“मन – day की बात SpecialSaathi के साथ”
“EVERY ARTIST WAS AT FIRST AN AMATEUR” – RALPH WALDO EMERSON
Hi! I am Tanvi and I have an eight year old son on the spectrum. Though he is verbal, he mostly talks in numbers and it is hard to understand what exactly goes in his mind.
When he was around 5, that’s when the Covid-19 hit and everything was shut . As we stayed all day and night inside the four walls, we needed something to occupy us the whole day in a meaningful way.
Initially I was trying what the therapist taught me during a few years of our journey and soon we both got bored and tantrums and behaviour started creeping in. That’s when I got to know many amazing Telegram and WhatsApp groups and met so many amazing moms and realised I’m not alone out there who is struggling so much. I don’t know if somehow it gave me calmness to face the truth and strength to fight and find ways to keep him busy in a useful way and at the same time we were covering the lagging milestones as well.
One such thing which clicked and did its magic was art and crafts. We explored so many things on the way as we both were pretty new to this subject. I was not much into any extra curricular activities, arts or crafts since my childhood; and after his diagnosis I was mostly into usual ways of therapies like table top. So it was a completely new journey for both of us.
Art and craft gave a boost to everything. Though it did not change anything overnight, but gradually he learnt – cutting, pasting, exploring new arts, making our own toys (though he played with it for a short period of time), wall hangings which we could show off to our relatives who visited 🙂
Our biggest achievement was with these little crafts we did over the years, we could achieve – sitting tolerance, gross motor, fine motor, speech and academic goals in a more naturalistic way.
It doesn’t mean, now everything is settled. We still struggle when it comes to the language and conversation part, at least I’m happy he is able to tell his needs now. Fine motors and sitting tolerance are better and in turn this helped in writing his classwork and sitting for at least 4 hours in school.
Art and Craft has become a part of our life now and a mandatory activity every weekend. We are improving every day. He enjoys doing and I enjoy shooting and making videos of him which he watches in loop after it is done 😀
We found our little joy in arts and crafts. Hope you find yours too.
Keep crafting memories,
Author Tanvi K
I am Tanvi, a stressful Software Engineer turned full time peaceful Homemaker 😎. Currently working full-time from home, for the home and enjoying the roller coaster ride of LIFE with my FAMILY.
Links:
https://www.instagram.com/p/Cm1fS-QIis-
https://youtube.com/shorts/QAAFaYz0tjE
https://www.instagram.com/p/Cny7oamoqxl
https://www.instagram.com/reel/CnwTSr5pXRg
https://youtube.com/shorts/Lz_sa26hF_E
Creative representation for this blog is done by our supertalented CreativeSaathi associate Shubh Pathak