{"id":20534,"date":"2022-08-30T10:11:37","date_gmt":"2022-08-30T14:11:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.shorebeat.com\/brick\/?p=20534"},"modified":"2022-08-31T05:31:21","modified_gmt":"2022-08-31T09:31:21","slug":"the-little-things-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/brick\/2022\/08\/the-little-things-2\/","title":{"rendered":"The Little Things: Summer Camp an Important Milestone for Son With Autism"},"content":{"rendered":"
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\u201cWow, he spent an entire week at sleepaway camp without you, that\u2019s amazing!\u201d said a dear friend.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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It is. Truly, it is.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s a very big thing. And I have to tell you, it\u2019s not as the result of major choices we made, or large milestones met.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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It\u2019s due in large measure to the fact that he wanted to be there.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s also due to the fact I miraculously remembered to pack everything.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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But mostly, it\u2019s due to the little things.<\/p>\n

There are so many major milestones most parents hope they\u2019ll achieve with their autistic children. We long to hear them speak, or at least have functional communication. We desperately want to see them potty train, and sleep. On occasion, we dream big, and hope one day they\u2019ll eat vegetables instead of an all-carb diet.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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And none of these milestones are ever met overnight.<\/p>\n

Back when Justin was little and still in Early Intervention therapy, I remember one of his therapists talking to me when I was feeling overwhelmed. She said that the clients she saw make the most progress had parents and teachers and therapists who did the work- the often grueling, repetitive work of teaching a skill over and over and over, until it\u2019s mastered. She told me that day that the kids whose instructors didn\u2019t give up often got the best results.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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I know, it sounds obvious. But when you\u2019ve put your child on the potty for the one thousandth time it often seems like this will be forever, and will never work.<\/p>\n

Sometimes, it doesn\u2019t. More often than not, eventually something will click.<\/p>\n

Justin didn\u2019t just waltz into sleepaway camp for the first time at nineteen completely ready to sleep in a cabin with a number of other people. He was successful because we took baby steps. A few nights at his grandma\u2019s. Every other year trips to Disney, where although he\u2019d be in the room with one of his parents, he\u2019d also be in a strange bed.<\/p>\n

He was successful because his mom, teacher and camp counselor showed him a calendar every day for months with the word \u201cschool\u201d or \u201chome\u201d and \u201ccamp\u201d in the squares so he\u2019d know how long he\u2019d be there.<\/p>\n

He was successful because we\u2019ve taken him places all his life even when it was hard, sometimes for just a few minutes before we\u2019d leave, so he could learn that going out was fun.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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He loved this week at camp because all the helpers in his life did the little steps to see him potty trained, able to sleep, able to eat, and able most importantly to adapt to new circumstances.<\/p>\n

His ability to sleep away from us was truly a nineteen year work in progress.<\/p>\n

So if you\u2019re exhausted right now with trying a new skill, you may decide to put it on the back burner for a while. But if it\u2019s important, come back to it. All of these skills I mentioned were integral to his ability to leave us for an entire week, will be integral to his ultimate success of being able to live away from us permanently. So whatever you\u2019ve chosen to work at, keep at it. Ask for help when you can. See if other people can help as well. Because this one skill may just make your child happier and your life easier- but it might also lead to something big down the road.<\/p>\n

Something big like a severely autistic non-verbal adult thriving at sleepaway summer camp.<\/p>\n

Don\u2019t give up.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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For more on my family visit my blog at autismmommytherapist.wordpress.com<\/em><\/p>\n

Follow me on Facebook at Autism Mommy-Therapist <\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

<\/div><\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u201cWow, he spent an entire week at sleepaway camp without you, that\u2019s amazing!\u201d said a dear friend. It is. Truly, it is. It\u2019s a very big thing. And I have to tell you, it\u2019s not as the result of major choices we made, or large milestones met. It\u2019s due in large measure to the fact […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":196,"featured_media":20535,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[4,12],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-20534","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-life-in-brick","category-ocean-county"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/brick\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/08\/Easter-22-Justin-19-BDay-065-scaled.jpg","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pgt2Ft-5lc","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20534","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/196"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=20534"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20534\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/20535"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=20534"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=20534"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=20534"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}