What do you see for your child?
I receive emails regularly from parents who just received a diagnoses for their son or daughter and they are heartbroken. I make sure to tell them that they are what their child needs!! Not only do I work with amazing families who knew their child was capable of so much more and knew what they wanted for their family when other professionals gave a poor prognosis, I have also heard the words, he will never talk, he will never have a friend, he will never "go with the flow" he will never blah blah blah... I didnt listen!
This testimony is from an amazing family that I work with. I wanted to post it because I want you, the reader to know, if you are reading this and your child was just diagnosed or even if you just feel stuck with his current program, There is so much hope and empowerment in restoring your childs development and dynamic thinking. Dont let anyone tell you what your child will never do! This family is just one example of how they went with their gut...what they wanted for their child, what they envisioned and what they knew they needed to make it happen.
What is your gut telling you? What do you want for your child? Write it down! In RDI one of the first assignments is a mission preview on where you want your child to be...where you want your family to be. We get there by focusing on restoring development.
Enjoy this heartfelt families story-
The past few months have brought some milestones for our son Michael and for our family after many years of struggling.
Michael is our son who just turned 18. He has been diagnosed with symptoms of ASD, ADD and some expressive communication difficulties.
Michael struggled so much in the typical ABA programs. His school day was basically torture and filled with negative experiences and emotionally harmful ABA strategies. This was 40 hours per week. Ugh. Sending him to those school programs was the worst thing we could have ever done to him. It made him worse in every way. He had no friends and no life and he was isolated and we were too. After several years we had had enough. We decided would bring him home and work with him there. We met our first RDI consultant and we never turned back.
We were told by the school teams that Michael would not have any type of a normal life and that he would likely be hospitalized due to his severe behavior and lack of appropriate communication programs , etc.
When we decided to bring Michael home full time in the 1st grade and to remove all ABA and intensive behavioral therapies from his life, many experts and clinicians warned us that he would gain no skills and make no progress. They said that he would fall behind his peers and regress.
The exact opposite happened!!!!
Within six months of the RDI approach and the whole team using the strategies, Mike blossomed and developed skills in so many areas. He was calm and competent and interactive. He loved learning and became social. He continued to grow and began to participate in group sports and he loved it! He made friends and we traveled as a family. He attended family gatherings and social events without difficulty.
He then returned to school for 6th grade when he was ready for school and when he had the foundational skills to be at school and to fully engage in school programs and navigate through his day.
Periodically we would bump into some of Michael’s classmates from those ABA programs and it was incredible to see the difference between Michael and them. They were exactly the same. They were not interactive and they had very challenging behaviors. They were the ones that had made no progress. Michael had grown well beyond them.
This past month my son hosted a bowling party for his birthday and he did the invites, he planned the night and his 10 good friends came to celebrate with him. These are real friends not “set up” by the parents to interact. These are phone call, get together, play sports and hang out on face time friends. This was a dream of ours....That Michael would be able to have friends and feel the love and support of friendships and be part of a group and have a real social life independent of his parents. It happened!!
He just passed his driver’s test and is now practicing and just now drove away with my husband to go and shoot some basketball at the local park. Teachers told us “he can’t drive” why waste your time. These kids can’t do that. Oh so wrong. He is doing it!
He is planning to attend Community College and has a part time job at a school this summer working in the classroom as an aide with special needs children in the kindergarten and 1st grade. Talk about full circle! He is helping kids in the classroom!! Yes!!
We have a wonderful quality of life and this is due to our ongoing commitment to RDI and our amazing and wonderful consultants who have worked with our family.
We continue to work on building Michael’s dynamic thinking skills and we are setting new goals now that I hope will take Michael and our family to a whole new place where we can all realize new dreams.
Don’t let anyone tell you that our kids can’t do it. They just don’t know or understand the power of our kids and our RDI families!!
Dreams really can come true!!!
Keep dreaming.
Donna and Tim
New Jersey
This testimony is from an amazing family that I work with. I wanted to post it because I want you, the reader to know, if you are reading this and your child was just diagnosed or even if you just feel stuck with his current program, There is so much hope and empowerment in restoring your childs development and dynamic thinking. Dont let anyone tell you what your child will never do! This family is just one example of how they went with their gut...what they wanted for their child, what they envisioned and what they knew they needed to make it happen.
What is your gut telling you? What do you want for your child? Write it down! In RDI one of the first assignments is a mission preview on where you want your child to be...where you want your family to be. We get there by focusing on restoring development.
Enjoy this heartfelt families story-
The past few months have brought some milestones for our son Michael and for our family after many years of struggling.
Michael is our son who just turned 18. He has been diagnosed with symptoms of ASD, ADD and some expressive communication difficulties.
Michael struggled so much in the typical ABA programs. His school day was basically torture and filled with negative experiences and emotionally harmful ABA strategies. This was 40 hours per week. Ugh. Sending him to those school programs was the worst thing we could have ever done to him. It made him worse in every way. He had no friends and no life and he was isolated and we were too. After several years we had had enough. We decided would bring him home and work with him there. We met our first RDI consultant and we never turned back.
We were told by the school teams that Michael would not have any type of a normal life and that he would likely be hospitalized due to his severe behavior and lack of appropriate communication programs , etc.
When we decided to bring Michael home full time in the 1st grade and to remove all ABA and intensive behavioral therapies from his life, many experts and clinicians warned us that he would gain no skills and make no progress. They said that he would fall behind his peers and regress.
The exact opposite happened!!!!
Within six months of the RDI approach and the whole team using the strategies, Mike blossomed and developed skills in so many areas. He was calm and competent and interactive. He loved learning and became social. He continued to grow and began to participate in group sports and he loved it! He made friends and we traveled as a family. He attended family gatherings and social events without difficulty.
He then returned to school for 6th grade when he was ready for school and when he had the foundational skills to be at school and to fully engage in school programs and navigate through his day.
Periodically we would bump into some of Michael’s classmates from those ABA programs and it was incredible to see the difference between Michael and them. They were exactly the same. They were not interactive and they had very challenging behaviors. They were the ones that had made no progress. Michael had grown well beyond them.
This past month my son hosted a bowling party for his birthday and he did the invites, he planned the night and his 10 good friends came to celebrate with him. These are real friends not “set up” by the parents to interact. These are phone call, get together, play sports and hang out on face time friends. This was a dream of ours....That Michael would be able to have friends and feel the love and support of friendships and be part of a group and have a real social life independent of his parents. It happened!!
He just passed his driver’s test and is now practicing and just now drove away with my husband to go and shoot some basketball at the local park. Teachers told us “he can’t drive” why waste your time. These kids can’t do that. Oh so wrong. He is doing it!
He is planning to attend Community College and has a part time job at a school this summer working in the classroom as an aide with special needs children in the kindergarten and 1st grade. Talk about full circle! He is helping kids in the classroom!! Yes!!
We have a wonderful quality of life and this is due to our ongoing commitment to RDI and our amazing and wonderful consultants who have worked with our family.
We continue to work on building Michael’s dynamic thinking skills and we are setting new goals now that I hope will take Michael and our family to a whole new place where we can all realize new dreams.
Don’t let anyone tell you that our kids can’t do it. They just don’t know or understand the power of our kids and our RDI families!!
Dreams really can come true!!!
Keep dreaming.
Donna and Tim
New Jersey