'Checkers'

I talked with our RDI consultant today to start getting us back on track after a very long 'sabbatical', if you will. She and I were talking about Pooh's next goal. It has to do with Reciprocal and Contingent actions. As she is telling me what in heavens name she is talking about (RDI lingo is a steep learning curve for me ;D), I started thinking 'Checkers'.

This goal is basically like the game of checkers. It's turn taking (the Reciprocal part). And each person is always basing their move on what the other person does (the Contingency part). This is all going through my head as she's explaining that we are concentraing on the physical actions not the verbal (due to Pooh's frequent scripting--i just ignore it). Then she starts explaining that I need to come up with a catch phrase for this goal, something like Physical Contingency. Huh?!? I said, "How about Checkers?"

I'm the first parent that has ever used that as a catch phrase for this goal. Fancy That! LOL

No, really, RDI lingo may be easy for some, but if I have to be thinking of doing something all day to work on the goal, I'd much rather be muttering 'Checkers' than 'Physical Contingency'. So any of you RDI'ers who may read this blog, don't worry if your mutterings sound stupid, just make it easy on yourself.

Something I tried today that worked well was as Pooh was leaving the kitchen, I did blocking manuevers. You know, they move to the left to get by so you move to block them. (Remember to do this non-verbally with a happy Sesame Street face, not a Hitler one. ;D) Then they learn they can try to get through by going under your legs or running around the kitchen table. We had fun with this and Pooh did it with no problems. Then the King start a face-making game. We did a three way game of making silly faces. Pooh played right along.

I'm going to try going with the flow and work it into everything we're doing. I tend to overthink it and try creating things to do. I make myself nuts doing this. So for this goal, I've personally decided to try it in the most natural way possible. We'll see how that goes.

Play checkers, play checkers , play checkers. I have to play checkers. ;P