WEEK 3 continues....Asking for help not easy baby-baby !!

ASKING FOR HELP HAS NOT BEEN EASY BABY BABY !!!!!!!

I have to get this out of my chest. Asking for help is not easy. Asking for help was not easy for R's parents and family also. But when there is no choice you have to JUST ASK.

The day we realized that we will need about 12-15 volunteers for R's SON-RISE program, we started thinking where we are going to get volunteers, where we will start. Considering this will be an ongoing project depending on how R will respond to it. We realized we will constantly need volunteers everyday of the week.

We started with Churches, Libraries, Web Postings, Facebook,Twitter,College campus. We sent out hundred's of emails, asking everyone we could think for help. But nothing was easy.

Especially the times when people told us "NO" with very sophisticated reasons. My favorite is from one of the library. Library told us to put the flyer up in library we need to be associated with non-profit.org , so I told them "Play-therapy program is associated with non-profit son-rise.org". Library allowed us to put the flyers up for R. But story gets more interesting after this. I went to library to refill the flyer box and saw all the flyers were gone. I asked myself  "I don't think people took these many flyers, because we have not gotten any calls yet for volunteering".
So I went to front desk at the library and they told me that "flyers were removed", I asked them "why were they removed ? " Here comes the smart answer for me "Since the volunteering will be at home and not at some public place, they cannot risk putting up flyers". Now how do I answer that !! I am not saying they are wrong or right, But It was not easy !!

Another incident was from one the Internet groups, where I asked one of the groups which has about 1000 members to send an request for volunteer considering it was Autism awareness month also. But the group organizer gave me  "there are nearly 1,400 members in The group, many of them with compelling stories. As it is, I spend 2-3 hours a day on group business and send out many e-mails (some say too many...lol). If I were to open up the site to allow every one with a cause, no matter how worthy, it would start a torrent of e-mails and appeals,,,so I can't do that."
"I suggest that you might want to start your own group whose purpose is to provide a forum for local individual causes."  - Again  I am not saying they are wrong or right, But It was not easy !!  In the quoted lines I replaced Group name with underlined group 
Also here is the interesting part after couple of days I see that group organizer sends out email for "Renting a property which belonged to his family member."....Interesting. I thought let me try again since the group email is being used for House Rent , but this time when I send out email I did not got any response at all . ....
Again  I am not saying they are wrong or right, But It was not easy !! 

Another favorite when we called some of the volunteer organizations for help, they won't help us because we are not non-profit organization but a group of private people which we call family.Again I am not saying they are wrong or right, But It was not easy !!

 
And so many more stories, I can add to this list where even people offered to help but did not come forward at the time we were in need of that help . We send out text messages, emails etc.Again I am not saying they are wrong or right, But It was not easy !!

I need that EASY button to work for REAL....LOL

But all these life experience incidents just made me stronger and now I say as I Tweet "I will never stop helping and stop asking for help for people who need help" 

There are so many people who did help us and are still helping us. Because of this help we currently have 4-5 volunteers for R, we still need more and looking for more and will try again and again to get more !! So I tweet and follow " Start day with big smile and positive thinking, where there is a will, there is a way !!


SON-RISE DAY 7


R was diagnosed with Autism 2 years backs. R is now 4 years old. We started SON-RISE program with R couple of weeks backs. SON-RISE is a Play-therapy program that I am volunteering for . The Play-Therapy is associated with son-rise.org to cure his symptoms related to Autism. I refer to word Green Light sometimes which means getting eye contact from R. When I refer to Stimming , it is the repetitive behavior R does while lost in his world


I had another session with R, This time the session was more about joining R in his stimming activities. I got him down in the play-room by giving him with his favorite snack Pistachio's. I opened the shells to give him the pistachios and He was eating them one by one. Once we ran out of pistachio he used the shell of pistachio for his stimming activity.



He took the shell in between his fingers, went into his thoughts and the shell was revolving between his fingers.Infact has anyone tried it, it feels really calming,relaxing. I joined him in his stimming activity and he gave me couple of eye contacts. Infact I remember one of them lasted for 2-3 minutes also.

After that he got up and started spinning the basketball inside the room, I again joined him and did the same thing. Now R got some other idea for stimming  :-

1. He dropped the basketball in the net, Ball rolls down on the floor.
2. He kicks the ball under the trampoline
3. He goes under the trampoline to get the ball
4. He lies down next to the trampoline with ball in his hands and is deep in his thoughts
5. He crawls with the ball out of the trampoline
6. He walks across the wall next to it with ball in his hand
7. He drops the ball again the basket
8. And repeats rest of the steps in same above sequence

I did the same thing with R over and over again. This went on for about 25-35 minutes. Now he went to grab my fingers took me towards the door. This meant "Lets go out of the room". I praised him for letting me know.

During that praise as soon as he gave me eye contact.I quickly grabbed the colorful scarves and counted 1,2,3,Hurrah . He tried to imitate me and screamed when I said Hurrah. we played this game for 3-4 times.

Now he again grabbed my fingers and took me towards the door, flipped the light switch. This meant "Lets go out of the room". I praised him for letting me know. He still was upset and wanted to go. But this line from my heart worked for R, He left me thinking :) I took his soft,tiny hands gently and said "You know I love you so much. This is time to play, This is the room where magic happens. The more we play, more magic happens ". He immediately turned inside the room to play happily. This must be the first close conversation where he seemed to understand me so clearly , I ever had with R.



After that I made him run with me on the count of 1,2,3,4 and 5. He did that once.He seemed tired. He sat down and I sat down with him. He was now rubbing his toes and deep in thoughts. I did the same thing.This went on couple of times and after that he was just ready to go again. So we left the room.