JM and Body awareness

It has been awhile since I have talked about JM and sensory issues. He is my most noticeable, or the one who's sensory affects him the most.

Just yesterday he cried for 1.5 hours, nothing I did would calm him down, he did this because I would not give him my IPOD, which is new, I had just taken it out of the package new. I was only able to get him to calm down and "forget" about it by downloading a son and letting him listen to it, I allowed him to sit beside me and put one ear pud in his ear and listen to one song, after which he was fine. He gets fixated on things and does not forget. I tried everything yesterday morning, favorite tv show, relaxation music playing, getting his guitar out and asking him to play for me, nothing worked. Holding him tight, brushing etc. again nothing worked. So he cried for over an hour.

The other thing going on with him, is body awareness, he seems to not know he is there, if you know what I mean. He has been so clumbsy this summer. This week, well in one day, he fell and scrapped his knee, I asked him what happened and he said he did not know. He got a splinter in his hand and pulled it out, tearing skin along the way, again he said he had to get it out and it did not hurt anymore. He again fell on the deck, said he tripped over his foot scrapped up his elbow. All of this occured within about a three hours time.

Then yesterday he crashed (as he says) his bike and now has a loose tooth. Thank goodness he already had a dentist appointment for today, so we will get it checked.

We do nknow that it is a body awareness problem, if he sits by you he sits on top of you, when walking he will run into you, he has no awareness of personal space. We try to help him with this through art therapy and having him draw pictures of people, he never draws their body, just a head and legs, So we sing a song about our body while we draw the person. It is kind of corny but it works. The only thing is that if I am not drawing and singing the song as he draws he will draw the person with just a head and legs.

So we are working on it and we have imporvements some days and other days he will take two steps back. It is a daily challenge and I never know what the next minute is going to bring. But with time, therapy and yes some patiences on my part we will get there.