Learning to Walk With Tactile Defensiveness
After our son was diagnosed with tactile defensiveness, we had much to learn. As parents, we needed to understand what tactile defensiveness was. Neither my husband nor I had ever heard of it before. We also needed to know what we could do at home to help him. We also had to educate our families on it. No one in our families had heard of it either.
Our number one concern after his diagnosis was helping him learn to walk. It took us almost five months to achieve this goal, from the diagnosis to his being able to walk on his own. We took these steps as parents to help him learn to walk.
1. Physical Therapy
We would go to physical therapy regularly. We would never have known what to do if we hadn’t kept going. There were so many different activities at physical therapy that they would do with our son. I can’t remember everything that they did, but the one thing that they used was hanging beads. All they would do is have our son put his feet under these hanging beads, and they would make them swing across his feet. At first, he hated this, but eventually, he got used to it. They always gave us this to do at home when we went to therapy.
2. Brushing His Feet
One of the primary activities the therapist would have us do at home was brushing our son’s feet. It sounds a little weird, and you probably wonder what that is. Our therapist gave us this little sponge that was soft on one side, and on the other side, it had tiny bristles. All we would do would take his feet, and with the bristle side of the sponge, we would brush his feet. We would constantly brush up and down across the bottom of his feet. He did not like this feeling at all. It took a couple of weeks to get used to the sensation on the bottom of his feet.
3. Going Barefoot
We only took him outside in his bare feet for this one. We would have him touch his feet on different textures. We put his feet on the cement or in the sand. We would try anything we could think of that would feel foreign to him. The one he hated the most was the grass. It took him a long time to be comfortable touching the grass with his feet.
4. Using a Walker
The last thing that the therapist had us do was use a walker. He needed the walker to get strength in his legs. You have to realize that he had never stood up on his legs at this point. When moms take their babies, hold them up on their laps, and stand up, you look at the baby while helping them stand. My son never did that. You never realize how that tiny little thing was such a big deal. Since he had never stood on his legs, they were weak. We used the tiniest little gold walker you would have ever seen. It only took him about a week to learn how to use the walker, and then he was off. We couldn’t slow him down after that. He used the walker for a couple of months.
After months of doing these things, our son finally started walking independently. It was the best day of his life when he could finally walk without any help. Walking hasn’t been his only setback. He also had to learn how to touch things with his hands. To this day, eating has been and continues to be the biggest obstacle. Please read my other posts about the strange things we would do for him to get used to touching things and eating.
About Our Family
We are a perfectly imperfect family. This phrase describes our family perfectly. We have our ups and downs, our good times and bad, but we’re always together and working to be the best family we can be. Are we perfect? No, but at the same time, I think we’re close.
A Little About Each Of Us
My name is Brynn. I am a stay-at-home mom. I am an introvert and have recently discovered that I am highly sensitive. I love being at home. My favorite hobbies are reading, cooking, watching movies, puzzles, and playing games with my family.
My husband, Drew, works in tech; he’s a major geek and works from home. He has worked from home since our firstborn was about six months old. Having a husband who works from home has its ups and downs. Without his computer knowledge, I would never have been able to put this blog together.
Our oldest child, a son, was born in 2007. He is obsessed with playing video games. When we can pull him away from his video games, he likes to play his drums, play video games, and golf when his dad can get him to agree to go. He has had his fair share of challenges. When he was 18 months old, he was diagnosed with tactile defensiveness. He is susceptible to touch. When he was in second grade, he was also diagnosed with ADHD Inattentive Subtype.
Our middle child, a daughter, was born in 2011. She is our tomboy and our athlete. She loves soccer. Her passion, though, is art. She loves to draw and make crafts out of anything that she can find. She is a social butterfly. She loves being around people and has so many friends it is hard to keep up with them all. She is the opposite of me.
Our last child, a daughter, was born in 2014. She is our spitfire. She has so much energy and so much personality that she is the one that keeps us laughing. She is the complete opposite of her sister. She is very much a girly girl. She loves dresses and loves having her hair always done fancy. I am not very good at fancy hair, and she hates that. She loves to dance. She is dancing all the time, even in the grocery store!
Why Did We Create PerfectlyImperfectFamily.com?
As I get asked this question frequently, I created a post detailing why I decided to create and start writing on Perfectly Imperfect Family.com. You can read more about it on Why Did I Create Perfectly Imperfect Family.com?
