Has your child ever wandered away from you in a big open crowded place – the mall, an airport a parking lot, in the Santa Claus line?

My story: When my son Matthew was four, he very quietly left our sides as his dad and I were engrossed in a cool potential purchase. Matt just up and sauntered out of a busy store into the throngs of people walking the mall. We were confident Matt was right there by one of us, until we snapped to consciousness, looked down and there was no Matt in sight. We exchanged horrifying looks of panic and bolted out of the store to search for our son, squeezing through the mobs to get across the mall. We found Matthew within minutes, but the search felt like eternity. We had followed our hunch, and sure enough, there was our Matt, sitting like the perfect preschooler quiet and cross-legged on the floor, beneath a row of TV’s, his curly head adorably tilted up, fixated on Big Bird. That is the huge moment of relief when you are torn between hugging him and yelling at him.

Kids want to do the same things we want to do in new places – roam around feeding our curiosity and gravitating to what interests us. Holiday time is extra tantalizing.  Glitzy mall decor. Larger than life airport attractions – big windows filled with runways and planes, huge signs pointing in all directions to shuttle trains, escalators and terminals.

Pro-active planning reduces the chances you will have one of those frantic, fearful events. Kids like to extend the boundaries when away from home, which makes it even more important to have your positive child discipline strategies in place.

These strategies do NOT replace a continual close watch on your child. While you are watching, your child is burning off  energy, enjoying some choices, and learning from new sights. You are having an easier time making your way through a busy place, and disciplining less!

Keep your younger kids safe (with just enough freedom) when you are on the move with

THREE SIMPLE  CONCISE CUE PHRASES

1. HOLD HANDS “When we are holding hands, I am keeping you safe in busy strange places. I will tell you when you can let go. This is maximum security, when you know it is a time to take no chances.

2. BE NEXT TO ME. “This means you cannot walk away.”  Explain  to older children “ If we are not holding hands  that means I trust you to stay next to me until I tell you it okay to do something different. “

3. BE WHERE I CAN SEE YOU “This means you can walk around nearby, a little as long as I can see you wherever you are and you can see me”. (Be sure you will be able to keep a straight line of vision to your child, and that she can  hear your voice.)

Prepare your child well in advance. Talk about the new system. Adjust the cue system according to your child’s age, stage of development and self-discipline with freedom opportunities. If your toddler has not had much experience leaving the stroller, practicing in more contained areas is a safer start.

Cue phrases work for kids and adults. Parents do not have to be tethered to their kids every second. Kids have some choice to have limited freedom to enjoy the delight of new sights. Parents are always in charge and make the judgment call about how close kids must stay.

How to Talk to your Younger Kids About the New Plan …

Preparing

“When we go to big busy places, I know you want to run and see all the interesting things to look at. First, I need to keep you safe. So we have a plan that we are going to practice and remember whenever we go places where there are a lot of people”.

“There are THREE different ways we can do it. I will tell you which the safe one is.”

“When I say ‘One, Two, Three, come back’, you must come back quickly.”

“When you listen quickly, it tells me I can let you do it again.”

Watch for the  next posting  on  best strategies for practicing these tips.

How did these tips work for you? I welcome your comments!

Ellen

By first understanding and working with your own feelings, you can set the stage for magical results with the very challenging people in your life!

1. Know your feelings – and how strong they may be – before you get into action with your challenging people.

2. Make behavior decisions that you will feel proud of. Your style will be their style. “They” learn by watching you and listening to you.

3. Know what others are feeling. Understand that you may not agree.

4. Find the words to convey your feelings without denying someone else theirs.

5. Seek out the good things in a situation, even if they are microscopic or a real stretch.

6. Be persistent – appropriately! Stay on track. Back off the track when you know you will get nowhere.

7. Monitor your impulses. Reflect on your own thinking that won’t help in the bigger picture.

8. You may need to withdraw your approval. But in the process don’t withdraw the love.

9. Have tools to manage your emotions before you are swept away by them.

10. Think about how you deliver your message. What would you be feeling if you were on the receiving end? Care about the feelings of the other person. It’s just the good old golden rule.

Refer to and live by these ‘process’ steps as you work with your challenging people and you will begin to see and feel how much easier it all can be.

