#authenticallyautistic

Yesterday’s sensory support was being at the playground with my son. Using our hands, being tactile...We found an interesting bucket seat that I think you sit in it and someone spins you around in. I knew he wouldn’t be keen on that, but I knew he would be keen on filling it with bark. So I show d him by picking up handfuls and dropping the bark in slowly as if it were a cascading waterfall. He understood and started to copy me, fully enjoying himself ✨✨✨When I was a child, my mum was not joyful. She was quite the opposite actually. She didn’t participate in life with us, she was afraid to be seen in the world as herself, afraid to be embarrassed. So she sat on the sidelines, she didn’t cheer (and what team was I in anyway, I wasn’t!), she just...didn’t.

My journey of recovering from CPTSD has bought me to a place of healing so that I could have a child of my own. It’s a struggle to be with him sometimes, and when I say, with, I mean, be present and not embarrassed by my own self...just the same way she was. We allow our son to live authentically autistic, as that’s who he was born to be. Showing him that his mum is not afraid to be in a public park, filling a seat with bark and not worrying if we are ‘doing the wrong thing’. Showing him that fun is just fun, and playgrounds don’t need to have rules (as some parents think they do). I’m showing up for him, and I will continue to do so his whole life, he’s more important than how I feel.

Today’s sensory support comes in the form of making a visual aide for my son. We’ve been having so much success with using visuals and since learning how to use the Pages app I have been making so many for him. If you’re a parent supporting your autistic child I couldn’t recommend visuals any more highly. Breaking things down into steps is super helpful and your kiddo will thank you for it (even if they can’t tell you in words)! When our son asks for his ‘orange ice’, we can go to the recipe card (if they’re not already frozen) and show him where in the process we are. This reduced his frustration and helps him understand what’s happening.

Making marmite toast, follow on from my post earlier this morning. Just an example of how I chose to make this, I used the Pages app on apple iPad.

This morning’s sensory support is creating another visual aide recipe card for my son. This time it’s his favourite, marmite toast for breakfast. This will be the 4th recipe card I’ve made for him. We are finding them so helpful, I can point to where I am at in the process and tell him what I’m doing and he accepts and understands that I’m making food for him.

I can’t even stress enough how important visual aides are for your autistic child/ren. But even more so, for any child that isn’t NT and does have a harder time understanding or processing spoken language. These are key in reducing frustration for your child and as a knock on effect, for yourself too. Using visual aides gives you more interaction with your child, especially if they are non speaking or use limited mouth words and are often no eye contact. Using these have absolutely increased the amount of fun moments we have together.

I will post the finished visual later on when I have the time. So if you’d like to make one for your child you will have an example to follow. I’ve found some on Pinterest but of course you need to adjust to suit your child’s needs. This formula works for my son because it is broken down step by step, it meets his level of understanding. Your child may need fewer or more steps.

Another sensory support for today, rice turtles! My son is loving turtles at the moment and one of the same/same foods he enjoys is rice. It can be challenging to come up with ways to support his eating, I’ve found that making the rice into shapes has been helping. We use sushi rice and the powdered vinegar so it stays together. He struggles to use a fork and although we always give him the option, he mostly chooses his hands and that’s cool. I started by making a caterpillar because he was interested in them, that evolved into other shapes by using cookie cutters...and now it’s full on turtles.

This morning’s sensory support was, panda rice/sushi combo. I bought this for my son, knowing he loves rice and animals I thought he would love it. He’s autistic and is particular about food due to his senses. I didn’t realise it had chicken inside it😞I opened it for him after he gestured that’s what he wanted and he burst into tears. I was so sad for him because I didn’t understand immediately that he was upset because of the chicken. His Nan figured it out within two minutes and was soon removing the chicken and making the rice into balls for him. I was at his side, hugging him, wiping his tears when he would let me. He started to eat and repeat words from his video, it felt to me then that he was starting to feel better about things. Supporting him through these times means everything to me.