There has been significant progress with the DS. He has also grown a lot - believe he is in the cusp of puberty and we have all our fingers and toes crossed as to what would happen when it hits him ! He is very tall for his age - about 5.9" and quite slender - result of which no pants or shirt fit him !!! For that height, he is expected to be a little more plumper than what he is now. So we go to a shop asking for a 28x32 (waist x length), the girl at the shop goes, Hmmmm... (and I take a glance at DS as to see if he stealing surreptitious glance at the girl) !
DS is going to Tennis and Karate classes. The great thing about these two classes are the teachers have broken them up into simple parts and have been teaching him. So DS, feels highly competent and at the same time in that zone of edge-of-competency, that allows him to make progress. He is very keen to attend karate tournaments and showcase (parts of the) Katha ! One goal for summer, this year is to focus on his physical development a bit - because of height (and possibly weak hara, as we call in Karate), he is hunched... Should work on his middle-body strength this summber.
In any case, we are continuing to do RDI, although not officially - due to work and otherwise, we have taken a 6 month break from it. We are continuing on the Teach Social classes (Erstwhile Michelle Garcia Winner's Social thinking) - that is once a week with another boy. That has been helpful in teaching techniques. He is getting some "organization" (but left brained) concept behind it. One interesting development has been 'story-telling' (linked). DW and I have been using story telling for imagining the future for him and he has been using it to convey his difficulties and experience. While we use Rahul as the central character, he uses two - Anil and Balan. He has been very effectively conveying his experiences in school, through those proxies - his punishment (of teasing and getting to stand outside the class etc etc :) ). We are keeping to that agenda and over-joyed...
Some other snippets
- The class teacher tells us he is very social these days. When he gets to the class, before the bell, instead of sitting in the class, he gets his friends out of the class and hangs outside
- He is quite bright in the class and comprehends the concepts - once he understands the concepts its easier for him - but is also quite playful and continues to push the boundaries
- One night, as I was sitting in the couch, he came and hovered around me a bit, and then said "Dad, I want to talk to you". And asked me about my day and how my office was... My two weeks of stress flew away.
- He is beginning to understand relationships are compromises. He is talking about the compromises I've (DD) made and his mother have made. Its like talking about it makes him internalize it a bit more. Now, we can see he is adjusting a lot for our changes. And we have swooped in and taken advantage and make a lot of flexibility changes.
- There are still a few core things that he is non-negotiable on (which is why we decided to go to the PACE Place (link here) for their immersion program. Drop us a note, if you want to know more.
