thank you aba.

Not to be misread as "thank you abba" as I really don't have anything to thank abba for...

I could probably write for hours about ALL of what ABA has done for me but I don't have hours. I have approx. ten minutes before I seriously need to get supper made in the kitchen...really I should be doing that right now, but I had to spare 10 minutes into the sloppy joe prep time to write this quick jot.

I am teaching Maddy and Maelle to read. It's a program based on ABA thinking and takes 100 easy lessons that are roughly 20 minutes long. And sometimes those can be the longest twenty minutes of my life. Sometimes they can be the most inspiring 20. It really depends on the day, the kid, and the lesson. And while I had great intentions to do this everyday this summer....they are only on lessons 11 and 12 as I had to take a break in mid summer to clear my mind from this daunting task.

Teaching kids to read is hard.

But, that's not the point. Because teaching a child to come out of Autism and into the real world is hard too. really hard. But possible.

So I really just want to thank ABA for teaching ME the power of positive reinforcement. For teaching me that if I get completely and overly excited about one small thing...eventually those small things build up to huge mountains that children can conquer almost effortlessly.

I am no stranger to acting ridiculously happy. I tend to be the type of person who is willing to do most anything for some comedic laugh. Odd since I am an introvert...but anyway, yes, if I can act really dumb to make you laugh...I will do it. So can I act overly silly and excited to praise my kid and make them believe in themselves? You bet. And it works. Really. It does.

ABA is all about breaking things down to small steps and when the kid does that small step, praise them like there is no one watching how ridiculous you are being. So when Maddy read the word "sat" today and I danced around like a monkey....my mind was thanking ABA.

I don't think I would have ever thought that such small things as tickles and giggles and shouts and high fives over writing the letter "t" would create such awesome responses....but it does. And it teaches both Maddy AND Maelle that they can do amazing things because I believe in them. That's a wonderful gift.

This is such a weird post but I have to make supper and I don't have time to edit out all of my side thoughts...so welcome to my brain...I'm gonna go make sloppy joes.