wrapping up Stage 4
So, we made it through a summer of practicing choices and focusing on appraisal and self-awareness. I decided it was time to take a look at Stage 4 again to make sure we were really done with it.I sat down with the RDI Progess Tracking Form (that our Consultant provided for us -- they also provide them at the RDI 4-Day Parent Training workshop) and read through the Stage 4 objectives. I checked off those that I knew we had mastered. I circled those that I wanted to test. Then I spent the week finding opportunities to see if those objectives were mastered.
For instance, objective S4L is "Optimal Physical Position -- Regulates actions based on activity context and communication success to attain optimal physical posititions relative to the coach." (Now you know why I have to sit down with the objectives and think about them -- too much technical speak! Why can't they just say "shifts positions to keep regulated with coach during variations", which is what it really means?) So I'd set up a few activities to test this:
We'd play a racing game with cars, the idea to get to a destination together. We's start side-by-side pushing our racers, then I'd suddenly veer off course, and he would need to shift his body position to try to keep up with me (mind you, he didn't need to be successful at keeping up with me -- that would be Stage 6 co-regulation -- he just needed to make the attempt to stay with me).
Working on a project together, I would suddenly turn my back on him, he would shift around to get into a better position to work with me.
Unlaoding the dishwasher, I'd hand him items to put away. Occassionally I'd hand items in the wrong direction, he'd move himself around obstacles in the way to get to where he could easily receive items from me.
Check, that objective was mastered. Check, check, check. Over the course of a week or two, I checked off all of the circled objectives. I made a tape of us doing this stuff, I sent it to our Consultant, she agreed that Stage 4 seemed to be mastered and gave us the nod to work on the Stage 5 objectives.
posted by Harvest Moon Farm @ 7:56 AM
3 comments
3 Comments:
Are you taking suggestions for future blog entry topics? I am so curious to know how the mechanism of video taping works for other families. Did you find that Jacob was distracted by the taping? Did you do it yourself using a tripod or did the map man take on this role? How difficult was it? We won't begin our RDI program until next month and I just got the video camera yesterday. I took everything out of the box, including the inch thick manual and thought: Oh great. Now what??
:-) I'm not sure it warrents an entire blog entry, but I'm happy to answer your questions! In fact, we're going to have to go high-tech pretty soon (switching to digital video instead of the old-fashioned way), so I'll be sitting with that same look on my face surrounded by packaging soon enough!
Both of my kids get pretty distracted if they actually see us whip the video camera out, so we have to set it up on a tripod ahead of time and just casually walk by and turn it on for it not to become distracting. For outdoor activities, I have to have someone else do the taping (The Map Man if I'm desperate, but he's really bad at it!!!). In general our friends and family have always been quite anxious to help out in whatever way they can, so I've had friends do taping for me at the grocery store, etc, or my brother will sometimes tape for us at family events, etc. But mostly for taping, I set up the activity in our house, set up the camera on a tripod, and just leave it there in advance of the activity. I know that a lot of folks just leave the camera running for hours on end to catch lifestyle stuff, and with digital that's probably a more realistic option since editing is vastly easier. But for now, I stick to only taping planned activities, so a lot of our daily RDI stuff gets missed. Not ideal, so definitely don't follow my lead on that!!
One more note -- it's hard at first to get used to being on video tape all the time, but truly, you get used to it. It doesn't even phase me anymore, I'll even tape myself in my jammies prior to my shower now, LOL. That certainly wasn't the case before! I think it still bothers The Map Man to be on tape (he never looks quite natural enough to me when he knows he's being taped), but he's only done a fraction of the taping I've done, so I think he hasn't reached a comfort level with it yet.
I hope something there is helpful! Try posting your question on the parent message boards at www.rdiconnect.com -- you'll get a bunch of helpful tips I'm sure!
Yes, that is vastly helpful! But I suppose I will only know how it will work for our family once I finally get down to it! I turned the camera over to RT (resident teenager, 13) last night and pronounced him the family videographer. He was thrilled and figured out the camera in just a few hours. Next he is going to teach me (so much better than reading the manual :-)
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