anyone need any Ikea furniture put together?

[chhotii]

Sophia LOVES helping me put furniture together. Turns out, she's gotten really really good at it. I bought a lamp-shelf thingie at Bed Bath & Beyond for the new apartment. I wasn't going to involve Sophia in the assembly process because I thought it would be too frustrating for her to deal with-- the typical unclear directions and all that. But no, it wasn't frustrating at all with Sophia helping. She was swifter than I was at figuring most of it out.

The therapist at MGH recommends that I find activities that Sophia enjoys doing with me, and schedule doing such an activity every day, and that I praise her for whatever she's doing right while we are doing our scheduled fun time. Out of all of our scheduled fun time activities so far, the furniture building has presented the most opportunities for me to give Sophia positive feedback on her behavior. Afterwards she was so proud and happy, she was practically floating. If this is indeed therapeutically effective, then clearly we need to put together more furniture together.

Alas, not that that much more furniture would even fit in our itty bitty apartment...

Comments

[theloriest.livejournal.com]

I'm going to end up with a bunch of IKEA stuff for my new apartment, I reckon. I fully admit I should not be allowed near such stuff if I want it put together correctly once I get it home and would delightfully accept help!

[chhotii.livejournal.com]

Give us a call when it's Ikea time for you!

We also love going to Ikea, so if you need a ride, that might be something I could fit in too.

[koshmom.livejournal.com]

Sounds like Sophia is a handyman at heart. Ask her what she likes about the process...is it producing something useful, or just the process of making something? You might want to consider buying her a model plane/train/car or even a lego set that needs to be put together to make something. Or an electrical set that builds something (a light?). But don't just blindly buy the set for her, give her options and bring her to the store with you, so she has buy-in on the item.

[chhotii.livejournal.com]

We have done a few Lego sets together. She can get absorbed in that for a while sometimes. With the lamp, she obviously got a real kick out of doing something grown-up and actually useful. All kinds of snapping stuff together suits her, though.