goodfountain

I have been wanting to try writing a social story for Chee. I was inspired especially by Christa and Ben at Hyperlexicon. She successfully used a social story to help Ben say goodbye to his beloved Chomper. It went so well for them, I figured it’s high time we give it a go.

A logical social story to start out with might be on the subject of Potty Training, but if the idea backfires or just fails miserably with her, I don’t want any setbacks connected to toileting. We have made a bit of progress of late. I consider anytime she sits on the potty and actually makes a deposit to be progress. We have had a couple of those lately completely initiated by her. The biggest contributing factor to that is little Miss Ess who has decided that she is interested in the potty. She asks to sit on it, usually shortly after wetting her diaper. She informs me when she has pooped. “I poop!” Chee, on the other hand, will staunchly deny having pooped despite strong (and I mean strong) evidence to the contrary. What a difference with these two. Perhaps if Ess will potty train this summer, it will be the catalyst that Chee needs. We’ll leave social stories out of it for now.

There are a few areas Chee could use some help. She has started pushing us lately when she doesn’t want to do something. I think she has picked this up from Ess to tell the truth. Only Ess does it in an age appropriate way - what you’d expect from a 15 month old. Chee is too old. At this point, it’s not terrible. She already has a story for that, though, the classic Hands Are Not For Hitting. It is currently one of her most favorite books. Often read and more often recited. Let’s not duplicate efforts, I say. Besides, a lesson we learned the hard way last summer was not to make too terribly big a deal about her hitting as it just makes her do it more. Yeah, we’ll try not to repeat that with pushing.

For the last few days she’s gone back to refusing to brush her teeth. Since her bedtime routine falls squarely in her Daddy’s lap, I’ll let him deal with that.

Garage therapy seems to be working. After I pull the van out in the morning, I leave the garage door open. The idea being the unknown is often scarier than the known. For the first few days I had to carry her to the van. Now she’ll walk down the sidewalk, to the driveway (not cut diagonal across the lawn), and hop in the van, all the while staring wide eyed into the garage saying, It’s okay, it’s okay.

That leaves us with one fairly big challenge for which a social story might just work. Getting her hair cut. Chee is solidly against it. She’s had her hair cut maybe 3 times in her 3 1/2 years. The last time was exactly six months ago. I somehow managed to trim her bangs (way too short) at home and, riding on that success, convinced her to go to the local Kids Salon to have the back trimmed. Leading up to that, we had been visiting said Kids Salon several times a week for many weeks. We’d go in, talk to the stylists, sit in some chairs, watch other kids get their hair cut, no pressure to actually get one herself though. Just getting used to the place was my strategy. It must have worked, or maybe the planets were properly aligned, because that afternoon she let about 3-4 inches get taken off the back (Chee has always been blessed with a lot of hair). It was a team effort by the stylists working that day and was by no means perfect. But the dead ends were gone, the bangs were straight, and she looked adorable.

The formerly cute short bangs are now even with her nose. The only hairstyle that I can make work is a ponytail that holds her bangs back. It’s not ideal, but it works. For now. Eventually there is going to have to be some measure of success in the haircut arena again. I’m pretty firmly against the hold-her-down-and-cut-it-while-she-screams approach.

She really likes her social story so far. She laughed her way through it the first time she read it. Now she asks for me to read it to her often. I found some perfect visuals (thank you, Google), kept it simple but made it fun, incorporating one of her favorite characters, Super Why, and the promise of a special treat from Target once her hair has been cut.

I’m too sure how optimistic I feel about the story helping to achieve our goal. Yesterday I asked her if she wanted that special treat from Target and she answered, No, I don’t want to get my hair cut. Guess I was a little too transparent, huh.

Ah well - we shall keep trying. Underneath that ponytail is a gorgeous head of hair just waiting to be unleashed.