Sensory Processing Archives - Page 2 of 3

Archive for Sensory Processing – Page 2

Table Top Sensory!

By zfortadmin

Wednesday, November 23rd, 2022

OT (Occupational Therapy)/Sensory based table top activities for school-aged children

Play is an important aspect to a child’s growth and development. It is a child’s primary occupation to play. The occupations of a person are the meaningful and purposeful activities we participate in during the day. Adults have different occupations than children, but sometimes it is important for everyone to play! A child develops functional skills, motor skills, language skills and interpersonal skills through play. Engaging in different types of activities at home can even help your child develop skills in the classroom. Play helps encourage all areas of development, from cognitive and physical to social and emotional. Some benefits of play are it builds self-esteem and confidence, develops problem-solving skills, encourages new vocabulary usage, teaches children to be alone and independent, allows children to release their emotions and encourages planning and thinking ahead. It can be a great tool for children to connect with their peers and the adults around them. Fine motor development is important for children to develop as well as gross motor development. At a preschool age children are working on both. Gross motor (large muscle groups) development can impact fine motor (small muscle groups). As a child builds stability in their core it allows more control in the hands etc. Since play can be filled with opportunities for development, here are some activities children can play at a table while encouraging fine motor growth and development.

Tape play

Picking at the edges of the tape is a fun way for little hands to develop fine motor dexterity. They are working on a pincer grasp (tip-to-tip pinch of the thumb and index finger)
Playing a word spelling game with boxes made out of tape. Have the child help tear the tape into bits (tripod grasp, working on small motor strength of the hand arches)

Tweezers play

Pick up large or small objects with tweezers. Put things in sand, rice or beans and have children try to tweeze them out. (Tripod grasp, working on separating the two sides of the hand in a small motor task)
Sort pom –poms by color or size with tweezers into cupcake tins, bowls or empty egg cartons. Have the child tweeze a pom- pom from one side of the body to the other. (Tripod grasp, working on crossing mid-line.)

Play dough play

Press thick beads into play dough with the thumb in a bent position. This helps encourage development of an appropriate pencil grasp. (Working on the muscles needed to oppose with an open web space and flex the tip of the thumb.
Using play dough mats or the surface of a table play utilize play dough by pushing, smashing, rolling, and pulling it apart. Make sure the whole arm is involved in manipulating the dough! (Working on finger, shoulder and arm strength that helps support an age appropriate writing grasp.)

Pipe cleaner play

After tying a knot at one end, have the child hold the pipe cleaner with one hand and bead with the other. Using beads with smaller openings will require the child to use more finger strength. Make patterns with colors or shapes for more fun! (Working tip-to-tip pinch of the thumb, index finger and eye/hand coordination. )
Place an upside down colander on the table. Use various sized pipe cleaners to poke through the holes. Make designs and patterns using different colors. Try to get the same pipe cleaner in more than one hole. Add a time challenge for older children to see how many they can place in 30 seconds. (Working on pincer grasp, eye/hand coordination, bilateral coordination and sequencing.)

Water play

Sort water beads by color or size using a spoon or measuring cup. Place water beads in a bin or a sink and have the child scoop and sort into cups or buckets.
Filling up a container with water, have the child use a turkey baster or plastic pipettes to squeeze water in and out.. Add food coloring, sparkles or bath toys for more sensory play. For younger children, use a sponge he or she can squeeze out after dipping it into the water bin. (Tripod grasp, working on pinching and fine motor strength/ coordination.)

Categories : Advice, Parenting, Sensory Processing

Tags : children, Parenting, Sensory Processing

How to be Your Child’s “Emotion Coach”

By zfortadmin

Monday, October 17th, 2022

Written by Caroline Segal, PhD

We are born with an innate capacity to feel. In fact, our emotions serve a survival function. A newborn baby lacks the ability to communicate verbally with her parents – she can’t tell you that she’s hungry, tired, or needs a change. What she can do, though, is express her discontentment with a sharp cry, which immediately mobilizes you to tend to her needs. She doesn’t produce this cry intentionally – it’s simply her body’s natural mechanism to protect her livelihood.

