What a gentleman and what an independent lady!

Help is at hand when you need it! 

Last week our Little Princess was offered help twice, and twice she politely turned it down! 

It was not help from her Mum or Dad, from her Grandma or Granddad, or from a conductor. The help was being offered to her from her friend.

It was lovely to observe from afar the following, gently caring exchange of words:

‘Shall I help you with your coat, F.?’ asked Jolly Prof., as they arrived together from school.

‘No thanks ’, she replied, ‘I will try to do it on my own.’  

After lunch it was time to wash hands and Little Princess was off, on her bike as usual, to the bathroom:

‘Shall I open the door for you, F?’ asked her friend again.

I waited expectantly for the reply. This was a difficult problem to solve as our bathroom has a huge outward-opening door, but I had seen it done successfully once before and I wondered what the answer would be this time. 

Sure enough, the reply came loud and clear once more:

‘No thanks, I can do it on my own.’

And she did. It took a bit of manoeuvring, opening first the sliding door to her right to make space, but in went Little Princess under her own steam to wash her hands and even shut the door behind her!

Watching Little Princess on her walking-bike, negotiating tight corners and small spaces, I believe she could be right when she says that one day she will drive a car. She is brilliant, she knows not only the position of her own body in the space around her but also, down to the last millimetre, the space that her bike needs too.

Little Princess also knows how to refuse the help that her friend offers her, politely, so that she knows that he will continue to ask. She knows quite well that one day she may be very glad that she has a special friend beside her, and one that is such a gentleman too!

Led Teaching or the Pető Method

'Entwined spirals' by Susie Mallett, Cambridge, April 2012

 Awakenings

I woke up a little recently, having gained some extra energy, so I have cared a little more for my blog. Not only have I posted something, I also took a look at the sitemeter.

I do not often look at the sitemeter to discover the location of my visitors.What interests me more are the 'referrals'. I like to ask myself – ‘Where in the internet do the visitors come from, or what motivated them to Google and land on my site?’

Sometimes the referrals come from Google Images. Pictures of oak trees, snow and city landscapes seem to be most popular.

Sometimes they are from the Conductive Post (see the foot of my right-hand column for link), or from other people’s blogs or Facebook pages that have a link to –

 www.susie-mallett.org

What I find most interesting is when the visitors comes from another 'Blogspot', one that I have not seen before.

This happened a while ago with ‘deans' stroke musings’ at – 

 http://oc1dean.blogspot.de/  

I have mentioned ‘deans' stroke musings’ before on my Conductor blog.  It is a site that I now read regularly because it really is a mine of very interesting and often useful information. I  haave recently noticed on sitemeter that I now get regular visitors from that URL to my own blog too.   

This morning, when I decided that it was time to take more interest in my poor old blog, I discovered another new 'Blogspot' on the referrals list –

http://maszunia.blogspot.de/

I went straight over there to investigate, expecting to discover someone else searching for clothes that conductors (the musical kind) wear! 

What I discovered was a new blog. A new blogger with an interest in conductive upbringing who has just discovered my blog.

This new blog is written by a Mum with two children, the youngest of whom has cerebral palsy. She writes about her family; a family that is just beginning their journey and their search, building up that team of people around them who can help them all.

The family live in Poland and as Polish is not a language that I am at all acquainted with I have used Google Translate to read the blog postings.

The most recent posting on the blog is called –‘Pető’. 

Naturally this was also the first posting that I put into the translating machine. I was rewarded with a very well written description of the family’s pre-diagnosis, knowing-but-not-knowing life, the post-diagnosis, knowing-and-searching-for-a-way-ahead life, and the beginnings of a new, hopeful, finding-a-conductive-upbringing life.

Led teaching 

That is what the translating machine thinks Conductive Education is – 'Led Teaching', and the machine is probably right!

I find the Polish term ‘Led Teaching’ preferable to the German  konduktive Förderung. In Germany many people prefer to call it the Pető Method as the Mum writing this blog mentions here – 

Istnieje sposób rehabilitacji dzieci z mpd, który obejmuje wszystkie sfery rozwoju dziecka, nie tylko ruchową. To Kierowane Nauczanie (Conductive Education), metoda, stworzona w połowie XX wieku, w Budapeszcie, przez Andrása Petö (dlatego bywa nazywana metodą Petö). Jest popularna w USA i Wielkiej Brytanii, w Polsce istnieje zaledwie kilka ośrodków, oferujących zajęcia prowadzone wg. tego systemu. Od ponad dwóch tygodni, Maszunia uczęszcza do jednego z tych ośrodków. Ale o tym co tam robi i jak sobie radzi, będzie w następnym poście. Gdyby, do tego czasu, ktoś chciał się więcej dowiedzieć o samej metodzie, polecam stronę Instytutu w Budapeszcie: www.peto.hu

Google translation –

‘There is a way of rehabilitation of children with cerebral palsy, which covers all areas of child development, not just physical. That is Led Teaching (Conductive Education), a method developed in the mid-twentieth century, in Budapest, by András Peto (hence sometimes called the Peto method). It is popular in the U.S. and the UK, in Poland there are only a few centers that offer classes conducted by this system. For more than two weeks, Maszunia attend one of these centers. But what they are doing and how the Council (outcomes), will be in the next post. If, by this time, someone wanted to know more about the method, I recommend the website of the Institute in Budapest: www.peto.hu’

I am looking forward to reading soon about the outcome of Maszuna’s, and her family’s, first conductive experience.