Imagine that we each arrive into the world with a golden ball that is our life companion, bouncing and shimmering its way along side us throughout our lives. As we grow up, the glow of our golden ball grows brighter as our self-esteem blossoms. Through the messages we give our children, we make choices in how strong their golden balls glow. They may fade or grow ever more radiant as our loved ones develop pride in their competence. A wonderful consequence of nurturing pride is strong self-worth.

These ten tips will help your children or challenging loved ones to grow and glow ever more golden:

1. Praise even small acts of cooperation. They will glow with feeling appreciated.
2. Encourage them through their new experiences and challenges with “I believe in you” messages. They will glow with a sense of being trusted to work it out.
3. Give age and stage appropriate freedom and choices. They will glow with a sense of independence and opportunity.
4. Listen with your silence and respond without judgment. They will glow with self- respect.
5. Set guidelines and limits that are clear, fair and positive. They will glow with a sense of safety.
6. Allow your loved ones to see your mistakes and frailties. They will glow with self- acceptance.
7. Model your values for your children by living by them openly. They will glow with a sense of direction.
8. Smile and hug often and full out. They will glow with happy hearts and connectedness.
9. Honor their uniqueness, their quirks and their individuality. They will glow with creativity.
10. Help them explore what makes them proud of themselves. Invite them to tell you what makes them proud of you.They will glow with emotional intelligence.

Action Step: Bring out feelings of pride in your challenging loved one~

For the next week, plan to find daily opportunities to say “I am very proud of you!” Sincerity is supreme. Say it only when you are feeling genuinely proud. Say it with feeling. Be smiling. Be amazed. But do be yourself and say “I am VERY proud of you because — – —–!” It can be about even the teeny tiniest accomplishment. And when you start really looking, feeling proud is not hard to find.

Find out what Works: After a few days ask yourself these questions:

• Were my ‘pride statements’ novel enough to grab the attention of my child, student, or other challenging loved one?
• Has there been some noticeable behavior change?
• In what other settings or situations can I continue to nurture pride?

Case Study

My 39 year old client, Peter, who has Asperger Syndrome, is quite charming and social but was experiencing continual rejection in social settings because he would monopolize the conversation with his favorite two questions. Peter was fascinated with whales and he just loved a new audience to search out different opinions of the same factual questions: “How many species of whales are there in the world?” and “Which oceans do they live in?” Most people don’t know and are not interested in the answer, so Peter found himself sitting alone and feeling alienated after five minutes in a room. It did not matter that he already knew the answers to these questions which had been a lifetime fixation.

We designed a strategy that cues Peter to divert the questioning and instead say ” Oh! I have the answer to that question, don’t I?” What makes the strategy successful is that immediately after he stops himself from slipping into repetitive questioning, it is important to Peter to hear (from the supporting adult) his favorite praise phrase, “I am so proud of you!” Eventually Peter began to catch himself ahead of the cue. It is especially important to notice and acknowledge that type of spontaneous behavior improvement with an even more specific praise statement such as “I am so proud of you for stopping yourself! ” or “I am so proud of you for remembering you did not need to ask that question while you were at the dance!”

Keep in mind, our challenging loved ones are all unique. Find your unique way of adapting these tips.

What we Learned in Kindergarten

In pre-school, where a big chunk of the curriculum revolves around sociability, you can hear the specific details of a social behavior weaving through the daily dialogue. Listen to the teacher: “Sit in your spot and put your hands in your lap. Wait until it is your turn to speak. Raise your hand to say something.” Keep to the schedule: “It’s time to stop what you are doing. Pick up the toys. Put them neatly in their spots on the shelf. Then come sit quietly on the carpet.” There you have the clearly articulated, easily visualized micro steps that teach preschoolers to socialize, organize and ‘behave’ in a group setting. Then as academics move to the front of classroom priorities, social curriculum fades.

For our challenging loved ones, who continue to need to hear the information imbedded in those micro steps, school is a baffling and unfriendly place. The student with Asperger Syndrome who loves to be the researcher of the facts for a science project is unaware of the required ‘give and take’ in a cooperative learning group. Because she comes across as overbearing and inflexible, her peers tune her out, exclude her from group membership, and she has lost out on the joys of learning. The smart, active ADHD child has no strategies to contain his impulses and channel his abundant energy into his schoolwork, and so wanders around on the periphery of the learning action though he would really love to be center stage with his talents.

Along with their ‘challenging’ characteristics, every one of our challenging loved ones have their unique and often very charming set of strengths, talents and interests, which they yearn to share with others in some way. However, their behaviors tend to send a different, contradictory, self-sabotaging message. Shemay be solely focused on a preoccupation or her perfectionism. He may be an entrenched avoider, a self-appointed boss, or a full time worrier– or perhaps he does not seem to worry at all about the consequences of his choices. Her super sensitivity to touch or sound may invite alienation. Middle and senior high kids are labeled ‘losers’ because they are seen awkwardly wandering, lost in the halls of their own schools.

These are examples of the kid types who are stuck inside themselves, with their faces pressed upon the windows that look out at the social world of their peers, to whom everything seems to come effortlessly. Their peers know how to fit in and their reward is acceptance. And these challenging children grow up to be adults that also wander–lost in relationships, job settings and their social community. They are stuck in a confusing, isolating place, mostly misunderstood, misread, mysteries to themselves and others. And what they are really communicating through their behavior, is how very difficult it is to adapt to the world around them.

The Hidden Curriculum

What stands between those who are in the action and those stuck on the inside looking out? It has become known as the ‘hidden curriculum.’ They need steady education and specific skill coaching through those micro steps because it is not automatic for them to ‘get’ what is going on and then figure out ‘what happened’ or ‘learn their lessons’ from playing unfair or breaking promises, or ‘hogging’ the scene. In his book, It’s So Much Work to Be Your Friend, Richard Lavoie, M.A. M.Ed., discusses how each school has it own individual culture, which determines the details of the hidden curriculum and thus what it takes to be ‘in.’ He says “Your child is tested on his academic skills every few days, but his social interactions are ‘tested’ and evaluated hundreds of times each day.”

For our challenging loved ones who may have a diagnosis of ADHD, High Functioning Autism or Asperger Syndrome or another that brings with it behavioral challenges, the rules of social acceptance are invisible …until they have the opportunity to learn the micro steps.

What is a Micro Step?

‘Micro steps’ are the very teeny tiniest instructional steps that give the most specific and direct information to help your challenging loved one learn the how-to’s of being social or getting the job done. Micro steps are the missing ingredients that lie between what parents and teachers already know about behavior change, and what is left to insert into their behavior change or social skill-building program. Identifying those essential micro steps can be a very challenging puzzle. Micro skill building is a creative and systematic process where little batches of skills are woven together, with the incredibly wonderful payoff of teaching our challenging loved ones to navigate life independently, appropriately and happily!

The Broad Stroke Skill Sets

Following are some of the wider groups of skills which break down into the micro steps that are key to school and social success:

• self awareness and self reflection
• friendship building
• public appropriateness
• non verbal cues and emotional messages
• consideration: giving it and getting it
• choice and decision making
• mood tools and calming strategies
• putting personal strengths and interests to work
• disappointment and resilience
• handling rejection and bullying

And here are some of the ingredients that put the ‘Art’ into a behavior change program: goals, rules, feelings, rewards, feedback, motivation, structure, natural consequences, feelings of safety and belonging and more…

Exercise: The One Week Question

Here is the very first step in creating a social curriculum: Peer into the life experiences of your challenging loved one.

Spend one whole week focusing on what you see, feel and hear related to one question from the list below. Keep ‘the’ question tucked in the front of your brain, as you go through the regular weekday routines on into the weekend activities. Quietly observe. Collect pieces to the puzzle. Be curious. Wait patiently for information-collecting opportunities. Reflect about what is really going on. Make notes. Remember these are not solution questions. We are not there yet…now the questions:

• What are the biggest obstacles your challenging loved one encounters on a daily basis?
• If you needed to, could you accurately describe what the world is like through the eyes of your challenging loved one? Explore this.
• When the day has gone surprisingly well, can you identify any patterns or differences that might account for the better [and tougher] moments?

The answers you come up with will sharpen your insights about what is really going on. That knowledge will help you define the micro steps and be on your way to artfully customizing and individualizing a successful behavior program for your challenging loved one.

