Self-Initiated Play

There are many wonderful things about this picture of Wesley, as several blog readers pointed out.  It is amazing that he is ignoring the stacking cups (his favorite toy) on the floor.  As well, he is naming out loud the color of each fish that he is going to catch before he catches it.

Did you catch that?  He is naming out loud the color of each fish that he is going to catch before he catches it!  That, my friends, is something I never would have guessed he could have done at the age of three and a half.

Even more than that, he not only caught each fish, but he also put them all back in afterward.  That is an even more difficult task to complete, since it requires detailed fine motor work along with matching puzzle piece shapes with no matching pictures on the puzzle board.  The fact that he completed this puzzle without getting distracted and moving on to something else is pretty amazing.

But what is most special to me about this picture is that Wesley initiated doing this activity. We have been working for years to help Wesley learn how to play by himself.  Because he struggles so much with sensory integration problems, unless we are actively playing with him, he is usually seeking sensory stimulation of some kind.  My job as a mom is to do my best to keep up with my other responsibilities along with facilitating play with him as much as possible.  Usually when I leave Wesley's side to attend to a brother, I come back to find he has run off to do a more preferred (and probably sensory related) activity.  So you can imagine my shock when, after pulling down this puzzle and then going to help Liam, I came back to find the puzzle nearly completed.

While I knew that Wesley could play with this puzzle when prompted and kept on task, it was a joy to me to find him enjoying this game of his own volition.