Living the theory

We’ve recently braved travelling abroad with the children for the first time. Staying away from home is a challenge for us all, and is an area where we’ve been gradually building up their tolerance over the past year or so. We started off with one night away at my parents’ house and have very gradually increased the number of nights. We’re up to three nights now, so the time felt right to attempt a trip to see their other set of grandparents, who live abroad. The trip involved a number of firsts… namely their first trip abroad, and their first time on a plane, and we’d done a lot of thinking about possible triggers and had planned accordingly. We paid a bit extra to secure a sensibly timed flight from a small airport not too far away and created a plan together of how we’d get there, what the flight would be like, some of the things we’d do while away, and how we’d get back. We made both of the children visual planners to track how long we’d be away and how close we were to going h...

Tiny really hates brushing his teeth. He has a number of sensory aversions, and we think this is one of them. His reactions have ranged from refusal, ignoring, throwing the toothbrush across the room and brushing everything but his teeth with it, to his current instinct to gag every time the toothbrush comes close to his mouth. Today he gagged to the point of actually being sick. Only a little bit, but still… he really hates cleaning his teeth. We’ve tried so many different things. Manual toothbrushes and electric toothbrushes. Minty toothpaste, fruity toothpaste, no toothpaste. Doing it for him and encouraging him to do it himself. Acknowledging his aversion to it and doing it together. Leaving him to it. The promise of rewards, or warnings of no sweets. Nothing has worked for more than a few weeks at a time, if that. I found myself researching alternative methods of teeth cleaning on the way into work today (someone must have invented something you just swill round your ...