grandpa died, he was able to work it out in play scenes, trying to figure how it could be that you could never, ever see a favorite person again. He could work out the fear of what would happen if his mommy should die. He fends off wolves and tigers as he learns to handle threat and feel strong enough to overcome adversities. He puts himself in authoritative positions over others as he figures out authority in his life and what this means for him and his growing sense of self. Where does he stop and where does his mommy start? How come she gets to call the shots when he so wants to play outside just a little longer? Growing from self-centeredness to an “others centeredness” curbs the rigidity and need for control in all circumstances. You can more readily give up your external control once you realize that your inner control is still intact.
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It is simply easier to work difficult things out in play rather than real life and it is very clear that when a child has missed these essential building blocks in play, it is more difficult for them to consider social nuances in conversation with others, they lack practical problem-solving skills that they can apply to the facts and figures they know. They have a far more difficult time with reading comprehension even when they develop a great vocabulary and language. Last, but not least, they learn the essential executive functioning skills that so many older students struggle with today. The ability to develop a plan to organize yourself in a timely manner through the different tasks you have to negotiate all start with play.
It is sad to hear adults say that play is a waste of time, especially in the face of developmental delay. We have to catch up time to decrease the delay therefore we should not spend so much time in play, they say. Besides it does not feel like you are working when you are playing right? No, this is wrong, play is the work of the child and we are allowed to have fun while learning these crucial elements that set the foundation for us later in life.
Let Us Play!
by Maude Leroux | May 25, 2016 | Parenting
We all want to have children who have great self-esteem and the ability to assertively stand their ground in face of conflict and challenge. To be able to view change as an exciting adventure with something new to gain from, is a wonderful goal and leads to increased self-exploration with increased application of new knowledge. But we do not always have this. So many books to read, each with their own opinion. I want to pose 5 points for you to ponder about and then provide you with 10 action items that will support you in your goal of achieving this feat.
- Self-esteem is driven from inside each one of us. The earlier building block in development is called intrinsic motivation. We are hardwired from the beginning of life to propel ourselves forward in development and this need for growth comes from deep within us.
- Children are not born telling the world they will have a self-esteem problem, but rather they are born with an innate need to connect with people, to have relationships, and to want to please others.
- Children are more motivated with their own sense of success and will naturally gravitate towards repeating a successful action in order to affirm this in the nervous system, translating this to good mental health and well being.
- Atypically developing children will shy away from new and novel experiences that could provide the very success they seek. In order to compensate, they may become rigid, controlling or “selfish”. This is an attempt to self protect, to preserve self-integrity, albeit not very successful.
- Our words do not always matter. Children know when we are patronizing them and saying: “You are such a smart girl!” unfortunately does not go far in building self-esteem. Once children feel the accomplishment in the body and mind, triggered by their own action, they can feel a sense of pride that will support the careful building of self-esteem.
Be careful to not give your child the subconscious message that you are doing this for her, because you do not trust her to do it for herself. A well-meaning gesture out of love might be the very thing that “robs” the child from the very experiences they need in order to feel accomplished.
What do we do then or… What do we not do?
- Think problem solving! Create problems on every day familiar tasks for them to solve. Have fun in being “dumb” and playful at the same time. It does not work if you start with new and novel tasks, but use familiarity to ease the child into this process.
- Validate each small success through praising the exact action and not stating a generic “good job”! The specificity of your comment will assist in helping the child to “own” the action and therefore find a willingness to repeat it.
- Be more observant of your child. Catch them doing things “right” or trying something new and validate the action. Especially when your child is non-verbal it is so easy to miss the cues when we are not watching.
- Do not over focus on extrinsic rewards as this comes later and we certainly all appreciate a reward for a job well done (our paycheck for example). But this is not how we develop self-esteem. This has to come from a sense of prowess within. The athlete receives the medal, but “owns” all the hard work it took to get to this achievement and knows it would be because of this alone, that he could achieve this again. The medal clinches the acclaim, but the hard work ensures the self-esteem.
- If you have an atypically developing child, you may find yourself wanting to protect your child from more times of difficulty and you may be doing for her what she may become capable of doing for herself. Be careful to not give your child the subconscious message that you are doing this for her, because you do not trust her to do it for herself. A well-meaning gesture out of love might be the very thing that “robs” the child from the very experiences they need in order to feel accomplished.
- When you praise your child, do not make too much eye contact and be-labor the praise thinking that the more you say, the more the child’s self esteem will grow. The opposite is far more frequently the truth. Just giving a passing comment, letting her know you had noticed and a warm smile of encouragement and faith in her abilities will speak far more to the child than effusive praise.
- Do not go into problem-solving mode when you or your child is rushed for time and anxiety tinges the situation. It has to be playful and inviting, so take note about when to use this action.
- When your child is in distress and feeling particularly stressed, it may also not be the best time to go into problem solving mode. Then it would be best to go into emotional mode and validate the child’s frustration or expression of emotion.
- Be sure of your child’s developmental level so as to ensure that you are not expecting a performance demand that is two steps higher than current level of accomplishment. This will create the very anxiety and avoidance behavior that we wish to not see.
- Always keep in mind that your child is a growing mind and body. The nervous system requires successful experiences to build the motivation to try again. Be in tune with your child as much possible, though also allow yourself the time to simply be and take care of yourself as well.
If you have any questions or comments, please post in comments section. Also, please post if another thought came to mind that you would like to hear my thoughts about.
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