Our Jaw-Dropping Moment of the Week: The Real World

I am a ridiculously lucky person. This semester I have had the exciting opportunity that not many grown adults get to have………..I GOT TO ENROLL IN PRESCHOOL!!!

Well, kinda. I get to tag along and do therapy with one of my little friends while he goes to preschool with his new peers. I am 4 years old all over again and I am L-O-V-I-N-G it!

I experienced all the 4-year-old-starting-a-new-school adventures:
I picked out a brand new lunchbox.
I picked out my first day of school outfit (although it consisted of scrubs, not near as cute as my new friends’ outfits, but they were my favorite scrubs at least).
I had my first day of school butterflies as I walked up to the door.
I explored my brand new classroom.
I picked out my favorite toys in my classroom (pretend kitchen…..although reading books in the pillows is quite cozy).
I had to learn all my new friends’ names.

Now I’m getting the hang of it….

And so is my little friend. My friend, who is 4½, came to KidSpeak about a year and a half ago. He has worked and worked and worked within individual therapy and several semesters of group therapy and has made AMAZING progress. He can now understand language. He can now play with adults and children. He can now engage in mini-conversations. He can now tell us how he is feeling (“I’M NERVOUS!!!”) and initiate an emotional strategy (“I NEED A BREAK!!!”) before having a total meltdown. He now WANTS to interact socially with the people he loves.

He has worked so hard for the past year and a half…..he’s now ready for the real world of a 4 year old! We approached his mom with the new plan of care idea: getting him into a typical preschool so he can now work on being social with typical peers. This would mean decreasing his time at KidSpeak, which has been his comfort zone, his family’s comfort zone, our comfort zone. Although the natural fears and nightmares of transitioning him into a brand new place with unfamiliar people and unfamiliar territory were there…..he was READY!

He loves his new friends and his new friends love him. It’s not always easy. It can be hard playing with our new friends and understanding our new friends. They are much louder and up close and personal than his KidSpeak friends. The most important thing is, my little friend is around his new typical friends 10½ hours of his week. My little friend is in the real world of a 4 year old.

Jaw-Dropping Moment
So I arrived early to my friend’s classroom and was setting up his visual schedule, checking out the weekly activities and chatting with his teacher about our goals for the day and then I saw something out of the corner of my eye. There in my friend’s cubby was a crisp white envelope with his name perfectly written on it. JAW-DROP (and teary eyes simultaneously), he had been invited to a new friend’s birthday party. Of course we have goals for him to make progress with his classroom skills, play skills, language skills and social skills at his new school. But THIS is REAL 4 year old progress. He is officially in the real world of a 4 year old. I get to be along for the ride. I love preschool.

-Laura and Amanda
KidSpeak, LLC
www.kidspeakdallas.com