Mary Kostka (speaker) recounts a holiday success story about helping a child with sensory processing disorder stay regulated during a busy family gathering. Key actions included pre-planning with family, arranging access to a quiet room, starting with a calm activity at grandparents (opening a few presents and providing Lego to play with), and using tools like earphones. The approach emphasized collaboration with relatives and practical tactics (quiet space, familiar calming toys, modified gift-wrapping) that allowed the child to participate in dinner and avoid a meltdown. Mary invites others to share their strategies.
Aloha everyone. Happy New Year 2018 shortly after the holidays. And I want to share one of the many success stories from the holidays that I've heard since being back to work. And this one really stands out as a real collaborative success story. Help this little guy get through the holidays. So this little guy has sensory processing disorder. He gets overwhelmed with change in routine, a lot of visual stimulation, a lot of sound, like so many of our kids do. And so this particular holiday was going to be at a relative's and there were going to be about 20 kids running around. So we're trying to figure out how to set this little guy up for six. And so with a lot of collaboration between helping the parent have some ideas and them talking to their family, we were able to have a really successful result. So I thought I'd share what worked. So the first thing that she did is she talked to the mom, talked to the family and was trying to establish a way that he would be able to have a quiet space in the house somewhere that he could go to. And this particular relative had no go zones, so had rooms that nobody was allowed to go in and then the rooms where all the people would be. And she was pretty reluctant to the idea of him being able to go into one of these no go zone rooms by himself. But eventually she did agree. And the first place that he went to is the grandparents and they decided to just open a few presents just at the grandparents house. So he would have some things to play with when they go to the other house. And so with some Lego activities that he would that are very common, calming to him and something that would keep him busy. Then when they got to the house that had 20 kids running around, a lot of activity, overwhelming, he just chose to go right into the quiet room and he just played quietly there with his toys and did really well. And parents were able to enjoy the family, his siblings were able to enjoy the other kids. And he was just happy playing by himself. And then which normally this would have already been a meltdown and they would have been probably having to leave already. So then when it was time for the dinner, he was in a calm, good place. He was able to come out and have dinner with everybody and did really well. And then they were able to leave after that. So the entire evening was a complete success. And that was really happened because we did a lot of pre problem solving, pre planning and really got the family on board, helped them understand his needs and it was really great. And since I've been back to work I've heard. Well, of course, the holidays are challenging for everybody, but I've heard a lot of similar success stories. Some other strategies that I've heard is if it's too too much excitement to have to not know what's in a present, especially for foster kids. One neat idea that I heard was from Shannon was to have them wrap the present. So they wrapped it. They know it's in there, but they still have to wait to open it till later. I thought that was pretty clever. And of course, having those earphones handy help when there's too much going on. And shoot me. All your successful strategies and other ideas that worked for you guys, those are the things that are just popping off the top of my head. So just wanted to share that story with you and talk to you soon. Aloha.
