Last Updated on January 30, 2023 by Steph Reed Podcast Episode Notes This is a live recording from a Facebook Live I hosted this week. It took place in a group aimed at general support through the Covid-19 Crisis, in the island of Jersey, where I am from.I took this opportunity to talk to parents and carers about potential strategies that could be helpful for families with children with special needs, when spending all day at home. I also answered questions that came up during the Facebook Live. We are living in difficult and unpredictable times. This is very challenging for all of us, most especially those with additional needs.Every family has very different needs, as well as access to different sized space and resources.We all have very different circumstances and therefore we need to think about what is manageable for our unique circumstances.We want to try to avoid becoming stressed.Stressed parents and carers equals stressed children.Recognise how we are modelling being calm and if there is anything we can do further to support the children to be calm. If we show that we are anxious, our children will inevitably also be anxious. Do what is manageable in our own, unique circumstancesGo back over previous advice from professionals, this will be specific to your child’s needs and there may be helpful strategies that you can implement at home. Everyone’s needs are so different. Creating calm times throughout the day Do some calming activities together.Examples of calming activities could be: listening to soothing music, massage on hands or feet with cream, sensory play or looking at a book. What are some activities that have a calming effect on your child? Is this something you can do together? Is this something the child prefers to do alone? Can you structure this into the daily routine at specific times, to create a familiar and predictable pattern? Movement activities throughout the day Alerting and energising movement activities are great to get the body moving, get children exercising and also using any hyperactive energy!It can be helpful to structure in times throughout the day where movement activities take place. At school, I would often structure movement activities before we took part in learning, to get the children’s bodies all warmed up and regulated. This would often get them ready to focus on the learning task. For some children, I would have very regular movement breaks, such as every half an hour. It depends on the needs of the child, but for some very active children, this can be very helpful for them to keep their bodies moving.Ideas for movement breaks include: a circuit or a visual structure of different exercises (such as star jumps and stretches), rolling the ball to each other, a dancing, yoga or exercise video on YouYube.5 minutes movement break examples:Brain Breaks children’s yoga Shake Your Sillies Out dancing song Structure of the day Implementing a consistent routine can help the children become familiar with what will happen in the day.For example, planning ahead when you and the children will do calming activities and do movement activities.Over time, a predictable routine can help children feel safe and in control, as they know what will be happening.Any school learning that has been planned with your teacher can be timetabled in at a specific time in the day.Break down the tasks that you know will happen in the day. Visual structure It can really help children to know what they will be doing through visual structure or a ‘visual timetable’. How effective a visual support will be will depend on what meaning a child will take from the pictures (or text).Pictures, images and symbols can be very helpful in giving meaning. Therefore a timetable of pictures can be very supportive.Lets take all of the above information and put it into a visual structure. For example, a following schedule of a session with the following routine:Rolling the ballReading a bookCounting socksHand massageFinding these images on Google, taking photos or even drawing images and putting them in a clear structure, can help the child by showing them what is coming next. Over time you can change these images, as and when necessary. Visual structure helps give the child a clear beginning, ending and helps them to know what they will be doing. Here is a visual schedule I made using images from Google. If a child can read text confidently, a written list of upcoming tasks will support them to have a clear idea of what they will be doing. Perhaps they can tick or cross them off as they move through the activities to clearly show where they are up to.If your child is familiar with using symbols at school, Widgit Online are currently giving free access to their online symbol writing program. The Code is WIDGIT30. A dedicated ‘work’ space...
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