A new school year has begun. For Josiah, that means he is now officially a 5th grader. This will be his very last year in Elementary School. For the past few years, he’s had the same teacher, the same aides, the same classroom and even some of the same friends. Familiarity is a good thing.
If you know anything about Josiah, you know transitions are rather difficult for him. Change is not always welcome. Transitioning on and off the bus is no exception. Josiah has had issues with the school bus for a while now. It was such a challenge to get him on and off the bus last year, we simply gave up and resorted to driving him in our van.
So even though he resists change and dislikes transitions, this is a new year. This is an opportunity to try again. This is a chance to try to turn things around with Josiah’s love/hate relationship with school buses.
In THEORY, Josiah adores the bus. He loves sitting on the bus. He loves riding on the bus. And sometimes he loves staying on the bus, even when it’s his turn to get off. In REALITY, Josiah detests the bus. He dislikes getting on the bus. He protests getting off the bus.
When it rolls up in front of our house in the morning, he plops down on the sidewalk and refuses to move. The first morning, after much resistance from Josiah, Rick scooped him up and whisked him to his seat. The first afternoon, after more resistance from Josiah, I boarded the bus, scooped him up and ushered him off.
The second morning was similar to the first. Thankfully, that afternoon, Josiah’s Instructional Specialist for Autism called. She offered some advice and suggestions to improve the whole getting-on-and-off-the-bus experience. She suggested using something Josiah LOVES, to encourage him. The plan went something like this:
The bus driver could dangle Mardi Gras beads to entice Josiah up the steps. Maybe Josiah would readily climb up the steps, take the beads to his seat and play with them while riding to and from his destination. Appropriate behavior would be positively reinforced. I loved that idea. Surely it would work to get Josiah successfully off the bus as well.
Enthusiastically, I greeted Josiah’s bus as it drove up. In the absence of Mardi Gras beads (Josiah has stuffed many shiny strings down the grate of our fireplace hearth and I’ve yet to retrieve them and/or purchase more), I dangled one of his other favorite things, a ribbon on a stick toy.
Well, more accurately, since Josiah was resisting, I boarded the bus, pulled the ribbon out of my pocket and watched as Josiah grabbed it, blew past me and flew down the steps. Forget the backpack. Forget the bus driver’s good-byes. Forget that mom hadn’t even climbed out of the bus yet. Josiah had his ribbon stick and he was good to go.
That ribbon toy is going EVERYWHERE with us.
