Backdated: Friday, March 7, 2009: Leo, Valentia & Manuel

[x-leosamson.livejournal.com]

Leo decides play therapy is the best method to work with Valentia. Manuel does not like playing in sandboxes.



"You see," Manuel gestured to his sister, who played nearby in the sand box. "She appears normal, unaffected by us or anyone around us. Perhaps I am looking too deeply into her reactions. I am not exactly model parent and I have very little experience with what I should be expecting of her growth. She seems behind in everything. I would say slow, but not quite. Does this make sense or do you require more details?" he asked, scratching the side of his mouth with a finger.

"I think more details will definitely be needed," Leo replied with a small smile, "but that will be fine for now. At some point, I'll want to run a series of tests on her, to gauge her development and any possible delays, but for now, why don't we focus on getting her adjusted to the mansion? The safer she feels and more stable her environment, the more likely she is to demonstrate her true developmental level."

Leo watched the small child playing for a moment, and then nodded. "Why don't you introduce me to her, and then we'll play a game together." He turned back to Manuel and grinned, "Oh, and Manuel? There's no such thing as a model parent. It's a trial by fire process, and absolutely no one is perfect."

"I will try to keep that in mind," he said and leaned over, calling to her in Spanish. She stared at him, as though he startled her from her play and then very carefully went over to him, slipping into his side. Manuel wrapped an arm around her and gestured to Leo, introducing them.

"~This is Mr. Samson. He wants to ask you some questions and you are going to meet with him weekly.~" He translated what he said back to Samson and gestured for Valentia to move forward. Of course, she didn't do anything but stare. Manuel told her to mind her manners in a sharper Callistian tone and she obliged very quickly.

Leo smiled at the pair, and knelt down to Valentia's height. "~Hello, Valentia, I'm Dr. Leo Samson--but most of the children I work with call me Dr. Leo.~" He glanced up at Manuel, "~I do speak Spanish,~" he said, and then looked back to Valentia, "~though I'm sure I might say things differently than you're used to--I learned Spanish in America. I am a doctor, but I'm a special kind of doctor--I work only with kids, and instead of making them feel better if they have a cold or hurt themselves, I try to make them feel better if they're sad, or if something really big has happened in their lives,~" he glanced up at Manuel again and smiled, "~like finding your big brother and moving to a place that's very different.~" He studied Valentia for a moment, "~Does that make sense to you?~"

After a moment without a response, Leo simply smiled and nodded. "~Ok, then.~"

He stood and walked over to the shelf behind the sandbox, picking up a medium sized box and bring it down to the sandbox that was placed about a foot off the carpet. He motioned for Manuel and Valentia to join him on the floor and placed the box in front of the young girl.

"~I thought we might start off by playing a game--your brother and I will have plenty of time to talk about things that are probably very boring for you later, but right now, we'll play together.~"

Leo opened the box and showed Valentia the contents: a wide range of small human figures, everything from police officers to wizards, small animals, including dragons and unicorns, all sorts of small buildings and landscaping, trees, flowers, and even a miniature lake. "~What I'd like you to do is build something for us--and both your brother and I will help.~" He gestured to the box, "~Pick whatever you like and you can make a little tiny world in the sandbox, whatever you want it to be.~"

He picked up a small human figurine from the box, a tiny doctor that had been 'adjusted' with green marker to make the hair green. He showed the figurine to Valentia and then placed it in the rim of the sandbox, but not inside. "~We're going to pretend that this is me, and I can stand right here, or you can move me wherever you like.~" He leaned back against the wall to give her some space and nodded to the toy box. "~Why don't you see if you can find a figure that you like and put it in the sand box?~"

Manuel sat down and quietly watched his sister, careful to keep his curiosity down to a minimum when she looked into the box. Little fingers moved the figurines around, even going so far as to discard one - a fairy - aside. A worm was selected from the pile and she set it down beside her, moving it like it had a mind and legs of its own before putting it down in the middle. Her hands positioned neatly on her knees, she looked at Leo expectantly and then her brother, whose gaze also shifted to Leo's.

Though he knew there was a point to this, he thought to point out that his sister's playing habits were nothing in relation to how she was probably feeling when she emptied the contents of the box over on top of the worm and set a cat on top of it. This time, Manuel reacted, pulling the box off the top and letting the cat fall away.

"I am sorry. I do not think she understands what you are trying to do. I do not give her a lot of toys to play with," he explained and set the box down to put the toys back in. In fact, he usually let her watch tv, colour or play with that Elmo creature.