Notes

Dean’s stroke musings –

http://oc1dean.blogspot.de/

Maszunia – 

http://maszunia.blogspot.de/

Thoughts on writing, gardening and conductive friendships

"Taking a well earned rest!"

Writing

I sometimes wonder whether if I did not go to work would I run out of things to write about. After further consideration I think that there is probably no danger of that happening.

I have not been at work much for over a month now. I was off sick for almost three weeks and after a few days back at work I went off to England for a couple of weeks with my Dad.

The garden called!

Gardening

What a lovely surprise it was when I arrived home to find that the digging had all been done. A young neighbour has also been helping my Dad rebuild bean frames, prune current bushes and fruit trees and create a wild-flower garden. The garden looks marvellous after several years of neglect. All that was left for me to do was the weeding, the mowing and lots of tidying up after winter. I even had time to admire the spring flowers.

Mowing the lawn and the grass in other parts of the garden takes me just over two hours. Sometimes when the weather is really warm I have to do it in two shifts especially when it has been left to get a bit too long.

Even though there was some lovely pre-Easter sunshine it was not too warm and I managed the work in one go, although the poor old mower allowed me a few breaks when it could not cope with the huge amount of moss in the grass. While I de-mossed the mower I was reminded of the many years that my Mum raked the lawn in the spring to collect the moss for lining hanging-gardens; she supplied the whole neighbourhood and kept our lawn looking green. She also supplied the local robin with grubs feeding him from her hand. When I worked beside her he would feed from mine too.

While I work in the garden I am rarely think about the plants I tend, pull up or plant. I am thinking about my Mum or my work, often I am writing blog postings.

This is the posting that I wrote in my head on my last attempt at the weeding before the Easter rain arrived:

Conductive Friendship

Forever friends

I do not have a friend from childhood, the only person of my generation who I have known all my life is my sister.

My sister regularly meets the girl who she started school with fifty years ago, and my Dad still regularly visits a friend who he has known for eighty-one years – since they started school. Later they worked together for forty-five years.

In my after-school conductive group, where my Littlies still come two or three times a week and I suppose are really no longer Littlies, there are two very close friends. Whenever they meet they are inseparable.

Little Princess and Jolly Professor have known each other since 2005 when they were two and three-years old respectively and attended our parent-and-child group. I worked in that group too, it seems such a long time ago. To Little Princess and Jolly Prof. it is almost a life-time.

They attended our parent-and-child group for a couple of years and then were the founders of our integrated Kindergarten, their parents were adamant that their conductive upbringing would continue but also wished for their integration with non-disabled children. They were pioneers and we have a very successful integrated Kindergarten ever since, mainly due to them.

It is also due to these two children that we have a very successful after-school programme, great communication with the teachers in the local schools and with classroom assistants too. This all developed around these pioneers too.

Friendships develop between the other members of the group but it is Little Princess and Jolly Prof. who seem to be glued together at the shoulder. They understand each other wonderfully and know exactly what the other can do and where help is needed. I have some lovely photographs of Jolly Prof. helping to pull off Littlie Princess’s splints and of Littlie Princess helping Jolly Prof. space the words they were writing on a greetings card, and all the time in both activities they were hooting with laughter!

Jolly Prof. can walk independently, he has done so for about three years now and Little Princess is just beginning to find the body strength and the control to take more and steadier steps now managng up to twenty alone.

On one of the few days that I returned to work after being ill, before my trip to see Dad, the sun came out and we were able to go outside for some much needed fresh air. The children are in school all morning and after lunch with us they often ask whether they can go outside for some fresh air especially now that winter is slowly giving way to some warmer weather. We are a very flexible team. When possible we just take everything that we had planned outside with us or do something completely different using what nature gives us.

As I was on my way to the garden, walking with Littlie, Jolly Prof. passed by. I spontaneously grabbed his hand and stuck Little Princess’s hand in his. She was beaming and he looked as proud as punch as they made their way hand-in-hand out of the door.

As we hit the fresh air and the less even ground walking became more difficult but they still managed two or three steps before my hand appeared to steady them.

