One Goal?

[Chester]

I was just cleaning the bathroom and thinking that what a great summer we had and that we accomplished our goal; therapy, therapy, therapy. I knew it was a summer of AIT, and for me to learn new techniques.

Now onto the school year.....The one feasible non-IEP goal.....drum rolls please, because for some reason this is a tough one for ol' Mom, is that we're going to treat JT like a three year old! The high chair left the house last month and he's in a booster seat, the little bugger can say a lot more than we "ask"of him, consistency on the potty chair, he'll need to help clean up the dog food when he tips the bowl over, etc etc.

When we were snuggling last night, I just wanted to bawl, here's this little guy that I couldn't be prouder of, my baby has become such a little boy!

So what's your "every-day-real-life-non-IEP" goal?

[rickismom]

We're wporking on several:
for Ricki:
- nightime toilet training (only started now as most of my kids were late in this)
- absolutely NO daytime accidents
-more cooking
- learning to sort laundry

for me:
- DIET but YES I WANT to do this
- to try to treat Ricki with more chances for choosing

[Staci]

Man, it's SO HARD to not baby our babies! Aidan gets a lot of babying from me. I need to crack down on him, or else its going to be harder in the future, I know. I KNOW this...but it's not easy. His little sister even babies him! He eats at the big boy table with us, but I still feed him most of his meals. He does about half, I do about half. My goal is for HIM to eat all of his dinner on his OWN with his utensils! Picking up his room (eak, that won't be fun!). He has rules and he knows the rules...for example, no eating outside of the kitchen...and MAN does he test me! And Aidan, too, can use a lot more words than I allow him to use. Everything is handed to him and I am going to be more careful not to give into him so much. Its going to be hard, though! Wish me luck! LOL

Staci

[Jessie]

My oh my - only one?

As always it has to do with his communication. We are trying to get him to come and ask us for things . . . it's hard because he is at an age where he CAN physically do things on his own, and is compensating for the fact that he can't verbalize, so he tries to cook, etc., on his own.

HOWEVER, this morning we had good progress. He did go ahead and get out the toaster and hash browns (his favorite breakfast) and had them ready to go on the counter. BUT, he did not plug in the toaster, he came to us and said "Help, please". That was a biggy, I feel like we finally got through to him that he is not allowed to "cook" on his own. We will help him with those things.

So, I guess that's our immediate, most pressing goal, for him to somehow communicate to us what he wants.

We are also starting a chores list this week that he will get an allowance for at the end of each week if he does what he's supposed to. We'll see how that goes!


Jessie

[Valerie]

Hmmmm...I think right now, my biggest goal for him would be his speech. He says a lot of words, and has a lot of signs, but a lot of his words are understood by just us. Like he says ple for apple, per for diaper, he has some word for hat that sounds NOTHING like hat, but he says it the same way each time, and signs it, and sometimes is holding one, so I KNOW it is hat, but nobody else would! So I think more clarity of speech.

[Cathy]

toilet training!

thats a biggie and more responsibilty for her actions

cathy

[Jenifer]

This post got me to thinking, and I feel our goal would be awareness of surroundings. For instance, when we're out walking, Joy will just step off the curb and start crossing the street without looking! And she will see the neighbor and start running to her without realizing she's running across a street to get to her. It's not a busy street, but a street nonetheless. Parking lots are also a real issue...she will just sit down in the middle of the Wal-Mart parking lot, not realizing cars might want to get past her.

I think she's still in a very egocentric mindset, thinking that mommy and daddy will protect her and think for her, so she doesn't have to. So we will be working on that for now.

[momofrussell]

Well, you had some epiphany didn't you Chester!!! WTG!!!

Non IEP goals? Well, what I would like to work on.. or what should come next is having Russell learn to dress or undress himself independently. Russell can't do this and has NO CLUE for the most part. He can kinda "adjust his clothes" but for the most part, he can't put on a shirt or shorts/pants, nor take them off. He can only take off a shirt if it's REALLY big and he is playing with it and he figures how to play with his arms out of the holes LOL..but Kevin and I think this would be the next "independent" step for him and get towards that more independent thing. Russell can FEED himself.. but other then that, all his needs are taken care of by us. He is not "there" yet and I am looking for signs he is... he can help us pick his toys up with prompting, ect... to know it is time.. it's getting to that point.

I also really need to get off my LAZY bum and make his PECS accessible to him at home, his food pecs to start with. He as all the ones i made him at school and they work on it some, but the ones mommy made for home... well, they just sit there. LOL.. I really need to STOP being so lazy and just do it! (I do this with sewing too LOL).

A.

[carolyn]

John has a big year ahead of him starting K next week, but I know that my 1 goal for him this year would have to be to keep up with the family when we are out. He likes to stop whenever and where ever he feels like it, and pretend to be totally interested in a leaf or blade of grass so we all have to stand around a wait. Well, no more of that. Really this is a goal for me as well, as I have to stop letting this happen- it drives me nuts, and we all know that is his intention. Right now I can just sort of drag him along, but one day he will be too big for that so I have to fix it now.

[Mary_L.]

Potty training! I so want Patrick to be potty trained. He is really starting to make some progress so I hope by Christmas he is fully trained.

Mary

[wrblack]

Kind of an easy one, walking independently.
Last year's PT had set a goal of getting Charlie to take 10 steps all by himself, no walker nor holding hands. Didn't happen. But he did learn not to be so trusting, of anyone, after she started turning loose of his hands.
We've switched from Patty Bobs to SureSteps. Think Charlie never cared much for the Patty Bobs and likes the SureSteps even less. But Charlie is doing a lot more pulling up, cruising, climbing up on furniture, and sometimes falling off, scary and not so good.
So there's some progress. We'll see. Maybe he's going for the record as the oldest kid with Ds still not walking. Anybody know what that would be? -- Bob

[YoshsMom]

With Yosh it would be eating without a struggle. I've recently discovered that if I leave food on the floor and ignore it, he'll put it in his mouth and even chew. But the same food in his high chair gets tossded to the floor. And his feeding therapist broke her hip and will be out of commission for months.