Oh the things we do at Horizons

You just never know what you'll find going on at Horizons. It's an adventure every day, which is why it's such a great place to be and work at! Some of you may remember that over the summer a group of our Summer CAMPS kids planted a garden out back. Well, it's been producing quite a crop. A few weeks ago, two of our instructional kids went out and picked some things from our garden and made fresh salsa. It was delicious!

Here is a picture of them working in the kitchen on the salsa.

Another thing that some of our instructional students are working on is fixing up an old checker cab and turning it into the "Horizons-Mobile". We're very excited to see the transformation that this car will take on. This week they cleaned up the inside and changed a flat tire.

I hope you enjoyed hearing about the cool things that some of our kids are doing. I'll make sure to keep you updated on their latest adventures.

Until next week - Betsy

Turn It Off

The television that is. I found this quote on line today and thought it fit with what I wanted to say this week.
Television has changed a child from an irresistible force to an immovable object. ~Author Unknown

This topic has come to the forefront for me over the past few weeks. I have heard the recitation of so many television shows/movies over the past few weeks that I feel like I don’t need to watch tv for the next month. I’ve been asked about tv characters and given the diatribe about them as well.

For some children television becomes the coping mechanism when they feel stressed or incompetent or even just bored. One child in particular that I have interacted with over the past few weeks has been watching entirely too much television and if I have to hear about Ren and Stimpy or Itchy and Scratchy one more time I might scream. There are many of us around the office who feel the same way.

So my advice is to just turn it off. If you have a child that can recite back an entire episode of their favorite television show or even just the same few lines over and over again this is a problem. Your child is not able to regulate this for themselves so you need to do it for them. I know this can be very hard to do especially when we are all busy and just need a few moments of down time or need to get something done tv can be a great babysitter, but at the same time this can be extremely detrimental to your child.

For those children who are continuously reciting television episodes or talking about characters on the shows they watch tv needs to be limited or taken away all together. Why is this? When children are spending a vast majority of their time talking about tv it is limiting the amount of time they are utilizing and joining in experience sharing communication. It is also hindering their ability to be flexible, use appraisal and limits self awareness.

So for the sake of your child and those around him/her please turn it off or at least severely limit it. We will all be better for it.

Talk to you soon,
Erin

How do you know your clients are satisfied?

Last Saturday we attended a resource fair at Sunshine Church put on by the Gray Center. The day was great and we met a lot of wonderful new families. So who attends these fairs? People who are wondering what resources are available to them and their families. They may or may not currently be involved in programming, but they are looking for more. Something else has to be out there and more has to be available, so they search. One observation I made during my time at the event was that none of our current families were at this fair. I interpreted this as them being content with the programming they are receiving and they aren't seeing the need to find more or something better. The bottom line: we are the best! What more could you want when you have Horizons, when you have remediation?

Until next week,
Michelle

Sloooooooow Down

If you work with any of the staff at our clinic you know that we encourage families to slow down your lives in order to work on remediation with your children. Here are some stats about our current fast-paced culture:
1) The average workweek is 47 hours, up from 34 hours twenty years ago.
2) We aren’t eating home-cooked meals anymore – children consumed 300% more fast food in 1996 than in 1977.
3) Most of us are getting 90 minutes less of sleep each night as compared to our great-grandparents.
4) Many fewer families are taking vacations now than two decades ago.
5) The speed limit nationally in 1995 was 55 mph – and is now 65-75 mph in most states.

Obviously as a society we have gotten much more fast-paced compared to previous generations While it may feel like we continually have to get more and more done in less and less time, there are definite hazards to a continually hectic lifestyle. The October 2007 issue of Redbook magazine provides some valuable reasons for all of us to slow down in our lives:
1) Slowing down helps you lose weight by not consuming fast food calories or messing up body metabolism by postponing meals.
2) Slowing down allows us to be better moms and dads because we take time to really connect with our kids in quality activities Plus, research shows that the more time we spend with our kids during childhood the fewer conflicts and problems occur during adolescence.
3) Slowing down and not getting overly frustrated when waiting reduces risk of high blood pressure.
4) Slowing down boosts energy because we breathe more deeply, thus taking in more oxygen and increasing energy.
5) Slowing down improves our performance at work because we are more reflective and attentive to detail.
6) Slowing down while exercising through resistance training and slow weights builds more strength, endurance, and burns more calories than exercising quickly.
7) Slowly down helps us travel more safely – one third of all fatal car crashes are due to speeding!

This week I’m encouraging you all to slow down for long enough to consider the pacing of your life and your family’s life. Is the pace of life creating physical, mental, and emotional hazards for you? I challenge you to find one way to slow down in some aspect of your life – think of it as an investment in better health for you and your family!

Until next week,
Nicole

The Importance of Routines

Now that we are several weeks in to the new school year, I feel it is important to remind everyone of the importance of routines. Over the past few weeks, I have seen several students arrive at school on Mondays extremely dis-regulated and out of sorts. I am finding that these are the children who have unstructured weekends. Since the weather is still warm outside, we are all trying to take in the last days of summer activities; however, it is very important for families to remember to try and keep a basic routine on the weekends that includes time for remediation. Every school child is currently going through a transition period and getting back into the school routine. It is important to help your child with this "uncertainty" at times, by providing consistency at home. They will appreciate the consistency as they become accustomed to their new routine.

Have a great week!

Courtney

Always Learning

It's seems that there's always learning going on and it's so cool to see. Learning new things can be neat to watch in others and fun for ourselves as well. In RDI, both parents and kids do a lot of learning. Sometimes learning new things can be scary, but with the proper guidance it makes it easier to get through difficult tasks that may be new to us. There may be some rocky times going through the RDI process, but having the tenacity to stick with it helps you reach your goal of learning something new and doing what you wanted to accomplish. So, with that being said, Nicole came across this quote and sent it to me and I thought I'd share it with all of you. Enjoy your weekend!
-Betsy

"I'm not afraid of storms, for I'm learning how to sail my ship." - Louisa May Alcott

Apprenticeship

You know how some days develop their own themes? Tuesday was one of those days for me. The theme for that day turned out to be apprenticeship.

I started my day with a speech session where my client is my apprentice in correcting an articulation error. This is one of the highlights of my week. I love this client and we always have a great time together and he is a wonderful apprentice.

I then watched a video that one of my families submitted to me. The father was giving his son his first “official” piano lesson. Wow was that a powerful video segment that showed great apprenticeship. How hard the son worked to do what his dad was showing/telling him. After learning about the black keys the dad sat at the piano and played a song that they made up the words for (it went to a familiar tune), and provided the son with a role in which he would be competent. They tried over and over until after about 5 minutes they were able to complete the whole song that was the greatest moment. I saw beaming smiling faces with true emotion sharing and a “high ten.” The apprenticeship was established. In that one shining moment at the end I saw competence (both father and son), emotion sharing, episodic memory and terrific non-verbal experience sharing. I am so looking forward to seeing this apprenticeship progress. I know it will be a great one!

I finished my day by meeting with another of my speech clients who is also my apprentice, but has also started a new apprentice role with his mom. They have started doing some home-schooling for part of his day. This has turned out to be a great experience for both mother and son and I love hearing about what they are discovering together. I am sure this will also be a great learning experience for all of us. I am excited to see how this develops as well.

Isn’t apprenticeship great? How else would we learn new things if we didn’t have masters to guide us. I’m looking forward to finding my next apprenticeship role.

Talk to you soon,
Erin