Ethan Builds a House – Moments of Autonomy Through Recreation

Ethan Holds His Own Pencil

Seven-year-old Ethan likes to do art and wanted to build a house. Despite some mobility limitations, he likes to hold things in his own hand, and participate with his own agency, as much as possible. He will say: “I want the roof to be like this. I want the fridge to be like this”;  and, “I want there to be a pool in the backyard.” Ethan will say: “I want to do it. I want to hold it.” At craft time, he will hold the pencil crayon, and a Recreation Coordinator or volunteer will help him by moving the craft paper, not the pencil. Ethan gets to have his personalized experience of drawing, and a moment of autonomy.

“Ethan, Can I Move Into Your Craft Paper House?” 

When they built a craft house together, Ethan wanted his own home address added to the front door. When the Recreation Coordinator asked, “Ethan, can I move into your craft house?”, Ethan said, “No!”  After some playful negotiation / verbal sparring, the Recreation Coordinator created his own craft paper house, that would be a next-door neighbour to Ethan’s house. As you can imagine, as with fun robust childhood play, negotiations escalated to the point that they both created tall telescopes on the tops of their craft houses to spy on one another. Clearly, they have too much fun at craft time!