Great Expectations
By Dr. Heather Dierolf
Director, Springall Academy
Imagine if you will, the busy-ness of the winter season. A season filled with fun and
anticipation. Winter includes family holidays like Thanksgiving, Christmas,
Hanukah, New Years and many other special family events. Families gather around
food and traditions. You might spend the whole day planning for every detail, then
Grandma comes late, you burn the pumpkin pie and the whole plan changes. You
quickly shift gears and the merriment continues. Shift gears? Merriment continues?
Not in your house!
Having a child with special needs makes changing gears and shifting plans a mere
impossible feat. It simply doesn’t happen. One small change effects so many aspects
of your lives that it is can be hard to recover. A small event in our adult minds
equals a catastrophe to our children. Our unique children simply don’t do well with
change and unpredictability
At Springall Academy in San Diego, we work with children age six through
twenty-two with a variety of special needs. One tip that I would like to share with
you is the use of the terms expected and unexpected. We work with the students on
what to expect in certain situations. For example, What do you expect on the first
day of school? Reponses could include, I will meet my new teacher, I will find my
new desk. I will meet new students. The same is true for the unexpected. The
response could be I don’t expect the class to be the same as last year. I don’t expect to
sit next to the same student. We then discuss how it feels to experience what you
expect as well as the experience of the unexpected. Whether the child can verbalize
the feelings or not, it is a meaningful conversation to have with the children.
Prompts and guidance about how someone might feel will be helpful for everyone.
You can use a similar structure in helping to prepare your student for the holidays.
Review through conversation or even a role-play in your own home; What is
expected on Thanksgiving? Who do you expect to be there? Who can you expect to
sit next to? Having this conversation will help alleviate both your worries and those
of your children.
Conversely, like fire drills in schools, talk about and practice what to do if
something unexpected happens. What if dinner is later than expected? What if you
have to wait for Grandma to get there? What if your favorite cousin can’t make the
dinner? Having a plan for the expected and unexpected will go a long way. This
direct practice of planning for disappointment or change has proved successful at
Springall during the school year and I am confident it will help you too!
As you enjoy this holiday season, I have great expectations of the sharing of love
and the building of memories. I wish you all of that and more.
22 2014 MSNN Holiday Guide / November, 2014