Thus, we are hardwired to experience and exhibit different emotions (including the six universal emotions: happiness, sadness, surprise, fear, disgust, and anger) long before our brains are mature enough to really process and understand them. The frontal lobe, which is the brain’s emotional control hub, as well as the system that is responsible for logic, reasoning, judgment, and personality, doesn’t fully develop until age 25. This means that as children and teens mature and experience more complex emotions, their ability to comprehend and regulate those emotions is still catching up.

While kids are in the throes of learning to process their feelings, parents can help scaffold them towards healthy emotional expression. Read on for some tips on how to help children become masters of emotions:

Build Their Emotional Vocabulary.

In order to master emotions, children need to be able to name them. Having a label for what they are experiencing is comforting because it creates a sense of familiarity (“I know what this is, I’ve felt this way before”) and puts your child in control – he can draw on memories of when he’s felt that way in the past and how he’s handled it. Labeling also creates some distance from the feelings (think of the Snickers tagline: “You’re not you when you’re hungry”) – it helps your child separate his personality (which is more stable) from his emotions (which are constantly changing). Finally, feelings labels are validating – they help remind him that he is human, and that his feelings are totally normal.

A fun way to build emotion literacy is by playing feelings charades. Sit down with your child and make a list together of every single feelings word you both can think of. This is a great opportunity to assess how expansive his vocabulary is and help teach some new words (if he understands the word “surprised”, maybe he can learn more nuanced off-shoots of that emotion, such as “startled”, “confused”, “amazed”, or “excited”).

Once you’ve got a solid list, cut out each feeling word, throw them all in a hat, and take turns picking words and acting out the feelings for the other to guess! When it’s your turn to guess, comment on what you’re seeing your child do (“Hmm, you’re furrowing your brow, your mouth is turned down a little, and you’re holding your hands in fists – I think you’re angry!”). When it’s his turn, ask him how he knew what feeling you were acting out!

Following is a sample list of feelings words to help you get going:

Happy	Brave	Sick	Courageous
Calm	Loving	Curious	Frustrated
Proud	Shy	Jealous	Worried
Excited	Afraid	Interested	Scared
Sad	Anxious	Embarrassed	Disgusted
Tired	Angry	Ashamed	Guilty
Exhausted	Mad	Disappointed	Pleased

Label Emotions.

Now that you have a good idea of what emotions she knows and can recognize, use those feelings words often in everyday conversation. Label what you’re feeling (“I’m feeling really happy playing this game with you”), label what she’s feeling (“I see that you’re crying. You look like you’re feeling sad that your friend couldn’t come over today.”), label what characters in books or TV shows are feeling (“Wow, Alexander feels really mad about his terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day!”). This practice helps build her emotional awareness and teach her that it’s okay (in fact, it’s good!) to talk about feelings.

Coach Them to Use Feelings Language in the Moment.

We naturally feel emotions very physiologically, but it takes practice to articulate those feelings verbally. Now that you’ve been practicing learning and using emotional language, guide him to describe his own feelings. Some children start by verbalizing their feelings inappropriately, such as making comments such as, “I hate you,” when they’re mad with you. Rather than getting upset with your child for making this comment, try to read between the lines and help him learn to say what he really means – this can be as simple as responding, “You’re really mad at me.” By showing him that you understand, it will help build trust in your relationship and scaffold him towards being able to use more effective means of communicating his feelings.

Praise Emotional Expression.

Give your child positive feedback for any attempts she makes to communicate her emotions, even if she doesn’t do so in the most productive way. For example, if she is throwing a massive temper tantrum (think stomping feet, throwing toys, rolling around on the ground…), but at some point in the mayhem, she’s able to say, “I’m mad!”, jump on the opportunity to thank her for telling you how she feels. If she’s calm enough to hear you, you can add, “Now that I know that you’re feeling mad, we can work together to help you feel better.” This will show her that sharing her feelings, particularly when they feel out of her control, can beget the help she needs to learn how to manage them.

Model Emotional Expression and Control.