Leo laughed, and moved forward to put the toy box outside the sandbox, "~It's fine, Manuel. There are no right or wrong answers here; we'll just help out.~" He picked up a few landscaping models form the huge pile now in the center of the sandbox and began creating a small little park in one corner as he talked, "~Why don't we all make something together, then?~"

He smiled at Valentia, picking up the cat and setting it beside the worm, "~Sometimes the best way to play is to throw everything on the floor and decide what you like the most.~"

He nodded to Manuel, indicating the pile of toys, and then spoke to him in English, "Go ahead and build something yourself--it doesn't matter what, and it doesn't matter it she joins in or not. We're just teaching that it's ok to play and seeing what interests her. I promise, there really isn't a right or wrong here."

Blowing out a slow sigh and struggling for patience, Manuel picked up a figure of a blond girl. He marveled how all the blonds in his life had always given him a hard time and how not one of them could ever be so simple as the jokes that everyone made. That figurine was put upside down and buried up to her waist. He smirked and it had his sister giggling. Apparently she liked the joke too and did the same with a dog. He found a black man and turned him upright, setting him down comfortably next to the upside down blonde, resisting the urge to do something perverse with the two. He did not hide his grin, stifling laughter at how ridiculous he felt and it bounced through his sister, who scattered the figurines to start again.

Carefully concealing his grin at Manuel's noticeable frustration, Leo focused on building his little park. Out of the corner of his eye, he watched the two siblings continue to play in a completely haphazard manner. Valentia generally followed her brother's lead, and was obviously affected by his emotions to at least a small degree, her body language and his both indicating an impatience with the game. Interestingly, Valentia continued to choose predominantly animal characters, and both were placing their figures in no particular order and without regard to the figure's function.

Leo glanced over at the pile of toys and thought for a moment, then casually picked up a puppy that matched the dog Valentia had placed in the sand. He picked it up and placed it in his park, then eyed it critically, frowning, and selected a small set of bird figurines with his other hand, placing them in the park instead.

His attention, to all appearances, still on the toys in front of him, he nonchalantly placed the puppy back in the pile closest to Valentia, and then returned his focus to the park, waiting patiently to see if the child would make the connection.

Valentia had stopped playing and was watching Leo for a time, both of her hands placed over her knees, shifting closer to her brother. She didn't seem to like Leo's selection and after a moment of sifting around through the toys, she found a spider and took the birds away, putting the spider in their place.

Manuel, on the other hand, had taken to burying a dragon nearby the upside down blond, leaving its head out like a snake striking its prey between the legs. "This is ridiculous," he said, condemning the play that they were doing in silence and dusted off his hands while his sister had taken to the spider, moving it across the board and knocking down the people. "I understand there is a degree of psychology here, however this--" he gestured. "This will only empty my wallet when we go through the department store."

"You're playing, Manuel," Leo responded patiently, searching in the toys for a moment and then placing a small flower with a bee perched on it near Valentia's spider. "Play is supposed to be ridiculous." He considered his park critically with that thought in mind, and then began adding a few ice skating figures on the clearly unfrozen lake. For good measure, he then placed a woman in a bikini sunbathing next to the lake with the ice skaters. He looked up and grinned at Manuel. "And children are supposed to empty your wallet."

He picked up a bright yellow and blue dragon and perched it on top of a tree, then looked up at Valentia who continued to watch him. "~Do you think the dragon fits well there?~"

"Is that what we are doing?" Manuel asked sarcastically, raising his brow at his sister who took the dragon, buried it and was patting her hands down on the sand around the neck that stuck out, nodding. "This should not involve me. Clearly I influence her too much."

"And, again, you are supposed to influence her," Leo responded calmly, beginning to build a small picnic structure on one side of the pond. "You are her parent, Manuel, and parents influence their children--in good ways and bad ways."

He eyed Manuel's slightly grumpy expression and couldn't help but grin, "Manuel, you are an essential part of this process--which may mean that you will occasionally have to participate in activities that are a little foolish and undignified." He paused for a moment, "And I suppose that's actually pretty good definition of parenting--at least some aspects. There are going to be times we'll work together as a group. There will be times you and I will meet privately, and there are times Valentia and I will meet separately. But for right now, the point of this session is for me to begin to evaluate Valentia, and to create a safe space. I want Valentia to understand that this room is safe for her, and the best way to do that is for you to participate."

Leo finished his picnic area and leaned back to regard Manuel. "Let's play for a little while longer, and then we'll call it a day. When we're finished, I'd like to set up a time for you and I to meet without Valentia, and then another time for us to meet again together, when I'll do some of the more formalized testing. Is that alright with you?"

"Yes, that is fine. I will not cancel again the next time we make an appointment." At least he had phoned. Observing his sister and her playing habits, his cold exterior gazed dropped a fraction at her, ceasing to play though Samson was obviously the driving force for her to change the set up he was making. "As I see it Mr. Samson, she is diverse to only one thing and that is change."