We went off to Brighton to see our Frequent Friday Friends - 3 out of the 6 possible families were there, which worked fine. E had provided lunch, which was delicious - wonderful rice salad, scones for dairy-partakers - and C had brought houmous and breadsticks too. We encouraged our various children over their various social hurdles, of which there are plenty, and managed the odd bit of conversation ourselves, whenever possible. It was a shortish affair, as E and her two were off to the dentist.
F is getting a little bit possessive/fixated about other E (not big E) which will need a bit of careful handling I think. They're a lovely little group of kids though. I got eaten by a pony and some lego bricks and had some interesting discussions of the best way to get into the attic a couple of floors above us.
F and I caught the bus with E, L and T, which was nice. Got off and went for one of our little tours of the materialist delights of Woolworths - probably F's favourite shop, with it's thrilling combination of plastic ponybilia, DVDs, DS games and even dressing-up clothes. She has her eye on a few things and likes to go and look at them in a covetous manner now and then. Talked about how she could earn money or wait for a birthday, etc. Noted that she is actually very good at accepting 'no I'm not getting you that today'. She is keen on the idea of Animal Crossing too, but I have pointed out that it involves lots of reading, so it will have to wait till she is really reading whole books.
Went into C&H Fabrics and bought... buttons! We have a plan to see if she can get over her phobia, and we need some actual buttons for various stages of it. It will involve a series of steps with pre-defined rewards, with her controlling the pace of progress, going backwards when needed, etc. I asked her to choose 'easy', 'medium' and 'hard' buttons. She had no hesitation in picking fairly large mottled grey plastic 4-hole buttons as the epitome of everything she dislikes about them. The 'easy' ones were 'in disguise' she said, 'as pearls', so they don't look very buttonlike at all. The 'medium' ones are white 2-hole, not quite as big as the grey ones. Very interesting to talk about it with her.
I haven't worked since Wednesday - nice to have a break.
3 comments:
Button phobia management plan sounds good (anything which involves a trip to C&H is always good ;)).
What does she think about novelty buttons - teddy bears or animals? Would they be in disguise like the pearls?
Good for her for wanting to do something about it - good luck :)
I pointed out some animal ones to her, thinking they would be ideal, but she chose the pearls, not sure exactly how she sees them.
I need to come up with the small rewards (mostly not material ones - time spent doing favourite things, going to places, etc.) for each stage, which is taking me ages.
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