Occasions such as holidays, weddings, anniversaries or even memorials are ripe opportunities for your boundaries and your integrity to be tested by the unhealthy behavior habits of those around you. You can love your family, friends or co-workers immensely, but there is something about special events that can bring out the crazy in everyone. There might be a family gathering or an office party that you would rather bow out of, but you decide to go as one of your ‘shoulds,’ trusting your instincts that this is one you better show up at. But history may also have taught you that you have to be careful with your truth and your trust. Here are some think ahead pointers that you may find will ring your holiday bells:

1. Gifts: Be gentle on your bank account and spend within your budget. To keep to your personal limits, it might be best to buy a humbler gift rather than ‘go in’ with someone whose taste may not be in your budget. If you get into lavish or beyond your budget gift giving in order to please others, you are not likely to get any more appreciation than the economical, thoughtfully chosen gift.
2. Dinners: If you only feel like bringing the jello, only bring the jello. Some families and friends have expectations that do not match your capacity to give at this point in time. They don’t know your life like you do. Take care of yourself and promise only what you can comfortably do.
3. Spirituality: Do it your way. Sometimes our way of being spiritual grows away from what we were taught or what ‘everyone else’ is doing. Go where you feel you fit. Don’t go. Go inside yourself. Do go it your way.
4. The Gala: Go and keep it light. Gravitate to the people you are comfortable with. Smile, say please and thank you and talk about the weather. Stay out of the kitchen [where conversations tend to heat up] and you will keep your cool. Understay your welcome. Think ahead about predictable behavior patterns from your people groups and prepare for it. Leave before you lose it. Leave before you know they’ll lose it.
5. Traditions: Sometimes they wear out. Or they are just not uplifting any more. If you used to do something because it was an activity you enjoyed sharing with your grandpa and he’s not here anymore, maybe its time to retire that plan and celebrate life in new ways that fit your life of today. Create new traditions or re-create fondly remembered ones.
6. Friends: Incorporate friends into family holiday plans. Friends are great buffers to keep it light and keep the family charming. What is the definition of ‘friend’? These are the people you choose! They adore you. Take them with you to challenging functions.
7. The Children: Hang out with them. Kids are fun and interesting people at a party. Or just observe them. Enjoy their delightful honesty, their innocence and their ability to be themselves. Laugh with them. Let them be your models. You model for them healthy social relating.
8. The Mail: Leave it a mystery. If it is the style of your critics to write stuff that is not in the uplifting spirit of the occasion, don’t open the envelope! Do you open junk mail? If your instincts tell you that you may have to read a junk message that will be draining on your brain, and you decide to take the risk, be confident that you can dismiss it with an “Oh well that’s who they are.” And don’t dwell on it, move your thoughts onward.
9. Self-Talk: Your memories love to come out on special occasions and replay the negative experiences from years gone by. If holiday tension tends to wind up being “your fault” just remember: That is ‘their’ illusion. Because they talk does not mean you have to believe. You know what is right. You will get more respect for being who you are than for hopelessly trying to please.
10. You: Plan carefully so that your memories are most likely to store feelings of fondness after the festivities. Check in with your intuition. Do your best to go and be where you see joy and peace on the horizon.

As parents, educators and caregivers are we paying attention to whether our children are excludersOR the ‘excluded?’

Rejection shows up in many ways. Here are a few:

Hurt in the words.

Sarcasm in the voice.

Behaviors that say, “You don’t belong.” “You are not wanted.” “You are not safe here.”

Feelings of profound sadness. Isolation.

The kids who are the last to be picked for the team.

A visibly ‘different’ adult sitting alone at a party.

A recent tragedy underscores how crucial it is to pay attention to situations where people send out a loud SOS for help with rejection. William Freund, a 19 year-old young man with Asperger Syndrome pleaded for help on an internet forum, conveying his despairing loneliness and inability to help himself find solutions. By the time anyone took him seriously, it was too late; he had killed two people, wounded another and fatally turned the gun on himself in October of this year. He had put out a plea for help worldwide, one could say, and no one helped him know that it could all be worked out.

Tune into rejection issues!

Here are ten tips and some tools to help challenging loved ones reduce their vulnerability to rejection:

1. Hone your radar to pick up rejection.

Heighten your attention to what is happening with the vulnerable children and adults that you work or live with. Do not presume they can come to you and label their feelings. Call upon your own childhood memories. Were you teased, bullied or isolated by peers? Or were you a witness to children who were? Make sure you don’t ignore what you see and know.

