Frequently Asked Questions

1. Will "Rules of the Game" be okay for children without a diagnosis of ASD ?

Yes!

I believe all children can benefit from learning how to socialize appropriately and how to make friends and how to maintain friendships.

Even some adults can use some assistance!

2. What if my child does not listen ?

Just like a child has to taste a food item at least 20 times before they like it, so does a child have to be consistently told the right strategies to use in their days.

A Childs cognitive ability varies dependant on brain function, environments, and genes.

All children need re-enforcements and so it may appear that the child is not listening when in actual fact they are taking time in processing the information.

3. How do I use your books ?

It is very easy to use and a great way to open communication with your children.

It starts to make sure your child is in calm manner if they are not, allow them to have down time and to filter through their days happenings.

Let your child know you are there if they want to talk about anything that may be troubling them.

Eventually your child will come to you as long as they feel safe and at ease and feel they will not be dismissed.

Once they have shared with you what has happened you then go to a title that will suit the incident and just have a chat with your child.

Share with them how you would handle the situation and give them different strategies to use in case one does not work.

4. What if it still does not work ?

Eventually it will work to allow your child to open up to you.

All children are still unique individuals and things just take time.

The reason a child is a child is because they are here to learn so many lessons and survival strategies.

They are not little adults even though their vocabulary may trick you into forgetting that they are older than they really are.

Raising a child takes time, it is very easy in this society to feel you are not mothering the "right" way, it is very easy to take on board all the graphs society has made to measure our children up against and it is easy to feel you all are behind the eight ball.

My mission is to start helping parents turn their backs on false ideologies and embrace their children, embrace their children's abilities and to assist their children in evolving to their child's abilities.

5. Do I make my child read the whole book ?

No!

The book is so big and so intense that it would tire a child out.

I highly recommend the parents read it and get a framework of how to discuss things with their children and then randomly engage your child into talking.

An example of how I finally got my son to communicate with me was we were driving in the car and I knew he was highly irritated, why he would not tell me.

So I just said, "Oh man, when I go shopping it makes me so irritated that I just want to yell at people sometimes."

Well the look on his face, he did not realise that I too or others got irritated by people, got angry, got embarrassed etc.

The more I stopped acting like the "perfect human" the more he started to relax with himself and open up to me by asking questions or talking about what he experienced during his days.

Another example of how I used the book was our son came home very upset because kids had called him dumb.

I told him that everyone has opinions and opinions are not fact, so what the kids had said was just an opinion and he needs to make the choice to ignore it but I also acknowledged that it would have hurt him inside and made him feel embarrassed in front of his peers.

So every time he said someone called him a name or said something useless I just replied in an easy going manner, "Oh that's just an opinion and it's not fact!"

Now he will just say, "Hi mum, what is it with people and their need to share their opinions."

It no longer attaches to him and no longer drags him down emotionally.

6. Using your "Rules of The Game "books, how long each day did you spend reading with your son ?

I started very little since he was strongly struggling with his ASD.

I started firstly validating his daily experiences to set the stage so he felt completely at ease with sharing some personal happenings.

A child will shut down if they feel you will not accept their genuine pain that they experienced.

I mainly wrote the book the exact way I speak to my children daily.

So it came natural to me I guess and I basically spoke a lot of it to him.

7. How many days a week did you read ?

Every day!

The experiences children go through are no different to what we do as adults, the difference is as adults we can walk away from the irritants, and the child cannot.

To set a specific time will not work because our children are not robots.

My son used to open up at 11.00pm each night!

I allowed that because it was the start of us communicating.

Obviously now we have worked on a more appropriate time to have a "chat"!

8. Did he enjoy reading with you ?

If I said "yes" always, I would be a liar.

Of course he didn't want to sit and hear what he needed to do to handle the situations.

He wanted justice for the social injustices he experienced in his days.

By gauging your child's moods and facial expressions, I call them a child's unique details, things we can miss due to being so busy, you pick when the right time is to approach your child.

Yet remember it took us, as a family unit to get to the place we are now, three years of being consistent, not changing our ways which would confuse our child and make them jumpy.

I found with our daughter as she was a lot younger to be very engaged and enthralled with the pictures and I could ask her questions about emotions and what her perception was and then add mine.

I never told them they may have been wrong because each person's perceptions are very real to them - I just added mine into their thinking so they would have another perception to call on if theirs was not working for them.

9. Did he get bored reading the books with you?
    Did you have to do anything to stop him from being bored ?

He got bored, I got bored!

We are human.

Yet I would make it so engaging by bringing in things he liked and I just chatted to him while he tinkered with his skateboard.

That way his mind was relaxed and open and he really did absorb it all.

10. Do you just read the books once to your kids, or do you revise each book a couple of times ?

A child's life changes every day.

The people they meet change every day, their emotions change daily and so the idea is to make your responses clear, consistent and reliable so as the child's developmental stage changes they are armed with the right knowledge.

Also by the time they are adults they then have the knowledge and are responsible for the choices they choose to make.


11. Are their any particular ages that the books apply to ?

All ages. It is so full of pages that young ages can just look at the pictures and point and you can chat and ask your child some questions.

Again gauge your child's body language, you can tell if they are getting annoyed, bored and then just stop and pick up the next day.


12. With a young child, what age do you suggest I start reading to my child ?

If I had to start again with the knowledge I have now, I would have started before the age of one.

Just by having the children look at the pictures and just chatting.

Over the years it eventually sinks in!

There is not set plan, there can't be because we are humans not clones.

As a parent we can only do the best we can with the resources we can.

I would highly suggest altering possible mindsets that may be hidden inside you as a parent.

Once you just think to yourself that your child has been on this earth for very little amount of time you realise they cannot possibly know the information that "professionals" are telling us they should.

13. Do you do workshops ?

I consult with parents at their homes and with support groups.

I have developed a new conceptional workshop that allows people the opportunity to experience what having ASD / Aspergers / Autism may be like.

It shows the impact this brings, and is extremely valuable as it broadens mind sets that may not have been open before the workshops.

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