Sensory Integration

amother

Mon, Dec 01 2008, 5:35 pm

I'll start off by saying I have no stigma to therapies or these types of things, and I am going to ask some questions simply out of curiosity bc I want to understand, so please don't think I'm trying to be rude or inflamatory.

Background: DS is in preschool. We had our first parent teacher conference, and both teachers (limudei kodesh and limudei chol) brought up concerns about sensory integration. ie. my son puts things in his mouth more than other kids his age, he plays with his food at lunch, and when he enters the room he sometime will just stick out his hand and touch everything he passes.

So, here are my questions:
1. Mouth thing: he tries to do this at home, and I correct him and he stops. he doesn't eat things he shouldn't be eating so he's not in danger, usually it's toys. So, I kind of see this as rather different, but it's a LOT less than he did 1 yr ago, 2 yrs ago, etc.

2. At home he would play with his food and make all kinds of projects. I don't let. I do 1-2-3 Magic, and if he plays with his food, it's counted and he'll get a 3 min "timeout" from meal time. If I'm not watching every once in a while (ie. once every 2-3 months) he'll get creative and make a mess at his place, but I would do that too if my mommy wasn't watching and I didn't mind getting a little messy and Iw as 3 . He's 3? I can't see that if this is a sensory problem why he doesn't really do this in any sort of pattern whatsoever at home. My first thought is that they just need to discipline him. ie. make him sit alone (bc when he does play he gets his friends messy) or take away the foods he's playing with. They eat snack and lunch,a nd he has breakfast right before and another snakc/lunch at home after. school is only 4 hrs....and my child is not underweight.

3. Yes, my son wants to touch things and explore. And so we talk about rest position for his hands, and again, I have done 1-2-3 magic for months and it's not a battle to get him to control these tendencies when they aren't appropriate.

So, I'm just skeptical that this is such a deep rooted issue, especially since 2 of the things they pointed out are things ds has tried on me, other babysitters, dh, etc. to test us and we set limits and he's not playing with food or touching things constantly in the stores, etc. without much drama or resistance out of the ordinary. I just get the feeling that the school doesn't want to discipline or set limits with consequences and just think telling a child "no, we don't do that" should work on a 3 yr old.

Also, other than social problems, or being cv"s in danger, I just don't see what's the problem with a child wanting to touch to learn about the world. That's the sense he uses to take in information. My dh uses his hearing quite a lot, and I'm very visual. So, as long as the behaviors are safe and aren't causing social problems, what's the problem?

Again, I'm asking to understand not to criticize. Obviously you see I'm skeptical. And no, there aren't any other day schools around if one might have the idea we should find a different school.