2. Have conversations to help them interpret social situations.

If your child has behaviors that set himself up as a target, work with him, in little steps, to build a stockpile of social choices that substitute for the intuitive wisdom that may not come naturally. “After you tell your new friend you like hockey, ask him what he likes to talk about.”

3. Help them verbalize any secret pain.

Rejected children know who they are and live inside brains that tiptoe around to get a break or to avoid heartbreak. They don’t learn well or behave too well either, if they are sad. If you are a parent, teacher or caregiver, you know rejection when you see it. You have an important role as a safe person for them to come to.

4. Help them have a plan for how to respond when things happen.

They will need steady guidance from you to learn the appropriate steps in various situations especially if there is a diagnosis such as Asperger syndrome or high functioning autism.

5. Notice who are the players.

Where there is a group, there is a leader. Leaders are gatekeepers of acceptance; our challenging loved ones don’t know how to navigate the politics of groups. They need extra protection. You may need to guide the leader. Or you may need to deal with a ‘boss.’ Girls tend to have a different style of excluding. They do it more privately. It is difficult to create outright acceptance when kids or even adults want to make their own choices in the company they keep, but you can set out clear expectations and boundaries about how people are to be treated.

6. Make sure your child knows what wonderful talents or strengths he has going for him. [And every one does!]

Send ongoing reminders. Help her develop the happy feelings of pride and competence. Happy children learn better.

7. Show what kindness and tolerance look like.

Model them by making them routine household activities. If you want your child to learn what a nice person does, you have to show AND tell.

8. Keep your love and support solid, despite how challenging it all feels.

When kids and special needs individuals challenge rules, irritate or ‘misbehave’ they may be telling you they are floundering in the chaos of not knowing how to deal with rejection. Be intuitive about what is going on.

9. Tap into the ‘nice’ kids.

Find designated buddies who can help in challenging situations. But beware this can be tricky business. Teachers and parents must help make this work so neither child feels they ‘stick out’ or have too big a burden in this partnership.

10. Think before you ‘leave them to solve their problems on their own.’

This strategy is not usually a good choice with our challenging loved ones who struggle with social skills. First, they need how-to tools. Until then, it may be too hard to go it alone!

You have just hired someone who has Asperger Syndrome, or perhaps you suspect so, and indeed he or she has very strong skills to match the job description. It is likely that you will be very pleased because people with Asperger Syndrome tend to have strong focus and commitment to a job well done.

To set up for office place success, you will find it pays off to invest in some training time, early on in some of those skills unrelated to the primary job, but fundamentally important to navigating the day at the office.

Here are seven straightforward strategies to help your new employee prosper and produce for your business.

1. Logical lists. As you see a routine or task that requires daily attention, log it on a list. Explaining the purpose behind the task may help it to become automatic. People with Asperger Syndrome like to make sense out of things.

2. Create a ‘cheat sheet’ for phone coverage. If want your employee to pinch hit on the phones, have a few generic phrases that work for your workplace, for example, “Can I have someone get back to you with that information?”

3. Be very specific about what you expect in general office matters. Help her to know where more and less flexibility is in order and appropriate in the daily flow of the work place. What routines must be done one way only? Observe, make notes and plan for periodic feedback time.

4. Be prepared to give your input with some of the smaller steps you may not typically think of stating. Gradually transfer responsibility and accountability to your employee, withdrawing your level of involvement as you see him catching on to the rhythms of your office place.

5. Help her become comfortable with the social culture of your workplace. People with Asperger tend to want to stay focused on tasks they enjoy. Being specific about when to go for breaks and lunch will be a guide for opportunities to personally connect with co-workers.

6. Have a set routine for evaluation and feedback sessions. Start the meeting by talking about the qualities you see in your new employee. “Here’s where your work is very well done.” Be sensitive to feelings of past failure with social and organizational issues. Your employee with Asperger is probably quite familiar with his weaknesses, having heard about them and struggled with them in some other past setting. You can say ” Here’s where we will work together:”

7. Don’t be afraid to be blunt. It will be helpful. There is a distinction between ‘blunt’ and ‘rude.’ He will appreciate and understand directness and clarity. If you are finding yourself repeating requests, you can say, “What plan can we come up with to help you establish routines that I have been reminding you about?”

