New Decade...New Goals

So 2020 is now upon us and Tom and I are so ready for it. I personally feel extremely motivated for 2020. I can't wait to see all of the new things Tom is going to achieve this year. I wanted to tell you some of our goals for this year.

I rarely set goals for Tom. One of the great things about Tom being home educated is that we don't have to set goals. This sounds strange, almost like we are limiting Tom but infact it is the complete opposite.

Not setting goals means there is no limit, we still push Tom just as hard as anyone but by not having a goal it means he has no boundaries sit under, he can keep flying as high as he wants to. It can also be very hard to set goals on someone else's behalf, Tom hasn't been able to tell us yet what he wants for himself, with his new eye gaze I'm sure this is all about to change.

This brings me on to our first aim for this year, Eye Gazing. This year is the year for me to really push Tom harder with his eye gazing. He has shown that he has true potential, something we already knew but it was nice to have it confirmed. He now has a really good understanding of how eye gazing works and you can see clearly that his actions are intentional.

Tom is able to link 3-4 words together in a sentence now and most of the time he gets them in the right order. We always make sure that whatever we are doing is interesting and motivating. This year I want to add more structure to Tom's eye gazing, to make it more of a subconscious thing. I want to encourage Tom to say 'Good Morning' or 'Good Afternoon', I want Tom to be able to tell me how he is feeling that day and also what he would like to do with his day. This would then give Tom more control over how his day goes and what he gets up to.

Tom's language use through the eye gaze is mostly contextual now, meaning that what he says to me make sense in terms of the activity we are doing. Sometimes we have an off the wall conversation in which things don't always make perfect sense, and that's ok, that is how children are able to learn new language. We play with words, making them fun and both of use enjoy having a joke when we get things a little wrong, and believe me its not just Tom, I get things wrong a lot to!

By the end of the year I would love Tom to be using the his eye gaze for all activities through out the day. This is flexible though and sometimes due to Tom's epilepsy we need to limit his screen time. I am confident that although at times we need to take a break from eye gazing, Tom has a good enough understanding of the system that he can pick it back up again.

Another of our goals this year is to do more actives that promote movement. By this I mean activities that encourage Tom to roll, reach, kick and push. I need to think more outside the box and make activities that challenge Tom physically aswell as mentally. I also want to revisit the Sherborne Movement and see how I can relate this to Tom's day to day life to encourage movement through play.

I have been working a lot with Tom's fine motor skills over 2019 and Tom is becoming stronger with his grip. Tom seems pretty happy holding something like a paintbrush or a crayon for short period of time in his left hand, this seems at the moment to be his more dominant hand, however this is not to say things won't change over time so I continue to encourage the use of both. This is another of our focuses for 2020.

Our main goal for 2020 is HAVE FUN. This is our main goal every year at this year is no different. Tom and I have so much fun together, whether this be on our little adventures out into the world o having fun playing and learning at home. I always want to ensure that Tom's learning is fun and engaging as this is the way I will get the most out of him. It is also important to recognise that nobody wants to play 24/7 so there has to be natural quiet times and down time in order for Tom to rest.

We have got lots of exciting things in the pipe line and we can't wait to share our year with you.

Happy New Year to you all and may 2020 bring you happiness.