Too much of a good thing...

How much is too much of a good thing? The good thing(s) I refer to are treatments and therapies.

Treatment in all forms and acronyms- Speech, OT, PT, ABA, RDI. SOS feeding, hippotherapy, music and art therapy, pool therapy, the list goes on and on. These are all amazing and reportedly effective therapies to help children with autism, but I am exhausted just thinking about the scheduling. There is no question that the spectrum of therapies to support children with autism are as broad as the autism spectrum itself.

This topic came to me after a recent visit with a new PCA who was over for the initial "meet and greet" as I like to call it. I found myself giving her the rundown of what a typical week looks like and what we were looking for in terms of scheduling. First, we talked about the 5 "big ticket" items- safety& household locks/alarms, food, Dynavox basics, toileting, and the dog :). After we covered the serious stuff, she asked me, "what do the kids like to do? what do they play with?" I gave her the list of what they like to do and followed it up by saying, "when they are home at the end of the day or sometimes during off time on the weekends, we just let them hang out and chill." I kind of gasped to myself when I said that. Did I really just admit that? Did I really just admit that I let them go and wash off their day by bouncing on their yoga balls, swinging, running around anywhere, crawling under blankets, opting out of wearing pants, watching TV, and tuning into the Ipad (sometimes all of these at once!)?  I quit trying to jam in "engaged time" all day long. I haven't given up on them or anything like that. Sure Big pants has homework, but it doesn't take more than a half hour or so each night and Little pants has some things we work on at home to maintain skills. We have activities we like to do together and plenty of things to practice for maintaining and generalizing what they learn during their day. There is plenty to do to keep this train on it's tracks on any given day.

Anyway, back to my "gasp." Seriously, after almost a decade on this roller coaster ride I am still wondering if we are doing enough? I guess this is an insecurity I still harbor.  I thought by now this kind of thinking should be settled.

Of course issues will pop as they grow, but I cannot imagine adding anything else without a true need arising. At this point, any more time committed to therapy is taking away from our family balance and that is no way to live. These two spend more time in therapy and school than our other child and they even go to school more days than my full time teacher contract yields. They work really hard all day and at the end of the day they need to retreat and frankly- stim! We hear so much how we need to keep these kids engaged and busy to "keep them in our world." How much is really too much? I have come to believe they need some time to turn off and tune out. Their neurotypical sister is allowed time to just zone out and do what she wants, so why shouldn't the other two?

The value of the ABA therapy, as well as the speech and OT they currently receive is more than I can express. Art and basketball on the weekends is amazing as well. I love the way the therapies intertwine throughout their day so really they work on things all day long. This is programming that makes me smile. I am so grateful for all of it.

The final question I must remind myself (to avoid future "gasps")- is adding on more really going to do more? How much is too much? Is too much now, going to mean we need less later? No crystal ball answers here, so in the meantime, I need to remind myself to go with my gut and realize these kiddos work hard and they need to play (or stim) hard too! Life is too short to cram if full of therapy all day!