Autism Treatment Center of America Forum

[zeeneals]

Hi Everyone,

Our home program took a 1 yr break. We had a lot of transitions going on, lots of changes that I even had a hard time handling....and the outcome was our program completely stopping as far as the playroom. (still use principles outside)

Of course, I've felt a lot of guilt over this, which moved into acceptence and just a want to really get back at it, even if it was only a few hours a week! I love my son, he HAS made huge changes since we began when he was 3yo (now almost 7!).

My other personal "hang up" is my husband. I sent him to start up in the hopes that he would become motivated and be ready to help. The first year and half, I did the program by myself with some very special volunteers because he was in Iraq with the Army. Him going to start up was to help him understand my huge new attitude and love for helping Brenden in this special way, and help bring him into the fold of what we were doing. He came back from Start-Up, helped in a set way...and then his motivation totally disappeared and he withdrew from helping at all. I have had anger and remorse over that, which I let personally change my want and drive to be in the playroom. I think ths single issue even drove me to stop doing Son-Rise in the playroom because I have this solidity that we should be a team, but we aren't.

Any coins of wisdom would help. I'm going to work on talking to my husband about this in the right setting and with the right attitude.

Thanks,
Heather

[BeckyDamgaard]

Hi Heather,

Wow, I am inspired greatly by your story and desire to help Brenden. It's really wonderful that you are now accepting the fact that you took the one year break. I believe that it was the perfect thing for you to do at the time and probably gave you a break to process how you felt and what you really wanted!

With regards to your husband, I feel like "putting a Son-Rise playroom on him" would be the most effective way to handle the situation. What I mean by that is that, when you are in the playroom with Brenden, you love him unconditionally and accept and embrace where he is right now whether he is interactibg with you or being exclusive. The same applies to your husband. If there is any part of you that is not accepting where he is and needing more from him then he will feel that pressure from you and could resist against it. The most effective way to promote the program is to live it yourself and be a role model of the attitude behind the program which means bringing acceptance into your everyday life whether people are on board with you or not. He will experience you being happy and loving and will hopefully want to get involved again.

The other thing you can do is talk to him about how he feels about the program (you may have done so already), tell him what your observations are and ask for his opinion on the matter. At times we can assume what our loved ones are thinking and feeling and it closes up the opportunity for them to really share with us what's going on.

I hope this helps, and I wish you all the best!

Warm regards,

Becky (Son-Rise Program Teacher)