YouTube Therapy / Episode 15 / Live Streaming for the First Time
Within ten months, we had more positive results than all of 2 years of conventional therapy. This was enough validation for us that we had made the right decision as a family for Fabu by dedicating our full attention and time to her. At this point, Fabu was in 2nd grade and showing improvement not only in academics but also socially. She was not yet reading at grade level. Still, her teachers on numerous occasions commented that Fabu was more willing to participate in class and was even chosen to read in front of the whole school a report she had written about Aphrodite.
We were so proud of her accomplishments.
Before you know it, we had over 1000 followers on YouTube and many people commenting on our videos, which still had no idea what it was exactly we were doing. We even opened a new channel, FabuParents, where we intended to share the successes we were obtaining in such a short time with other parents in the same situation.
However, Fabu was still not ready to openly discuss her disabilities or wanted us to do it. So, we decided to put a pause on talking about her and only created one video that you can still see on that channel currently. We chose to continue focusing solely on Fabu and her therapy.
Thanks to having been exposed to a wide variety of games, Fabu had a robust library of games on PC and Xbox, so she would not get tired of any game, and we could continue daily therapy with gaming content and create a better schedule. We wanted to continue the successes obtained thus far by again pushing Fabu out of her comfort zone by challenging her to use her vocabulary more.
We were certain we wanted to continue with gaming as it had been what had brought us the most success. We decided the next step would be to continue doing what we were doing daily but now in a live stream setting. The idea was for Fabu to have the ability to interact with fans who were already engaging and leaving comments, so she could continue to practice her social skills.
The challenge here was that it was no longer a video that you can edit what would often take Fabu a long time to say. She would need to express herself live without the edits. We believed she was ready for this challenge, and going live would validate her hard work and would be able to use skills she had learned so far. Hoping this would further motivate her to continue what we were doing.
At this time, Fabu was the youngest girl gamer on YouTube. After a few live streams, we soon noticed a lot of people showing up and interacting in chat. In an effort for Fabu to feel we were doing something different, we created a schedule where each day had a different theme: BFF Monday — Best Fabu Fans — where Fabu would play with her fans. Retro Tuesday — she would play “old” games such as Halo, Bioshock. Roblox Wednesday — Roblox continued to be one of her favorite games and the most popular game among the community. Super Thursday — Fabu played any new games or whatever game she wanted to play. Horror Friday — Fabu would get to play any scary game of her choice. VR Saturday — she would play any new or VR game she wanted.
For us, it was ok since she was only playing 1 x week. Fabulicious Sunday — we would play multiplayer games as a Family.
We were live streaming seven days x week for a few hours each day.
For us, it was fun because it was the best part of the day, where we came together and spent time as a family.
Without knowing, we had created something extraordinary for our family.
We felt we had grown closer, spent more time together, and overall had become stronger as a family. One of the main reasons was that each day we spent a couple of hours having fun. Very quickly, what we were doing daily grew from just therapy for Fabu to therapy for the whole family.
And this is why we were able to live stream daily because we were not just streaming but also spending time as a family.
We invite you to join us on our daily journey, where every day is a new therapy session.
To be continued in our next publication of our FabuRocks Podcast.
Season 1 / YouTube Therapy
Episode 16 / Talking with the FabuFam and the FabuArmy
More info: FabuRocks Podcast / E-Mail / Website
