Jam is currently 4.75 years old
Recently, I posted on some things I'd heard about for a long time and eventually tried with success. But there are also some things I've heard all sorts of good things about that I'm not going to try. At least not now and maybe not ever.
I promise I'm not just trying to be controversial- these are big ideas in the SPD world and many people have tried these things with great success. And yet I've never been compelled enough to attempt them.
And here's why: these things are too organized, too formal, and too much work. And dyspraxics already work harder and get tired faster. One of the most important things a dyspraxic can do is learn when to expend and when to conserve their energy. And these things take a lot of energy.
Sensory Diets- I've known all about sensory bins and sensory activities for over two years now and I confess I never made them a focused part of our day. The sensory bins- they just seemed like a lot of work with all the planning and acquiring of sensory items and rotating and dedicating time to play with them. And all the sensory exercises and activities- well, they were all just things my kid would fight tooth and nail to not do and I was not really into amping my kid's stress levels more than I had to since they were already pretty amped. And, finally, I've got big perfectionist tendencies but tempered by acute self-awareness. I'd want to do an awesome and perfectly organized job of it using some well-researched prescribed method I picked up somewhere in a book and I knew I'd never follow through on that long-term.
So I didn't even bother. Instead, I came up with my own low-stress version of a sensory diet- play a lot with a lot of things and some sensory stuff is bound to get in there somewhere. I mean, it's all 'sensory' anyway, right? I do think, though, that if Jam had been a sensory seeker rather than a sensory avoider, I would have made this more of a priority. But now that he's older, he's coming out of his avoider behavior on his own terms. It's just taking some time. Which is fine because he's four and time is what we have right now.
Listening Therapies- Too expensive, too complicated, too time-consuming. We've done a tiny bit of listening therapy with our occupational therapist and only very sporadically. Very seldom with headphones, it's mostly music through the office speakers while Jam's working on gross motor skills. He seems very easily affected and has said he prefers to not listen to music while playing at home because it distracts his brain from playing. Plus I didn't want the twice-daily battles of keeping the headphones on for 30 minutes. The kid won't even wear a hat. So we just never did it. Maybe when he's older. It's a bit scary how manipulative the music is to his brain. So maybe never.
Food Diets- Aaahhh, food diets. Gluten-free, casein-free, additive-free, sugar-free. It is so over-whelming I'm getting a headache already. Especially when food has been a huge issue in this house since the day Jam was born. We're finally at a place where he has food he'll eat. It's not a super huge variety of food and it's a bit heavy on the carbs and it's not often he'll add a new ingredient and he's still very texture sensitive but we'll get there. I'm not too worried because I was exactly the same way when I was young and now I eat anything.
Still, I can't ignore the mounting evidence showing a connection between gut flora and dyspraxia, SPD and other conditions. I think maybe possibly trying the GAPS diet might be in our future but not anytime soon. Maybe when he's a bit older and better able to understand what we're doing and to willingly participate. And, again, if he had been a sensory seeker I might have considered this more of a priority.
Jam is on an upward spiral right now in increasing his motor skills and decreasing his SPD issues. Who's to say we wouldn't have reached this point earlier had we devoted the time, money and energy to the things above. There's no way to know. What I do know is that the path we've taken seems to be working while keeping his anxiety levels down and keeping his self-esteem up and that's how I'm measuring success these days.
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