Swimming & Julia's view of life

Swimming lesson writing: I have been talking to the PTB at the Y and they are arranging for an aide to with Julia during her lessons. Her present teacher, Linda who is a spec ed teacher in her non-aquatic life, is also going to give Julia private lessons in addition to group lessons. My goal continues to be two-fold, that is, to have Julia learn how to swim, or how to do the stokes necessary for her to become a better swimming, and to teach her to learn within a group and participate in a group.

SO, towards those ends, I offered Julia two stickers if she (1) listened to Linda today, and (2) did what Linda asked. Julia is now at the point where I can tell her what I expect and then ask her what she is supposed to be doing and have her repeat, with help, what I told her to do. (Just this is an accomplishment considering that this kind of instruction, question, response was impossible last year at this time). She was primed and ready BUT Linda is not at lesson today! LOL. Best laid plans, and I hear the gods laughing.

In any event, there is a substitute, Loren, and only three kids in class today. Julia is trying right now to listen and keep herself controlled enough to do what she has been asked.

I need to be able to communicate with Julia over a long distance – I wonder if we should be learning some signs so that I can remind her to listen or to do as she is told. Can I get her to look at me when she feels herself loosing control? Is she that cognizant of how she is doing? Can I help her to be?

At home, Julia is asking me a lot of the time if I am angry or mad at her. She is more and more aware of my moods whenever I veer from center in the slightest. I can be stern, grumpy, direct, etc. – I find it hard to quantify my moment-to-moment emotional landscape. I search for words to answer her questions and wonder how many of them she understands. If it is necessary for her to quantify emotions in order to learn them, then I have to both understand myself and figure out what will translate to her.

I continue to read about trauma – two books, one a tome – and Julia’s behavior when she automatically greets every direction with a "no" and her hitting seems to fit that of kids who have suffered trauma. Not surprising at all. Now, can we heal her? She needs compliance and willingness to learn.

Thank goodness, she is so cute.

Julia brought home a paper the other day – an assignment regarding families. Families have been the ongoing theme for awhile. On the page was two drawing spaces – one for when Julia was a baby and one for now. Christy told me that she worked with Julia on this just to make sure that it was not too much for Julia or that it did not go into scary or bad places. On the baby side, Julia drew a baby crying in a crib on wheels. There was a big person in the picture as well but the person was not near the crib. Julia told Christy that when she was a baby, she was crying. Christy asked her if there were times that she did not cry or other things to put in the picture. Julia told her, no. baby Julia cried all the time. Christy, possibly not knowing how to respond and wanting to acknowledge in some positive way what she was told, said to Julia that sometimes, babies have a hard time and that life gets better when they get older.

The other side of the paper was crowded with people and things. Julia drew a happy pictures of herself, she drew her classmate Clare and Clare’s mom, she drew lots of toy – little pets of course. She told Christy that she is happy, that she has a friend in Clare, and that she loves her toys.