Jolly Prof. who often trips over his own feet kept a steady figure because he knew that if he fell so would Little Princess. He felt very responsible for his friend. Later he told me that his hand had been aching so much from holding her so tight, but he would never let go of his grip in case she fell.

The other children were outside with us and repeatedly asked these two friends what they wanted to play. They were asked to chose between skittles, croquet or football, but no, they now had something else on their minds and did not wish to play. They wanted to practise. They had decided that walking along hand-in-hand was rather nice and they would like, one day, to walk home together in this way, without a conductor or a mum watching over them and this needed a lot of practise.

And practise they did.

Little Princess wanted to walk on the grass to soften the falls a bit, but Jolly Prof. is a bit wobbly on grass.

A compromise was found and they walked on the pavement and were still out there practising when their Mums arrived to take them home. Oh, how they would have loved to immediately be able to walk home together - only 500 metres to Littlie’s home, but  even that short distance would take them hours and even we did not have time for that. They will practise and with their determination I know that one day they will make it. It may take them another seven years to learn , but as they learn their already close friendship will grow.

I very much hope that I am there to witness the day that these two special friends walk home together hand-in-hand.

The experience that I described above had me and both mums wiping tears from the corners of our eyes. When we reach the moment when I am no longer needed to help the children along I am sure we will all need a supply of handkerchiefs to wipe away our tears of joy.

Rarely have I had two children in my groups who pay so much attention to each other’s needs that they are able to work in this way with each other. We often pair the children up to play games, sometimes while sitting and sometimes when standing or walking. Off course all the children like to help their playmates to succeed but they do not usually concentrate as these too did. There was a special bond between Jolly Prof. and Little Princess that allowed them to walk so well together. They care very much for each other and watch intently what the other one is doing, not only while walking but in everything they do together. Whether playing football, reading, chatting and laughing their eyes rarely leave each other.

Over the next few years the amount of work at and after school will increase and the amount of time available for conductive group work is bound to decrease. Already I am planning how I will be able to provide these two friends, and the other children in our after-school group, with the opportunity to meet in their teenage years. The social development of these children is just as important to them, and to me, as their physical development.

I observe how the relationships that my sister and my Dad both still have with their old school mates are so valuable to them, the understanding that has developed after so long makes being together with their friends so easy for them.

The chosen path will be difficult for these youngsters with disabilities who are tackling life in the mainstream-lane. The conductive team will be there to help them on their journeys and one way that we will certainly help is by giving them the chance to spend time with their special, understanding and caring friends.

Learning to live after a stroke

In English and in German

Thank you to the people out there in the conductive world who have advertised my latest publication. I have already received a couple of enquiries through these postings.


Thanks go to Gill Maguire and to the Verein für Menschen mit Körperbeinderungen e.V. for plugging the book that I edited and published with Frau Waltraud Heußinger.

http://www.gillian-maguire.info/2012/03/new-book-about-conductive-education.html

http://www.konduktive-nuernberg.de/aktuelles/aktuelles.html

Orders can be made through me at small66711@aol.com .

Upbringing in the slow lane or in the fast lane?

  "Foraging for food" 1981

Wherever the upbringing takes place it still needs time!

Another posting “From the desk of R. Strzalkowski, Esq.” that is a good read for anyone embarking on a conductive lifestyle:

http://blog.jordanklausner.org/2012/03/parenthood.html

While you are there spend some time to read a few more postings because R. Strzalkowski, Esq. has a lot to tell us and we can all learn a lot from him.

Paths to lives

Jolly Professor with one of his own inventions

Some short stories of some people and their shared paths to lives

Networking

While I was putting the finishing touches to the book that got sent to the printers last week, I was working with Laddo in his home.

At round about the same time I started to write an article about my work with Little Princess and Jolly Professor, and their friends in our after-school group.

To add to all of that I have been carrying around a newspaper article in my notebook from 2 December 2011 issue of the Weekly Guardian, about a man who suffered a stroke. I had been planning one day to write about it here.

Getting round to it

I was curled up on the sofa on this snowy Sunday afternoon with a cuppa and a book when I suddenly realized what it is that all these success stories have in common and why I have been collecting certain snippets from them in my thoughts and notebooks for so long.

All these people live in the centre of their own network, a network so well coordinated that lives that were threatened to become dysfunctional by injury, illness or disabilities caused by birth, are able to develop into fulfilling lifestyles.

The expanding worlds of adults 

Post-stroke

Waltraud’s wonderful story about surviving a stroke is told in her book, the one that will be published and on sale from 24 February 2012. Over the years, here on my blog, I have regularly published snippets of her story, told through my own eyes. Her small but fast-growing network began with her husband, her father and her mother, but it soon spread to include her brothers and sisters too. Later on the network widened to include different therapists and neighbours. More recently it has included choir members, book designers and many more as Waltraud’s lifestyle has opened up. I have been lucky to have been part of her network for most of the years that this progression to a functional lifestyle has taken place, sometimes helping to coordinate parts of it, at others just giving a little bit of moral support.

