End Of Term Outing - Shopping Trip @ Compass Point

How time flies and we had come to another end of Term outing, this Term theme of "My Community" brings us through the teaching of helping our kid learn and generalize skills on how to communicate & interact with people around the community, to have better adaptability, connection and integration to the community experience and society at large. While we had attended one such similar outing in 2010 shopping at Bishan Junction 8 just within the NTUC super market, this outing brought us to Compass point shopping center and the area of coverage was wider and lot more challenging as far as environmental inputs & social factors are concern.

The main highlights of this shopping trip was doing & completing the activity sheet provided, all in all there are about 5 area of shopping experience namely Bakery shop, Supermarket, 7-11 Store, Popular before ending at KFC with a snack break and catch up with friends, parents & teachers.

We were early by an hour but still manage to kill some times by going with his flow of interest and doing activities that he likes together and maintaining interaction where ever opportunity arises. While he may feel at ease wondering on his own but as soon as his friends arrived, he seems shy or little over whelm by the social demand to meet/greet each others in the open area. His eyes may be wondering away from them but I know that he actually likes to seek social except that his mind may be trap forcing to react other wise. Once things got started, he is back to his normal self following the agenda on the activity sheet.

1) Take money at POSB ATM, self regulation average, at times wondering off from the queue but nevertheless able to redirect him back to queue until his turn. Successfully executed.

2) Bakery Shop - look around, bought a bun, queue up to paid for item, successfully managed too.

3) Next stop was the Cold Storage supermarket, he does not seems to have any intention or desire to buy but will wondering about looking at the row number & items sold within, we finally got what he likes to complete his task by buying 2 egg like Kinder Joy which he enjoys eating.

4) Then we come to 7-11 convenient store to get 2 packets of Ribena, activity sheet checked and updated.

5) Next stop is Popular shop at level 3, we took a lift up and scan through the stationary to bought marker and pen, completed and checked

Then it was time for toilet break before we proceed to KFC for our final stop over.

6) In the KFC, I over looked about giving him the opportunity to order food but was promptly alerted by my wife to let him pay and collect the food on tray after I had ordered. After eating, he was ready to leave but I pulled him back to clear the tray. My wife then bring out the sun flower seeds which he like to eat to make him stay at area. Some photos were taken with friends as well as teachers for a strong finish to Term 4. We leave the place tire but happy for another successful outing. We had to rush home and wash up before sending him for his weekly ST.

Winners Statement:-

3 cheers for the teachers, parents and friends for making this outing meaningful and another great scenic view in the journey along this path less travel.

Community - Eating Out

From my last blog post I shared a model construction of an MRT station as perceived by my little STAR, back then I was wondering why all the people had to faced inward away from us, now I know why...

The train was missing, he had constructed the platform literally as if he was there and hence the people waiting for the train arrival has to face inward away from our view in the orientation of the model. Today he constructed another model below which he says to me is Orchard Hotel, he probably got that impression after passing by during his weekly journey to Delphi Orchard.

This morning, I had attended another parent classroom participation and in working with teacher, there was this activities to read sentence, find picture & paste on the page of eating out, for the Term Theme learning of Community. This gave me an idea of sharing many of the memorable moments of eating out over the past 3 years we had with the little STAR.

He is not on diet control but still has his preferred choice of food, ranging from fried stuffs like fries/wedges/fish/chicken wing/fish cake, to noodle, sushi rice, fried carrot cake, chicken rice, satay etc. He takes fried rice but mainly with pure egg ingredient, occasionally pineapple rice and also porridge too, he is also ready to explore other new food subject to his preference.

Waiting toys, white board, smart phone or ipad are some of the items we have evolved over the years to regulate his waiting time and some time even give him little packet of seaweed which he likes to eat, when he gets a little hungry while the food takes longer than usual to prepare.

One challenge we face while eating out will be his interest in number on the table, sometimes he will walk around just to check on the number on each table especially in the coffee shop. I still remember when we first brought him to Sakura buffet, he will go around to those tables that has got the number he is interested and will remove them to indugle in his fixation routine, when we refuse he will be upset, now he is more aware & better regulated, glad it has become thing of the past.

There are other occasions where he will insist that you go and buy when the food has not arrived, even though I have told him clearly that an order has been placed, we have to accept that the way he thinks is different, the way we teach him must also be different unlike neuro typical kids.

Eating out in public can sometimes attracts unwanted attention when our little STAR raises his voice to speak trigger by unforseen circumstances or demand which he either becomes upset or anxious, the whole coffee shop or eating place will become noisy suddenly, other wise it will be very normal and a joy to eat out most of the time for the family.

The one thing predictable I learn through his autistic trait is his unpredictability, once it become predictable, we will then be able to teach him to manage and do better the next time round. It must be continuous work in progress taking small steps & great patience to understand & teach him.

Eating out can also hope to gave him a better exposure to community life and be able to integrate & adapt to the society environment & people around as he grows into adulthood.

Winners Statement: