Big Crowds and Waiting in Line

This happened last month, but I wanted to post about it...

Huge crowds, waiting in line and not having ALL the candy are three things that Maya has historically had difficulty dealing with gracefully. In fact, at least two out of the three of those things often bother me too. We went to our neighborhood's annual Easter "Eggstravaganza" the day before Easter last month. It was rained out last year, and the year before that, it was tense to put it mildly...

So we decided to give it a try this year, and we were very pleasantly surprised. Maya had no problem waiting in line for the big bouncy obstacle course/slide two different times. She also did great at following the directions about how to go through it, which entailed lots of steps. She waited very well in an area where they kind of corral all the kids like cattle in each of the age groups before their Easter egg hunt and then she found enough eggs to fill her basket. Even I was feeling a little enclosed by that time, but she did great. The way it works is they trade in all their eggs they find for a small bag of treats. All of that happened very smoothly. Shayne, Rick and I had a good time too. It was nice to be at a large gathering and not have to worry as much about any number of problems that would have happened a year or two ago. We are so happy about continuing to move in the right direction.

The Big Calendar

When Maya was younger (let's say 4 and younger) she had a very difficult time not getting what she wanted RIGHT THEN. Not just the typical toddler/preschool protests either, but often crowd-stopping screaming and kicking and sometimes hitting herself. This past year she has gotten worlds better with understanding concepts such as first/then, maybe later, tomorrow, when it gets dark, after we go to the store, etc. She is getting much better at being calm realizing that she will get what she wants at some point in the future and not right now. This may seem like a small thing, but it has helped calm our lives down quite a bit. There are a lot of things she wants to do or is looking forward to, and we have started to draw little pictures and write down things that are fun on a big desktop calendar. That helps Maya see how many days she has until something she is excited about happens. We put a picture of a school bus on the days she has school and a picture of pancakes on the weekends/days off (that is our symbol for those days). Then we put a little picture of anything special we have planned like a trip to the museum or zoo or a camping trip. This has had an amazing impact on Maya's understanding of elapsed time and her patience level for waiting for fun things. She often suggests the fun things herself too, which helps her to feel like she has more control over her own life and that her wishes are taken into consideration by the family.
Now she is very excited to go on the airplane and go to Maryland. I tell her we are going in July, and because of the calendar, she seems to have a fairly good idea of when July is. I think this would work for all young kids, but especially those who are language delayed and/or seem to have a poor grasp of elapsed time. Having a better grip on what is going to happen and when it is going to happen seems to calm all kids, but especially those who are prone to anxiety when they do not know what is going to happen. Older kids might have fun putting their own events and pictures on the calendar. The photo is not our actual calendar, but one like it from Google Images.