Through childhood to adult life

I have been around for fourteen of the twenty-one years of Laddo’s life, and I have not only witnessed his development but have also been instrumental in expanding the network around him. I have been actively assisting with its coordination. Often I have introduced ideas such as attending the local water-aerobics class that his families have helped to implement, at others I have been practically involved, for example when learning to ride the buses. I am always looking out for new openings for him and people who may be interested in helping, joining the local network to encourage future developments.

Laddo now has the swimming instructor in the village as part of his weekly programme, the horse-riding instructor too. But they are more than just a part of his weekly life, they provide huge milestones for him. He is going snorkelling in Egypt this year with the swimmers and he plays the role of Saint Martin every 11 November on the horse that he rides regularly. Further afield, in a local town, he meets my conductor-colleague, with whom he practises his bus-riding and his social skills. At the same time he learns to keep appointments and to organise trips to museums, swimming baths and other excursions with her.

Children from Kindergarten to school, already enjoying their paths to life

The children who left our integrated Kindergarten to attend mainstream school still join us in the conductive group in the afternoon. They already have a huge network, each one ever-expanding and encouraging these children to progress along their paths in life.

Many of the links in their networks are coordinated by the conductors. The conductive centre is the constant link in their lives and in many cases the conductors are the people who know well all the other links in the network.

This week I have been overjoyed to discover just how well the school-teacher, school-assistant, child and conductor network is succeeding.

Two school assistants spontaneously arrived at the group this week to tell us how well everything is working out and I received a wonderful thank you letter from a mother who just wanted to tell me how well her son’s life is progressing at the moment, not only at school but also that he is ice-skating and learning how to stand up from the ice.

1, 2, 3, 4 and 5

To top it all, each day during the week a different child arrived with a story of the first top marks received in a test. 

1, 2, 3, 4, 5, are not only numbers associated with a conductive programme, they are the scores that are given to German school-children, from a very early age, for their work, with a One being the best.

All of our children wish to attain a One so much. They know that they are capable but there have always been so many problems that have prevented it. Some of the children were occasionally at or near the top of the class in their early schooling, in German or in Maths, but that was before the stricter marking system comes into use as they get older and does not carry with it the same feeling of success.

Some children are slow at writing, others have problems with their eyesight that make it difficult to copy words and sums from the blackboard, some have problems with speech and there are difficulties for them in conveying what they think the correct answer to be.

When all the children came in this week exclaiming about their successes in German Dictation, Religious Education, English and Maths, it was an indication to me that this part of all their networks was working well. Each member of the group had achieved top marks in at least one subject.

It was time to celebrate, but we would need to invite all the networking group to the party. Every link plays an important role in the creation of the happy souls that achieve such success and if we cannot leave just one of them out, for the party or at the moment in the lives.

The time will come when some of the people in the network blend into the background to make way for new links in a wider world.

“Team ties transcend injury”

Now I come to the newspaper article

The words in the title above sound very much like a title that could be given to all the stories mentioned here. It is in fact the title of a sports feature by a Guardian newspaper journalist, Louise Taylor.

She writes about a football scout and former Middlesbrough player, Gary Parkinson, who suffered a severe stroke in the autumn of 2010. At forty-three years of age he was left with what the article describes as “locked-in syndrome”. The article goes on to tell us that he is almost completely paralysed, while his mind remains alive and active. His only means of communicating, just like for many others with the same condition, is by blinking. He began to develop this method with his family. Then his network of people who work together on the development of his fulfilling lifestyle expanded to include his colleagues from work and he communicates with them in the same way. The managers, coaches and others who work for the football club travel almost two-hundred kilometers to meet their colleague and collect the assessments on the players who Gary Parkinson, the scout, thinks the management should, or should not, follow.

Gary Parkinson compiles his reports working with members of his family then meets with his colleagues to pass them on.

This man communicates by blinking and by using this method he is able to work. Through the good coordination of his own network he is also in his own way taking steps along his path to a fulfilling lifestyle.

Notes

Gary Parkinson -

http://www.guardian.co.uk/football/2011/nov/24/middlesbrough-gary-parkinson-locked-in-syndrome

http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/football/15835359

Weddings

My festive gingerbread biscuit

I have not yet been asked for advice about organising a wedding where there would be disabled guests or when the bride or groom are themselves disabled, but as my young clients get older, several of them very near to completing their university education, I am sure that the time is not far off.

I have just discovered an article in the Guardian that deals with just this subject:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/2012/feb/17/disabled-weddings-plan-accessible-day

Reference

http://www.mdctrailblazers.org/news/961