So I also babysit other families. As I type
I’m sitting next to Tyler, he’s one of the boys in my first grade group in the
after care program that I work at, who’s 6 and has autism. We’ve been playing
Mario on the Wii for about 2 hours now when I told him I needed to finish up
some homework when I passed my remote to his older brother, Matthew, who’s 12.
Matthew is also a hardcore gamer, so Mario is no challenge. I have been working
with autistic kids for years now, and one of the most important things I have
to remember is that they want to constantly be in control of the situations
that they’re in. With this in mind, when I saw Matthew beating him I see Tyler
getting frustrated. His body tensed up, and you could hear the voice that comes
from his belly getting louder. When you see something triggering a meltdown,
you have to find what emotion is being pushed past the breaking point. Ellen
Notbohm from
the book Ten Things Every Child with Autism Wishes You Knew describes a meltdown from an autistic child’s
point of view. “Meltdowns and blow-ups are more horrid for me than they
are for you. They occur because one or more of my senses has gone into
overload, or because I’ve been pushed past the limit of my social abilities. If
you can figure out why my meltdowns occur, they can be prevented.” It’s
different for everyone though. Each child is unique, so planning a course of
action must also be unique. With Tyler, he is one of the sweetest and loving
kids I’ve ever met…but when he gets upset you see true aggression. Now calming
him down is the next step. Now, these children take everything quite literally,
and they answer everything truthfully. Talking it out with him and explaining
what the positive outcomes of working together could be helps. I told Tyler
that by watching Matt, he could learn and get better at what he was playing. It’s
like tying your shoes: at first, there are these two pieces of string, but by
the time you’ve learned how to tie them, there are presents on your feet every
day.
I work with kids even though some people try and tell me I am a kid. I've been babysitting for 5 years and working as a nanny and at an elementary school for the past year and a half. I threw myself into nannydom not knowing what to expect, but constantly learning from my experiences and those of others. And now, here's to sharing my wild ride.
Sunday, March 29, 2015
13th Times the Charm
In my first post I talked about how you need to get to know
the kids, because through the kids you actually learn a lot about the parents. Sometimes
you meet a kid and you think you’ve figured them out right off the bat. The two
extremes that I see the most are the really shy and the motor-mouths. I’m
currently a nanny to four adorable and wild kids. Liza, 6, Mickey, 7, Ally, 9,
and Sammy, 11: girl, boy, girl, boy. 4 kids in 5 years. It’s pretty crazy, really.
The first weekend was fun and just like one giant sleepover really. I was 18
when I started and I really did think it’d be just like a Disney Channel TV
show, and it was. It was, that is, for the first weekend. The kids are little
people, we have to remember. When you first meet someone, you want to show them
your best you, but as time goes on your true colors begin to show. And boy, do
these kids have some BRIGHT colors. Through the kids, I learned that I was the
thirteenth nanny. Since the oldest is 11, they were roughly averaging one nanny
a year. I’ve met two of their past nannies who have also lasted for years, they
just work at different times and schedules. You can always tell whom their
great nannies were by how much they talk about them, and their rankings. The
kids have ranked all their nannies, I’m Sammy’s #1 but with the rest I’m #3,
which I still consider a great ranking after 13 nannies. After a few weeks I
realized the impact that all the nannies had made. Now, I’m only 8 years older
than Sammy which he loves to remind me, but I find my age as a strength. I’m
young enough to be an older sister, and that’s what I try to act like . I’ll continue to act like a sister
because I love these kids so much, even though sometimes I mommy them. But
because of my age, their dad can be skeptical at times about leaving four kids
alone with a “child.” Age is but a number.
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