Saturday night is 'family night' at our place. We get takeaway and a couple of DVDs and sit down together for the evening as a family. Obviously from a social perspective, our son doesn't get into it so much. He isn't really interested in movies and it is hard to get him to actually sit down to eat. He often walks around us and poaches food off his sisters' plates. - which they very graciously tolerate! He climbs up onto the couch behind us, tries to put himself on my lap and will generally do anything but sit down at his spot, eat his portion and watch the movie.
It doesn't matter too much to us. We do encourage him to sit down and eat, but the fact that he is exposed to this sort of situation on a regular basis is enough. We are certain he will learn from it anyway, so we don't force him into anything. (We realised very early on that forcing him to do anything usually just backfires). But he has learned what the white packages and bags mean, and he has learned what it means when I rearrange the lounge room to accommodate dinner in front of the TV. Although he doesn't directly socially engage with us the way the other kids do, he does get very excited and seems to look forward to it.
On one family night recently, as we were setting up for dinner, he ran off and came back with a little pink chair/step that the kids use around the place. He set it down at his regular spot at the table and sat down for his dinner. He did this all by himself with no prompting from us! Too cute :)
It doesn't matter too much to us. We do encourage him to sit down and eat, but the fact that he is exposed to this sort of situation on a regular basis is enough. We are certain he will learn from it anyway, so we don't force him into anything. (We realised very early on that forcing him to do anything usually just backfires). But he has learned what the white packages and bags mean, and he has learned what it means when I rearrange the lounge room to accommodate dinner in front of the TV. Although he doesn't directly socially engage with us the way the other kids do, he does get very excited and seems to look forward to it.
On one family night recently, as we were setting up for dinner, he ran off and came back with a little pink chair/step that the kids use around the place. He set it down at his regular spot at the table and sat down for his dinner. He did this all by himself with no prompting from us! Too cute :)
xx
No comments:
Post a Comment