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| All the Son Rise Parents in our class: Our wonderful comrades in the Autism Journey |
So many of you are waiting to hear how our trip went. How do you
think it makes me feel to have so many of you either publicly or privately messaging me, wanting to know how mine and Rebekah's trip went?
It thrills me! Period. It's amazing to me that you are EAGER to
keep up with Levi, because that is an indication that we are on your
mind and in your prayers and that means so much to us.
I have so much I want to tell you about, but for now, I'll stick
to the basics.
So, if we had to describe what we "brought back" from our week at the Son Rise Training Center, in 6 words, what 6 words would
Rebekah and I use? We had a pow-wow about it, and these are the words we came
up with:
Change
Hope
Confidence
Motivation
Excitement
Support
I think I'll break this list down one word at a time over the next
few days (or couple weeks) and explain the idea of that word and how it
applies.
Ok. So what about CHANGE...how does this idea fit into the scheme
of things?
I really think that expanding this principle in regards to Levi
will be a huge key for us.
We as parents, love and do the best that we possibly can do for
our childern. Sometimes, loving them means coming to terms that a change within
ourselves is neccesary in order for us to help our children be all that they
are intended to be. Our beliefs and attitudes about ourselves, our children and
our lives have everything to do with our ability and effectiveness in helping
our children grow. How "do" we veiw ourselves? At the training, I sat
in a room with people from 18 different countries! All of these parents deal
with some level of feeling like a failure or dealing with guilt because of
their childs special needs. These feelings produce beliefs and attitudes within
ourselves that make us feel hopeless, inadequate, depressed, frustrated and so
on. These beliefs and attitudes render us literally helpless within ourselves,
much less allow us to be able to help our childern in a real, effective
manner.
We have basically gotten down pat, that acceptance of Levi
"just the way he is", is the best way to show him how much we love
him. But somehow, the importance of what is going on inside of us, slipped
through the cracks: The irrational guilt in SO many area's, like not being able
to understand his needs because he's not able to communicate, the pressure and
frustration that we must make Levi act "normal" for other people's
comfort, fear of what people think about my child and us, as his parents
because of a lack of understanding. So, so many things going on in here!
It meant so much to me that these things were pointed out to us, not as another source for more guilt, but as a tool to enable us to be the help and support in Levi's life that we long to be. This means that we will have so much more of a focus
on giving these false beliefs and attitudes over to the One that blessed us
with our precious Levi. God gave Levi to our family, because He knew that we would
strive to grow, so that in turn, we could help Levi grow.
We are so thankful to you for giving us the opportunity to
help Levi. Now I realize that you were also affording us the tools for our
family to grow as individuals.
I KNOW you want a peek into the practical side to our life right
now, so I'm going to give you a quick run down of what's going on around here. :)
Trevor and some of the kiddo's are in the basement beginning to close Levi's
room in this very moment. The original plan was that the room would get
finished while Rebekah and I were in Massachusetts. WEEELL, I was told that the
entire dynamics of family life meshed with running a business was completely
modified once Rebekah and I stepped out of the front door to start our trip. I
don't see how that possibly could be??? haha
The trip was great. The training was empowering! Thank God Rebekah went with me. The practical tools we left with are vast, from exactly how to set our playroom up, to how, when and what to join Levi in, how to eleviate tantruming, when to know when Levi is available to learn and this is just the tip of the iceberg! AND, I can't leave out that Rebekah and I came home with MANY therapy and educational toys for Levi's room, to add to the ones that have been gifted by you! <3
Since we've been back, we have patiently been waiting for today, when his playroom would get started.
Each day, we have been working with Levi in the little girls room and he is
absolutely loving it. I mean he is absolutely LOVING it! Levi is so into his
sessions, that he doesn't want to leave the playroom at all. Late last night,
Levi came and got Trevor, walked him up the stairs, took him into the little girls
bedroom, shut the door, locked it (heehee), and turned around and looked at
Trevor with expectancy! He was ready to play! So exciting, because not only is he letting us know he's very into this "play thing" were doing with him, BUT he was COMMUNICATING clearly to us what he was wanting!
One area we are having immediate results in, is with Levi's eye contact.We have been working with Levi for years,
so we have had fairly good eye contact, progressively for a while now. Because
of this, I wasn't sure if I would really see a dramatic increase in this area.
Boy was I wrong! I am seeing what I believe to be almost "normal" eye
contact. In other words, instead of seeing lots of referencing, I am seeing
much longer contact at once. I'll be putting Levi on a Developmental graph of sorts so that we will better see and track his progress.
I am so excited to start recording some of our sessions with Levi so you can see us in action. Give us some time to finish getting set up. I know you will enjoy watching.
Thank you so much for helping us reach this goal. It feels so good to be where we are, brimming over with excitement, daring to dream "big dreams" once again, that we will climb GREAT HEIGHTS with Levi!
We love you so much,
Trevor, Angela, Loran, Caleb, Mary, Rebekah, Christian, Amelia, Elisha, Abigail, Levi, John~Micah, Alyssa and Gemmie
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