To help your child learn how to communicate his feelings using words, show him how. Talk about your own feelings in developmentally appropriate ways, and talk out what strategies you might use to help yourself feel better if you’re feeling bad. Be careful to maintain appropriate boundaries – I’m not suggesting you go and air all your dirty laundry to your child! But a lot of parents feel like they need to hold it together and not show their children when they’re distressed. The reality is that no matter how good an actor you are, your children know you well and can probably guess how you’re feeling, so you might as well own your emotions as an opportunity to build their emotion muscles. Children also have a tendency to feed off their parents’ emotions, so by sharing and working through your own feelings, you are simultaneously helping them work through theirs.

Let’s say there’s a sick relative in the family, and you’re worried about them. Your child probably feels the same way. It’s healthy to have an open conversation about this. You could say something like, “You might notice I’m a little down today. I’m feeling sad because grandma is sick, and I wish she were feeling better.” Now that you’ve put your feelings out there, you and your child can talk about what it’s like for each of you when you’re sad, and what helps each of you to feel better. You can even solicit your child’s help in engaging in an activity that would help you both feel more regulated (for example, “I think it would make me feel better if I sent her a letter with some pictures. Would you help me pick out which pictures to send?”).

Discussing feelings openly helps to demystify them and empower your children to feel in control of them. The more you can coach them to be “emotion masters”, the more effective everybody is likely to be in communicating with each other!

Categories : Advice, Parenting, Sensory Processing

Managing Strong Emotions

By zfortadmin

Wednesday, July 13th, 2022

Managing Strong Emotional Reactions in Children and Teens

Written by Caroline Segal, PhD

Have you ever been so overwhelmed with an emotion that it felt all-consuming? Like you were stuck in a deep, dark emotion pit without a ladder? When emotions take the reins, they can make it really hard to focus on the situation at hand, to process logical reasoning, and to problem-solve. The crippling impact of overwhelming emotion is even stronger for children and adolescents, because they are still developing neurologically and don’t have the same capacities as adults to self-regulate. So what is a parent to do when their child is swallowed up by fear, worry, anger, or sadness? Following are some tips to help you help your child manage strong emotions:

Address the Emotion

Father holding cheeks of son in face mask

When children or teens are having meltdowns, many parents try to speak to them rationally. While parents do this with the best of intentions, the problem is that when somebody is in an emotional tailspin, the logical part of their brain is completely shut down. Even the most revelatory comment will go straight over their heads until the emotional arousal comes down.

So when emotion carries your child away, instead of trying to problem-solve, start by addressing the emotion. If they are too far gone to access language, label the emotion for them (e.g., “I can see that you are very upset”) and validate why they feel so upset, even if you feel they are behaving inappropriately (e.g., “I understand that you are really mad that you have to finish your homework before you watch TV”). Oftentimes having somebody acknowledge how you feel helps bring the level of the emotion down to a tolerable level, which then makes it easier to reflect, redirect, and problem-solve.

Help Your Child Ground

Another way to bring down emotional arousal is to force the brain to think about something else. “Grounding” skills are techniques that are designed to direct your focus to something occurring in the present moment, rather than having your brain carried off by emotion.

One helpful grounding skill is the 5 Senses Activity. Guide your child to identify:

5 things they can see
4 things they can hear
3 things they can touch
2 things they can smell, and
1 thing they can taste.

In a pinch, you can do even simpler grounding activities, such as counting activities (e.g., How many light switches do you see in the room? How many tiles are on the floor? How many surfaces can you sit on?). Try it yourself right now – the more you have to focus on something in your immediate environment, the harder it is for your brain to get distracted by anything else, which gives your emotions time to cool off.

Preempt the Emotion

Close-up Photography Of A Girl Eating Bread

These first couple skills are for use in the moment, when the emotion has already taken over. In the long run, it can help to identify patterns and warning signs. Spend some time observing your child and getting a feel for common triggers. This can help you preempt significant escalations in emotion (for example, if your child tends to get “hangry”, save difficult conversations for after they’ve had a snack).

