Introduction
Below you will find the audio podcast recording. The transcription will appear within 48 hours. I have left comments on, however please only comment if you are a LUNCH Groups® participating family, otherwise it will be deleted.
Audio Recording
Transcribed Text
Good evening parents. This is the audio progress note for session number two. And it's for group number two. Tonight we had a new student actually, they switched from one of the other groups. And so we had 10, it was impressive to see that they were already falling into the routine of knowing what to do in the supermarket.
We had one event occur where a child inadvertently dropped a basket of blueberries. And it was because he was holding a little bit too much. Well, the look on his face, of course, was a little bit terrified even though nothing negative was said to him. We focused on problem solving. Things like this happen in the market. It was an accident, there's no reason to scold or act angry or anything like that. We simply told another child to go over to one of the produce staff and let them know that some blueberries had fallen.
We didn't ask the child to do it. My feeling was that would have been emotionally difficult for him. And I think that's something that you want to always pay attention to. If you have someone who is maybe bothered about something and it's hard for them to remain euthymic (in emotional balance). Sometimes you need to do to help them out. That way, they have an opportunity to get a little bit upset and practice remaining in control.
Blueberries were cleaned up and there were no further incidents. We moved on as different kids wanted chips. They wanted six different kinds of chips tonight, and I think we got three or four. We had them showing the bag to the others. Dr. Mazor prompted one of the kids to show the bag so the front of it was facing the kids. He had it facing himself and that's also something to pay attention to.
Does your child do something where they're taking into account your perspective? Or are they doing it in more of what I'm going to call an egocentric manner, meaning that they're focusing on their own needs? Sometimes this is related to what's called “theory of mind” that's being able to understand or talk about something from another person's perspective. This is just a nice gentle way of working on that.
What did they have tonight? Mangoes, strawberries, and we talked about why white strawberries don't necessarily taste as good as the red part of the strawberries. One child notice that one of the strawberries had a little bit of frostbite on it and wondered what that was. We talked about that we had blueberries. We had watermelon, and three or four kinds of chips.
The kids were hanging out they were talking with each other until 4:50pm at that point they cleaned up. It's interesting that for some kids, when they're asked to do something like cleaning up, all kinds of other ideas pop into their head and while these might be perfectly legitimate ideas, the fact is they were asked to clean up. Just focusing in a respectful calm manner on what it is they're supposed to do and using what's called “contingency management”. The question asking can occur later after they after they've cleaned up.
They went back over to the office and we had to practice pedestrian safety a little bit. A couple of kids got too close to the curb. And so we did the practicing and then coming back in. We did LUNCH Points ™. Right now we're being very lenient on our lunch point certificates. If a child can remember all three parts of what a LUNCH Points ™ (1) what did they do (it has to be something reasonable like “I stopped using technology without getting upset.”) (2) How much help they needed (e.g., done independently) and (3) How hard was it for them (e.g., somewhat difficult). If they can say those three pieces, they received the LUNCH Points ™ Certificate raffle tickets, even if they didn’t bring a LUNCH Points ™ Certificate. We're probably only going to do that for one more session. So if you have not given your child the LUNCH Points ™ Certificate. I think we have six kids out of our 10 had one, If your child's one who didn't get any LUNCH Points ™ Certificates, please try and make a concerted effort to give them one.
After that we have them just letting them talk for a few minutes on their own. They began talking a little bit about what games they have, their usernames, all that kind of stuff. The group transitioned into the larger meeting room and we did a little bit more of an academic activity today. First I showed them the Pixar movie lifted and then afterwards using an outline. I wanted them to talk just about the major points and understanding what's the difference between an opinion a description a conclusion just major points and they did great at coming up with major points. Developing the minor points that was much harder for them. They weren't sure as a group, what to do.
We worked through that and then you can see that just by reading through it. they were able to really capture the story. So when we proceed with computer animation they will have more of a “real” story. We have plenty of alumni members. I think it's a very capable group for being able to put that kind of an activity into play along the way.
We only sent one child out of the room and the reason was, is because they began to speak in a way that was mildly disruptive and inappropriate as we were about to watch the movie. The child began talking about how they were going to have to hide in the bathroom. If we were showing a movie and I really felt as though that's something that if you blurt that out in a classroom environment that's just not going to be helpful. By sending a child out of the room, number one, it's a surprise to them and, in this case Dr. Mazor took the child through the Four Step, a CBT approach. Sixty seconds later, he was back watching the movie, there wasn't an issue. The kids wanted to participate, a lot, which was great. So there was lots and lots of hand raising but I started to invoke the rule that when a child is answering everyone else has to put their hands down and focus on listening to the child to, you know was speaking at the time. Otherwise it becomes that they're not really paying attention and each is just trying to make their own point. That's not very reciprocal.
So that’s what happened toward the end and then we ran right up until six o'clock. Sophie was here and your kids wanted to pat her and and many of them got a chance to do so. It it was it was definitely a full packed couple of hours. If you have any questions at all, don't hesitate to be in touch. As a reminder, there is a webinar this coming Thursday. You've all received invitations for it and there is a parent meeting coming up this Saturday and the RSVP requests will go out for that Thursday morning.
Thanks so much for listening.