Self-Stimulating – Now What Do I Do About That?!

FROM ALISON: An important topic for all of us parents is the topic of self-stimulation – so I thought I’d start the conversation.  So…what did I do when my child starts self-stimulating by humping the floor? I remember the first team meeting after Jordan started doing this, somebody mentioned that Jordan was doing ‘it’ and there was then this awkward silence as everybody faced their own feelings of discomfort with what had occurred during the week. Then we all looked at each other as the realization dawned on us that we all felt the same and that Jordan had discovered the ultimate button to push as we couldn’t take it away.

From then on it became clear that the way forward, was for us all to become completely comfortable with this. We could then explain to Jordan that this is totally OK for him to want to do this but that it’s something he can do when he is alone.

At first, the whole idea of being comfortable with this activity seemed impossible. The first step was to define our vocabulary so that we all spoke about it in the same way – then we all felt like we were together on this. Then we discussed what we thought Jordan got out of it. Jordan had not had any sex education so I knew that this was his own discovery and so as a team we decided to see it that there was no sexual connotation in it, Jordan had just discovered a sensation that he liked and so he wanted to do it repeatedly, for several of us this was the most helpful way towards comfort. We then decided that we could remove ourselves from the situation by turning our backs or leaving the room whilst explaining again that this is something we do alone. This is an ongoing situation for us. Do any other people have this too? How do you become comfortable with it? What techniques have been effective for you?

Love, Alison