Our first parent education session

We have had a busy week of therapies.  I am glad it is Friday!  We are going to have a relaxing weekend, hopefully, because next week is going to be crazy.  We fly home on Wednesday (Christmas Eve).  Jason is thinking that we need to be to the airport at least three hours early for the busy travel day.  That means we have to be to the airport by 7:00 a.m., so we have to leave the hotel by 6:00 a.m.  Ugh.  I hope that our flight is on time and that we can make a quick trip back to Texas.

We have to pack up all our stuff on Monday and Tuesday to get ready for our trip home.  We are leaving all our things in the Sequoia and parking it at the airport.  I wish we could leave all our stuff in the hotel room, but it's too expensive to pay for a room just to leave our stuff.  We are accumulating more and more while we are here.  Good thing we are not flying with all of this stuff!  We'd have to ship some of it home :-)

We had our first parent education session with the OT today.  Jason and I did not  know what to expect out of the session.  Overall, I think it went really well.  Lindsay took the comments I made to her over the last several sessions and structured the meeting to help plan and answer my questions. As a result of this meeting, we have a great working plan of how to set limits with Sam, how to read his arousal levels, and how to manage in each of the arousal zones.  My notes are chicken scratch, but I am going to make a reference chart that will help us to remember the strategies for each arousal level.

What are arousal levels?  Here is a chart that will show you a little more.

For people without sensory processing issues, much of the time we operate in the green zone, or optimal level of arousal.  As all of us have experienced at one time or another, out of the ordinary events that cause us to go into sensory overload where we feel overstimulated or unable to cope with the circumstances.  For people with sensory processing difficulties, ordinary every-day events can cause sensory overload.  It could be sounds, sights, smells, touches, etc that can lead to "over-reactions" that trigger the flight or fight response.  When Sam's level of arousal starts to increase, we need to be able to recognize the escalation so we can react in appropriate ways to help reduce his arousal.  Lindsay helped us come up with signs for Sam's levels of arousal (there are several levels of sensory overload) and how to communicate with Sam to manage those levels.  It's going to take a lot of work on our part of make this a part of our habitual parenting with Sam.  Hopefully we will see positive results and be encouraged!

Thanks for all your prayers and support!