I’ve been meaning to post about Joyful Movement and never seem to have the time! My youngest is 8 years old and was diagnosed 18 months ago with Asperger’s/ADHD. We have a team of therapists working with our family on an almost daily basis. Since summer, I’ve been sharing more and more about the Waldorf philosophy with them. Our daily therapist (who has been w/us since May – our old therapist went back to law school!) comes to our home, and she’s been interested simply because our home has such a different feel than the other homes she’s in. (Our 16 yo dd and 12 yo ds are also homeschooled.) Our daily therapist is a sweet, gentle person who helps Gracie by coming along side her and modeling. She has not only been open to but has embraced much of Waldorf. After I showed her Joyful Movement, she took it to a staff meeting and they all were very impressed. Our therapist has begun an hour each morning of small motor, large motor, movement, tongue twisters, bouncing, cross-midline, brain-gym, yoga and memorization with Gracie each morning, most of it from Joyful Movement. (Different things on different days, obviously! Not everything each day.) She mentioned that the other therapists all wanted the author/title info so they could get their own copies, too.

Some mornings I find them out walking chalk spirals on our driveway. They’ve been drawing with their toes, passing beanbags around, bouncing, tricking each other with tongue twisters and riddles, forming shapes with dough behind their backs, etc. Our “team” of therapists are traditional behavioral therapists, provided by the State by law, who have various psychology or special ed degrees from bachelors up to doctorate. They’ve been very impressed with everything Donna has suggested for Gracie (we’re subscribers to Donna’s service) and all the materials they have seen so far – particularly Joyful Movement. It is exactly what Gracie needs right now, and they found that her coping skills, attention, communication, and maturity skills have skyrocketed in the past 4 months of doing an hour daily or Joyful Movement. Last week our daily therapist’s supervisor came for an audit – she has a master’s in art therapy. She was very impressed by the crossing the midline exercises and the dough-shaping exercises in Joyful Movement. She said something like, “Where did you learn about this? Most people don’t realize how effective these [simple-looking exercises] really are! They think they’re a waste of time but they’re SO necessary.”

So, if you’re even considering beginning to put movement into your mornings, I can highly recommend it as a parent. I can also tell you that over a dozen therapists were really blown away by the ideas, the effectiveness and the whole approach. Our daily therapist is working on a degree in special ed, and she’s taken stuff she learned at my house and used them in her class work, and her professor was really impressed. So I just wanted to share what a truly therapeutic, restorative – but easy – resource it is. Even my older two will gladly get involved with the group things – lots of giggles, lots of fun! This is a very unpolished and choppy review – but I wanted to get it written and sent off while my barley soup was cooking! 🙂