That said, it’s also good for children to learn to “build the muscle” of tolerating difficult emotion (the world won’t always be able to accommodate them as well as a parent can!), but this needs to happen in a graduated way. In calm, quiet moments, work with your child to help them identify when they tend to get upset and how they know their emotions are rising. What do they feel in their body? What thoughts go through their head? Once they become familiar enough with their own signs of emotional arousal, they can practice self-regulation skills before it’s too late, such as deep breathing, positive mental imagery, or separating themselves from a difficult situation. At first, you may need to help guide them to use these skills when you notice an uptick in emotional arousal, but in time, these skills will become more automatic, and they will be better able to initiate self-regulation strategies independently.

Model Self-Regulation Skills

Children learn about emotions from those around them. The more you are able to regulate your own emotions, the more they learn to do so themselves. This doesn’t mean being an emotion robot – many parents worry about their kids seeing them upset. What’s most helpful to kids is to see that it’s okay to feel these feelings (at safe levels), and that there’s something they can do about it. So when you’re upset about things, it’s healthy to let it show in front of your kids in small doses, to talk about your feelings in developmentally-appropriate language, and most importantly, to talk about what you’re going to do to help yourself feel more calm. Young children will enjoy joining you in self-regulation activities, such as the ones listed above, and it will be good practice for them to get into the habit!

Build Your Own Tolerance For Their Distress

Ethnic father and kid relaxing in bedroom

While children are growing, their bodies are too small to handle the big emotions they sometimes feel. It is typical for children to have big reactions to strong feelings while they get the hang of self-regulation. The goal is to help them feel confident in their abilities to self-soothe, but this doesn’t happen overnight, and too much pressure to regulate faster than their bodies are capable of can hinder the process.

When your child is having a meltdown, remind yourself that they are doing their best in that moment, and you can continue to help them build their regulatory muscles when they are calm again. Take a few deep breaths, and trust that if you are able to stay regulated yourself in those most difficult of moments, it will help your child see that they are safe and protected by you even when they don’t feel safe and protected in their own bodies. And remind yourself that you are doing your best, too! Learning to self-regulate is hard work for everybody. It’s okay if it feels impossible sometimes. It will become easier in time!

Still too much?

As always, reach out to us if you need more information or help.

Categories : Advice, Parenting, Sensory Processing

Tags : children, emotions, Parenting

The ‘Senses’ and Skills of Gardening

By zfortadmin

Wednesday, April 27th, 2022

Gardening is a great, enriching activity to perform, especially for children – not just in the summer, but in the fall as well. Children naturally learn and develop novel skills, through the interactions that they have with their environments. Gardening enables children to build upon these skills in a natural environment and it allows them to be exposed to various forms of sensory input.

The Seven Senses

We all are familiar with our five external senses:

Sight (visual)
Smell (olfactory)
Touch (tactile)
Taste (gustatory)
Hearing (auditory)

However, we also have two internal, lesser-known senses:

Vestibular
Proprioception

The Vestibular System is located in our inner ears and is activated when we move our head in space (up/down, side to side, or lateral direction).

The Proprioceptive System is located in the receptors of our muscles and joints, and is activated any time one performs an activity that entails pushing, pulling, or lifting an object (or in other terms “heavy-work” activities). The proprioceptive system also acts as a regulator. When the proprioceptive system is activated it releases a neurotransmitter, serotonin, which is calming to the nervous system. Gardening is an activity that can provide proprioceptive input, by one actively engaging in the performance of heavy-work tasks (i.e. carrying a filled watering can). A child who may experience sensory processing difficulties naturally seeks out this type of input, in order to help them be in a more regulated state.

The ‘Senses’ of Gardening

Stop to smell the flowers. Photo by **Tetyana Kovyrina**

Think about this: Before heading outside, you apply sunscreen (tactile input). When you step outside of your house, you are hit with an array of sensory stimuli (visual, olfactory, auditory, and/or tactile). Initially, you feel the warmth of the sun hitting your face (tactile input). You grab your tools and place them in your wheelbarrow filled with the flowers and herbs you had just recently bought. Then you wheel the wheelbarrow over to your garden (proprioceptive input). You empty out the contents of the wheelbarrow, bend down, and sit on top of your knees (proprioceptive input). Then grab your hand shovel and start digging holes in the soil, looking down at the garden bed below (proprioceptive and vestibular input). As you’re digging, you feel the dirt slightly touch your hands (tactile input). You suddenly hear a bumblebee buzzing past your ear (auditory input). You stand up and look around (up/down and left/right) to see where the bumblebee flew (vestibular input). And to think, this is just the beginning of the sensory input that one may experience while gardening.

