What's Covered in Module 7
At this point in LUNA, most of your time should be spent practicing the steps of your mission plan. This week, you and your child should continue to practice them.
This week, you will also learn how to reflect on your progress and any issues you have encountered. We have included some additional tips on discussing mission plan practice with your child after they have completed them. This module will take about 30 minutes to complete readings and activities. We encourage you to take breaks and come back to the material as much as you need.
Previously on LUNA…
In the last module, you learned how to execute a mission plan and how to troubleshoot if your mission plan doesn’t go the way you planned. You also filled out a form to use when executing mission plan steps and created a plan for you and your child to practice.
Making Mission Plans Work Better
Before we continue on with the current module, we want to provide an opportunity for you to consider if it might be helpful to skip ahead to one of the optional modules. We have included a list of these modules below along with a description of each. If you and your child are not facing any major barriers with your mission plan practice that seem to fall under one of these categories, we recommend you continue working through the current module (Module 6) by clicking the Next Page button at the bottom of the page. If you and your child are having participation or progress issues in the program and think one of the modules below would be really helpful right now, feel free to skip ahead by clicking on the module title that you would like to work on this week.
If your child is a teen or an older child and is reading through the modules independently, make sure to discuss with them what you are going to choose to read this week. It is important that you and your child read the same module each week. If you would like to read Module 11: Parenting Strategies for Managing Challenging Behavior, tell your child to choose the module called "I am going to practice the skills I learned previously". This module encourages your child to continue practicing mission plans in general. That week is focused on parenting strategies only, so your child should continue practicing activities on their mission plan that week while you use some new strategies.
Module 8: Social Coaching: Is social anxiety one of your child’s major concerns? If so, we have included a “Social Coaching” module that provides some tips on helping coach your child in social skills. We hope this module will help your child during their social anxiety mission plans.
Module 9: Autism-Specific Anxiety Targets: Some autistic children struggle with anxiety related to sensory sensitivities (for example, loud noises or certain textures) as well as an insistence on sameness, or fears of change (for example, needing to stick with the same routine each day). If either of these issues cause problems for your child, we recommend you check this module out.
Module 10: Managing Multiple Mission Plans: Have you made a lot of progress on one fear and are ready to start taking on a new one? Does your child have a new fear that became a bigger issue in the last few weeks? This module will help if you are ready to manage multiple mission plans for these reasons.
Module 11: Parenting Strategies for Managing Challenging Behavior: Has your child been refusing to participate in steps of their mission plan even when you use the rewards consistently? Do they always argue with you or try to get out of it? We have some tips on how to encourage your child to participate in activities as much as possible in this module.
Testing Expectations During Mission Plans
Last week, Sally and mom worked on their mission plan around germs. Let's check in with them and see how it went!
Last time we saw Sally, she and her mom worked on a mission plan where she challenged herself to touch a dirty shirt and not wash her hands. This was a very big deal for Sally, because germs cause her a lot of anxiety, and get in the way of her being able to do things she wants to.
But! During last week’s video, Sally was able to overcome part of that fear by doing something she normally avoids doing, and was even able to challenge her need to always wash her hands.
The first time Sally practiced touching laundry, she noticed she felt really anxious. But the more she focused on touching the dirty shirt, the easier it was to touch it. Sally has tried a couple more times since then, and she has noticed that it has become easier through practice. She still feels a little anxious and scared when she goes back to try again, but she isn’t as anxious as the first time.
Exposures are supposed to help us challenge our anxieties and fears, but they don’t always make them go away immediately. The more exposures you do, the easier it will be to overcome your fears.
For Sally, the more she’s able to practice touching things that her anxiety tells her are “dirty”, and the more she’s able to practice NOT washing her hands, the easier it is for her to do the things she loves to do. Now that Sally has practiced touching the laundry a few times without washing her hands, she has learned:
- That it was not as scary as she thought it would be to do this
- She is tough and can handle doing things that make her feel anxious
- That even when she touches something dirty, most of the time, nothing bad happens
Changing it up and facing your fears in lots of different situations will help you overcome your fears and anxieties. Sally knows there are a lot more fears that she needs to take on, so she has been working with her mom to figure out what she will face next!