Your new employee has the skills you were looking for and is dedicated to doing the job well. The challenging part for a person with Asperger Syndrome is the less structured, more social aspects of office culture. Small talk, picking up what others are thinking, and being imaginative about solving problems are challenging for people with Asperger Syndrome. Following are seven straightforward tips to help them thrive.

1. Be precise and specific with your instructions. Slang and expressions of speech may not translate to what you want to communicate. Details and examples help. “This is how it should look when it is done.”

2. Encourage your employee to come up with some process strategies for doing his job. For example, he might work well by recording tasks on a template he creates with visuals, spacing or organization that makes good sense to him.

3. Help her relax about asking for help on the job. Disability acts encourage people to discuss the modifications they need in the work place. However, there is often hesitation because of the fear that disclosure will be a stigma or put the job in jeopardy. You want to be receptive, should your employee want to ask for an accommodation that will help her work better.

4. Encourage co-workers to have a collaborative office culture when it comes to helping out each other. Your employee with Asperger Syndrome will have strengths that will be an asset to your team. Helping others in the office by lending a hand with one’s own talents helps him connect socially with office mates.

5. Don’t let the diagnosis ‘asperger’ or ‘autism’ be a defining characteristic of your employee; it is one aspect of who this person is. The diagnosis becomes important for you to know when it helps you to help your employee shine on the job.

6. Be open to someone who may be a support person in the personal life of your employee with Asperger Syndrome. Some parents stay involved a little longer in the life of their adult child, as an advocate in the background. Until your employee initiates the conversation about bringing in his advocate, remember to build trust through messages that convey you value his work. Some young adults with Asperger want to do it on their own, while others would welcome their support person to coach or advise to help them get independent with some of the more interpersonal aspects of being on the job.

7. Try to give a personal heads up if there is a schedule or routine type change, that he may not pick up on automatically. A person with Asperger Syndrome will need some extra cueing at times. Keep the focus on the gifts, which brought this person to your work place and motivated you to hire him or her!

After happening across an article on Asperger Syndrome, Jack wrote me about his new employee with whom he was quite pleased and also quite baffled. Jack talked about the similarities he saw between Al, his new employee, and the characteristics of a person with Asperger syndrome. Al was hired because he excels in understanding and managing the software systems this business uses. The problem arose with the more routine skills that did not come naturally to Al, but are crucial to work place survival.

Jack was not sure how or whether to suggest to Al that he explore a possible Asperger diagnosis, but what Jack was sure of, was that some steps had to be taken in order to keep Al on as his employee. We decided not to worry about what the diagnosis might be, if indeed there was one, and concentrate on helping Al with behavior change and independence.

Following are four specific and concise action steps Jack and I designed in a series of email exchanges:

Goal #1 Getting Comfortable with the Plan

Jack: “I don’t know how to talk to Al about doing this work with you, without risking that he will feel ‘singled out’.”

Ellen: I think you will find Al won’t be surprised and will be relieved that his weak spots are out in the open. Let’s do everything in consultation with Al one-step at a time.

The Plan: In a short conversation, Jack simply said to Al, “We both have a lot to remember and we need systems to help us get our work done.” Jack also explained he was working with me. Al was receptive, saying more structure would be good. Jack added a little extra assurance for Al, saying to him “If you have any questions about anything, I will try to be available immediately, please come see me.”

Goal #2 Remembering End of Day Routines

Jack: “Al stays late to finish projects several nights a week. I really like this! But he does not ever remember that the last person to leave puts the phone on night call forwarding to voice mail.”

The Plan: We established the Office Manual. Al set himself up with a small divided binder, with ‘To remember’ sections for End of Day and Beginning of Day. In his End of Day section he has a page for ‘Before I walk out’ where he enters the details he needs to remember about turning on the call forwarding. The first two times Al was last to leave, Jack had to mention the next morning that he had forgotten to look at his Office Manual the night before. Within two weeks, just the habit of opening his manual cued Al remember to forward the phones. By the third week, call forwarding became a habit for Al when he was last out.

