Wednesday 13 January 2016

Gloves, glorious gloves! A moment of magic with my autistic son

Woman wearing gloves and covering her mouth

It started to get much colder this week. David's not great with wearing unfamiliar clothes. Unfamiliar things can be scary for anyone and it can be even harder if you are a kid with sensory issues. 

Two and a half year old Jane has been wearing gloves (well mittens actually) for a long time. Hilariously she even wears them eating ice lollies in the house. David's older brother has been told to put his gloves on every school day for the last two months as he scoots to school. 

I've been saying the word a lot and I guess David must have been listening and watching because when I said 'gloves on' to him, he held out his hands. 

He and I and the other kids were going to our local playground. In some ways it's better when it's cold because the playground is quieter.

David held my hand and we walked slowly down the road to the playground that's not far away at all. Did I say slowly? 

The reality is we had a great time taking a very long time to get to the playground:

David checked to see that he could still count his fingers when he had gloves on. Check! 

He made sure he could still clap. Check!

He checked that they felt soft on the outside too, by rubbing his cheeks. Check!

Then we stood still for a minute while I copied every glovey move he made. He covered his ears, then his mouth.  He put his hands like antlers, then just one antler, then the other. Then back on his cheeks, and then covering his eyes. I copied him exactly and he watched me intently and grinned hugely, and didn't notice when I peeked through whilst covering my eyes (after all, I had another child in tow).


This was almost a type of intensive interaction if you've heard of that before. 


Best of all, after we got to the park David found that he could hold on to the bars and play equipment for as long as he liked and his hands didn't get cold. We headed back home a little early when Jane slipped into a muddy puddle, but no one was upset about it. 


Great cold trip to the playground. 


Links

Our blog - A ray of sunshine, autism in the playground 

External links

What is intensive interaction? 


4 comments:

  1. This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.

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    1. Whoops sorry Chloe, was a sweet comment and my clumsy fingers squashed it! So lovely, thank you.

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  2. That's fab that he was so happy with the gloves straight away. Love that Jane likes to wear them with ice lollies too, good idea really! Sounds like you had a lovely day at the park.
    Thanks so much for linking up to #Whatevertheweather :) x

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  3. Aww, brilliant. Glad David enjoyed wearing his gloves so much and very welcome in this chilly weather. We've had glove dramas here today. Thanks for linking up with #SSAmazingAchievements

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