Removing the slivers from our feet...

The slivers from all of the eggshells we've been stepping on lately, that is.

Action Man has completed his week of intense therapy for his dyslexia. And what a week it has been.

DH would drop him off every morning at 8:30am and the kids and I would pick him up at 3pm. In between those two times, Action Man would be one-on-one with his teacher, learning how to:

~anchor his minds' eye.

~control his energy dial

~form letters properly by doing all of them in clay first, then writing them. Perfectly. On the first try.

~learn certain vocabulary words that have meant nothing to him, like cause and effect, before and after, consequence and responsibility... by creating pictures out of clay, forming the word itself out of clay, then spelling it forwards and backwards. And remembering it all. The definition and the spelling. Perfectly.

~these vocab words are done to help the dyslexic child "see" how their actions affect others. This has been hard for Action Man, but the concept has been introduced, and we have already noticed some progress in this area.

But it has taken it's toll.

On him, and us.

By Tuesday afternoon, the little man was so exhausted, he had a bit of a meltdown. I knew he was tired, and so I just talked him through it, as patiently and rationally as I could. It took all of my strength to combat the irritation, anger, and frustration that was welling up in me. Especially after his statements that his newly-taught methods "don't work" and his teacher is "wrong" etc. (after all that money? I thought... they better work!)

Wednesday evening, he started down the same path. I looked him in the eye and told him to cut the crap. (sometimes I am such a sympathetic, nurturing mother, don'tyathink?) I told him we had already discussed all of his concerns the night before, and that I was going out with a friend and he needed to get in bed.

Thursday afternoon was the choking incident at our friend's pool. Lovely, eh? To be fair, the little friend was being rather nasty, and Action Man will only take so much before he lashes out. But, obviously, choking his friend was a bit of an overreaction. Hence the phone call that evening. (and he was hauled out of the pool and we went home, pronto.)

Friday morning, I drove him to his teacher and stayed to receive some training myself. You see, this is not just a one week crash course, but an extensive on-going re-training of his mind. Obviously, this takes time, and his teacher doesn't need to be there for all of it, but she sets the ground work so that the rest can be accomplished. I learned how to do his "koosh ball" exercise, and his vocabulary "trigger" words... the words he needs to look up and create and spell in clay. He has 219 of these words to do. On top of that, she will take him for two more days in September to do the Math part of it.

Did I mention it was intense?

But, it is worth it.

As soon as we came home Friday morning, Little Love was all over me and wanted to go outside and have me hold her hand... etc. But DH and I needed to chat, so I turned to Action Man and asked if he could hold Little Love's hand and take her outside. He said; "Oh, sure." And did. Very lovingly. And lately, he's been able to play with the girls and not get angry unnecessarily. In fact, there are many times when someone says something and I glance at him, certain that he will flare up in indignation... only to see him calmly sitting, energy dial on the proper setting, enjoying the banter.

Picking the slivers out, yes. But slowly.

We still have a long way to go.

:)