Goal #3 Password Change Follow Through

Jack: “Al has the job of creating and routinely changing passwords used by others on the office. The procedure is that Al has the responsibility of recording them in the computer directory where everyone goes to access the updates. The problem is that Al forgets and people are getting frustrated and their work flow is interrupted when they can’t get into files.”

The Plan: Al’s manual has a section for ‘Procedures’. Jack teaches Al the procedure and Al take over with the responsibility of referring to his book regularly. If a password is not updated, Jack simply says “Al please refer to the procedure I taught you for passwords.” Jack does NOT tell Al the action he needs to take. It is in the book and exploring for the answer will help Al establish the new habit sooner.

Goal #4 Involving Al in Creating his Strategies

Jack: There are so many details and procedures to keep an office running. As soon as I put one strategy in place there’s more to deal with.

The Plan: Encourage Al to look for ways to keep adding to and evolving the manual. Coach him to come up with more strategies that help him move toward independence.

Al’s Plan:

1. As part of his end of the day routine, Al placed his manual on top of his computer so he would come in and see it in an obvious place each morning. He reminded himself right in his manual to leave the manual on the computer, last thing!

2. On the front of the binder, Al printed in big letters Look here first. This cued him that he had resource on hand before getting overwhelmed.

3. Al reviewed his manual throughout the day at times he designated to spend working on absorbing the information.

Feedback

Al: It is great that I don’t have to wonder how to do something or worry that I am doing things wrong. There is less and less for me to remember as I review the manual. I liked being able to use my own ideas and strategies to further personalize this for me.

Jack: The time I was taking to explain and correct has dramatically reduced. I am getting my own schedule back on track! The best strategy is that once Al has the system recorded in his work manual, I can now just choose from one of two short comments. “Al did you look at your list today?” or “Al you have a list that tells you this procedure.” It’s working great!

Very important tip: Keep your plan firmly in place until you have given it a generous amount of time to settle into place. Then evaluate. When you think your strategies aren’t working, giving up is usually the reason why!

See companion articles by Ellen Mossman-Glazer~

Communication Tips to Help Your Employee with Asperger Syndrome Thrive in Your Work Place

Practical Tips to Help Your Employee with Asperger Syndrome Get Established in Your Office

Once overwhelm sets in and your child is melting down under a confusing to-do pile, it is can be a frantic challenge to dig her out and settle her down. Here are six pro-active strategies; so start now to see them really work!

1. Plan ahead. Shift gears before homework burn out sets in. We adults need quick pick-me-ups through the day; coffee breaks, power naps, a few deep stretches to keep alert. So do our kids. Work with your kids to help them discover their personal strategies to refresh and refocus.

2.Take many mini breaks. Plan for them so your student can look forward to a periodic relaxer. This is a good strategy to help kids with ADHD or Asperger Syndrome, or High Functioning Autism. If focus and concentration on a non -preferred activity is a challenge, you can build time on task. Break every 15 minutes or every 5 minutes if that’s where you can start with success.

3. Use their talents and interests to motivate at work time and enjoy at break time. At the pre-determined break time, it might be one round of table hockey or ten minutes with the colored markers or….just be sure to establish the rules ahead of time, something like ” this is a ‘mini break’ and a privilege and I trust you to stop and get right back to work when the time is up.” A minute timer is handy to keep nearby and you might be pleasantly surprised at how your child monitors his own breaks.

4. Just stop working for a while or for the day. Let the brain recharge. Loosen up on your homework rules when you know it makes sense, but make it a rare event. You know your child’s limits: when she will respond well to an extra push and when she is unable to push forward another bit.

5.Begin to handle a small piece of long-term projects as soon as the assignment comes in.Bigger projects are an opportunity to help your child learn to organize with mind mapping techniques.

6. Keep in steady contact with teachers. Be pro-active in preventing overwhelm in the form of an avalanche of assignments. Incomplete homework may suddenly show up, buried in folders or at the backpack bottom, and it all comes out as the grading period is coming to a close. Most teachers are happy to work on homework systems with parents to avoid late-semester chaos when it is too late anyway to catch up on those lost grades. If your child has an IEP, work together with the school to help your child make the best of his modification plan. Or follow that model; create a working relationship with your child’s teachers; set up a weekly meeting or phone call for a homework progress review or communicate in writing daily through a planner book.

Very Important Final Tip: Practice these steps before you have a homework crisis on your hands!