By Danielle Glaze
Summer is here and schools are now out of session. While homeschooling was stressful at times, there was some comfort in knowing that someone else was providing the lesson of the day. With teachers on break, it’s up to parents to come up with uniques ways to keep their children entertained, but don’t worry – we’ve got you covered! The following activities and resources are catered to special needs children, but are just as useful for any child.
Some Things To Keep In Mind…
Like every child, a child with special needs has to foster skills to help them navigate the world around them like communication, confidence, and independence. We can help encourage this through play and exercise. However, keep in mind your child’s limitations. While you want to push them out of their comfort zones don’t over do it. Using positive reinforcement, cheer them on with small victories and if they make a mistake say, “Nice try. Let’s try this another way!” or “Great effort! Let’s try again.”
Sometimes, the fear of trying something new is paralyzing. Acknowledge your child’s fear/frustrations by asking questions and encouraging them to vocalize how they are feeling. You can ask if a certain action hurts or is scary. Sometimes a child may say something hurts to get out of an activity that’s new and frightening. Other times, it may be an actual nerve response so take note of what movements may cause discomfort and take it slow. Children who need to strengthen their muscles may struggle with standing, climbing, or sitting up and may have fears of falling so make it a game and work on their fear responses (bring out their inner dare-devil!). Be your child’s biggest cheerleader and you will see them develop in leaps and bounds – whether that’s taking one step or ten!
Chat ‘n’ Play
One of the hardest and most impactful issues with social distancing is the effect it is having on children’s need to socialize and learn from each other. Many children are becoming hermit-like, not minding the solitude and only wanting to play with their parents. Others are grieving and can’t wait to interact with other children. Because of this, we have turned to platforms such as Zoom, WhatsApp, and Skype to keep lines of communication open. To make these platforms more effective, air play them on larger screens like your television or desktop so that children can see their friends in a life-sized view. Pick a time of day for catch-ups so that your child will know what to expect each day. Limit the number of friends to two or three so that it’s easier for your child to hear and participate in dialogue. Do not try to do messy-play live. It’s stressful for everyone. Have a puppet show where each child is a specific character or pick a theme, let the kids dress up as certain characters, show off their costumes, and host a play. The idea is to get your child to feel comfortable socializing without the focus being directly on your child who may be shy.
If your child is only comfortable with family, try this app that allows for family members far away to face-time while also reading, drawing, and watching shows together.
Messy Play
Encourage your child to engage in sensory experiences to help calm their anxieties or to develop focus, fine motor skills, and language development. Some items to keep on hand if you have a backyard are a mini inflatable pool, or splash pad. Create a taste station where your child has to guess what the food is only by touching and tasting different textured foods and snacks. Play with bowls of uncooked rice, beans, cereal, cotton balls, ice, or jello and practice picking it up with different items such as cups, tweezers, sticks, spoons, tongs, or fingers. Fish for toys or balls in a bucketful of water with cups, ladles, or hands depending on motor skills.
Fine Motor Skills
One of my favorite children’s games is this one, where children get a cue card and all the shapes needed to create an object or creature. It seems simple, but it helps refine their fine motor skills which translates to better drawing and writing, and better control when holding and placing objects (such as when gluing objects on a page).
Children love buttons, especially the ones they’re not allowed to touch. Make it a game by allowing your child to help you do something that requires buttons like starting the dishwasher or washing machine, or pressing the button on the fridge to get ice out of the ice maker.
Play doctor and let your child stick a bandaid on marked spots on a doll or stuffed animal. Let them take their stuffed animals temperature and take notes (even if it’s a scribble). Because of their shape, these ergonomic crayons encourage your child to hold the crayon the correct way when writing so that they can eventually write properly with a pencil. These silicon training aids are also helpful for children learning to write with a pencil.
Dance Party
Music brings people together and either excites or calms the soul. Whether it’s a dance party with friends via Zoom or a jam session in your living room with your child’s teddy bears, get your bodies moving through dance or sing loudly to strengthen those vocal cords! Take this opportunity to play different genres of music to awaken the brain, experience the sounds of different cultures, and put a smile on you and your child’s face. Speaking of the brain, this article has some interesting information about how the brain responds to music and this one provides wonderful activities you can do at home to incorporate music and sound to help challenge and teach children with special needs.
Outdoor Fun
Sometimes we overthink things and don’t take time to appreciate the simple ways that we can stimulate kids. Going to the park, spreading a blanket, and rolling around in the grass is a way to get your child moving, and out of the house! Have a picnic, read some books together, play catch with these sticky hands, or draw on trees with sidewalk chalk. You can even set up a tent in your own backyard and hang some string lights inside or tell stories with flashlights.
Bring The Outdoors Inside
Sometimes it’s not possible to go out. This device turns your home into the starlit sky of your dreams. If your child is obsessed with space and loves the calming effect of lights, this might be the perfect projector for you. This aurora projection is also perfect for soothing and calming children with autism. Make shadow puppets or create your own light table on a budget for fun on rainy days.
Exercise
Lastly, make time to stretch your littles ones bodies and exercise. You can do so through dance, massages, yoga-like movements, playing hopscotch, running, swimming, popping bubbles, practicing picking up objects off of a floor, kicking/bouncing a ball, bouncing a balloon back and forth, practicing climbing up and down steps, and walking along a line of tape for balance and coordination. Whatever you choose to do just move.
Know that regardless of how stressful your day is you have control over your body. Practice taking a moment to do focused breathing to calm yourself when you’re overwhelmed and encourage your child to do the same. Come up with words that positively reinforce how you want to feel about yourself and how you want your child to view themselves such as, “we are smart, we are strong, we are loved, we can do anything we put our minds to, we are beautiful, we are amazeballs…” Because guess what? YOU ARE!