A morning with Kareem

Ottah, my daughter’s dog, and I went to pick Kareem up. He was happy to see her and walked with her with his coat and his glasses on. I was watching for the moment that he gets frustrated and throws his glasses, but it did not happen. He kept stroking the back of the dog as we walked and telling her that he loved her. Clearly, he was happy with the dog so there was no cause to be frustrated. Gradually he gained confidence and took the lead from me and walked gently to the end of the road pulling her gently when she wanted to go elsewhere.

 

At my house, Kareem played and talked to Ottah for a while bringing her toys to her to play. She responds to his commands very quickly has he enjoys telling her to sit or gives him a paw, after which he rewards her with a bit of treat. Because she would eat anything he gives her, he thinks she is constantly hungry and I have to tell him that she is not!

 

After playing for about 20 minutes he went to the office, sat at the computer and started karate Cat. I cannot thank the @BBC enough for these wonderful educational programmes.

Kareem stayed 30 minutes with uninterrupted concentration doing the English grammar exercises. I was delighted to learn that he knew his punctuation really well (about 95% without my help), all the spelling and correct words. I was happily surprised that he recognised adverbs and adjectives without my help and more over he knew the type of sentence: past, present progressive, past progressive. At first he confused verbs and nouns then after a couple of sentences, he got it right.

 

Doing well has succeeding is his biggest motivation. It was lovely (and also melting for my heart) when he looked at me with a huge smile on his face after finishing all the questions in each “belt” and said: I am clever. Yes my darling you are clever. Very clever indeed if you get the right stimulating environment and a patient helper who can find the right material and encourage you to achieve your great potential.

 

Afterwards, he wanted to play some of his usual videos, but I said no. He got upset and turned to his video (he had control of the computer). I was going to switch the screen off but realised that it would irritate him more. So, I asked him to talk and decide what to do together. We agreed on two minutes to watch. His mum arrived and he just peacefully left it.

In fact, we arranged the morning on the night before. May daughter discussed and agreed with Kareem that if he does his work, he could have a sleep over. The expectation of that, I think, made it easy for him to do what he was supposed to do without being angry. He did not need to show his frustration or to get his voice heard by spitting when he was not listened to. Everything was agreed beforehand.

 I love you Kareem.