goodfountain

Today Chee had her first Art Class for kids with Sensory Processing Disorder. It was held at a children’s play center that caters to kids age birth to 5. The owner has decided to start offering classes for kids with special needs. From tumbling to soccer to art and more. Kudos to this owner/mom. I love the idea. To top it off, the cost is only $10/class for a four-week class. Cheap and not a lengthy time commitment.

There was just one other child in the class. A boy about age 4. There was a no-show, so perhaps next week there will be three kids. The theme was The Beach and they first worked with some dry beans, then rice, then sand. Colored sand even. A little progression, if you will.

For Chee, tactile defensiveness has not been an issue (outside of the problems she used to have with nail trimmings). We play with beans, rice, oatmeal and shaving cream at home regularly. The Sensory aspect of the class wasn’t what appealed to me. For me, it was the idea that we would be with other kids who might have some fine motor delays, who might need to be shown something several times before “getting it,” who might not want to be in the room in the first place, who might not want the door closed, who might flap their hands, who might need a few hugs from Mommy when first getting started.

Admittedly, I have never taken Chee to an art class so I have no basis for an apples-to-apples comparison. But if an art class were anything like our tumbling and music classes have been - then I can assure you it would have been a disaster. Picture (the cutest) girl in a room full of other kids running circles around the group instead of singing or clapping or jumping or tumbling. Granted, it’s been about 18 months since she’s been in a group class (except for preschool) and she has made some seriously tremendous changes. However, fine motor skills are still a challenge, as are large groups, as are fast paces.

Today’s class was just perfect. We look forward to next week.

Something even more interesting happened today though.

You might remember when I wrote about Chee’s first social story. And later I wrote that it was having no effect. She loved the story about the haircut. We read it often. She memorized it right away. But any suggestion of going to the Kid Salon was soundly and adamantly rejected. Eventually she allowed me to use those cheapy dull kid scissors and pretend to cut her hair. Just earlier this week I overheard her in the playroom proclaiming how beautiful Ess was now that she (Chee) had just cut her hair. (Luckily, it was the kid scissors - Ess still has her near perfect mullet).

After the art class, I told Chee we were going to get her hair cut, and she didn’t say No. I took that as hugely affirmative and off we went. There was some mild initial protesting, but I’m happy to report that she left with 3 inches less hair and looking seriously grown up. Once she was up in the chair, she was perfect. Perfect!

When we got in the van to leave she shouted, You did an awesome job getting your haircut.

Indeed.