No Green Thumb Needed

A green thumb is not needed, but is handy (pun intended). Photo by **Dung Tran**

As mentioned, gardening works on numerous skills, in a fun and interactive manner. Below is a list of skills (not all inclusive) with some examples that one may be working on while engaging in this activity.

FINE MOTOR SKILLS

Fine motor precision – Carefully placing one seed at a time into individual cells of a seed tray.
Bi-manual coordination – Opening up a seed packet – stabilizing the packet with one hand, and utilizing the other to open it.
In-hand manipulation – Placing seeds in the palm of your hand, and manipulating one seed at a time into the pads of the fingers to place into a container (palm to finger translation).
Promotes grasping patterns (i.e. pincer grasp) – Picking up a seed with the thumb and index finger.

GROSS MOTOR SKILLS

Strength
Endurance
Bilateral coordination

DISCRIMINATION SKILLS

Proprioceptive Discrimination (the ability to grade force on an object)
- While removing a plant from a plastic pot, one must grade their force appropriately. Pulling too hard could result in one accidentally removing stems or leaves off of the plant.

Tactile discrimination (the ability to feel an object without relying on the visual system)
- Feeling different sized seeds in the palm of one’s hand, without the need to look.

SEQUENCING SKILLS

MOTOR PLANNING / PRAXIS SKILLS

BODY / SPATIAL AWARENESS

EXECUTIVE FUNCTIONING SKILLS

AND MORE…

Gardening can also help improve one’s:

patience (delayed gratification),
frustration tolerance,
cognitive flexibility (as one may need to change their original plan), and
social skills (if working with another peer or family member).

Create Your Own ‘Sensory Garden’

A ‘sensory garden’ can incorporate a mix of plants and/or garden décor, to provide one with a unique, sensory experience.

Visual – Utilizing plants with vibrant or different colors, varied heights, or those simply unique in nature, can provide some visual input to one’s garden.
Olfactory – There are an abundance of plants that have scents. Think of herbs that you may use while cooking, like rosemary or basil.
Tactile – Plants with texture – soft, hard, spikey, or bumpy – are a fun way to add tactile input to your garden. Providing different landscape textures (i.e. sand, rocks, or mulch) are another way to provide additional tactile input.
Gustatory – Think of herbs, fruits, or vegetables that you can grow, and eventually eat!
Auditory – Provide your garden with sound by either hanging up a wind chime or perhaps having a water source (like a small fountain).

Have fun, and be creative. There is no right or wrong way when designing your own garden!

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If you or your child has any allergies (i.e. environmental, oils in plants, insect bites, etc.), there are other alternatives that can be performed (i.e. utilizing faux flowers).

Due to these unprecedented times, many local garden centers/nurseries are now offering free contactless delivery or contactless curbside pickup to ensure the safety of their customers.

Categories : Parenting, Sensory Processing

Tags : camp, gardening, kids, Parenting, senses, Sensory Processing

“I’m Bored”

By zfortadmin

Thursday, January 6th, 2022

“I’m Bored”: Down Time and Praxis at Home

Woman in White Long Sleeve Shirt Sitting on Black Chair

As we continue to practice social distancing, we all have a lot more free time on our hands than we are typically used to. While the beginning of quarantine may have been very productive, the motivation for most of us has diminished over the long months. Recently, you may notice that you and your family are having an increasingly difficult time coming up with constructive activities to do and are turning towards technology more and more. This can be particularly true during school breaks that would typically be spent visiting family or traveling, but now are filled with hours of down time. Your children (or spouse) may be coming to you more saying: “I’m bored”, despite having many things to do around the house. This feeling, one we know all too well, can be amplified for children that have difficulty with praxis.

What is Praxis?

Praxis is often associated with motor planning or planning movement, but this is really only the tip of the iceberg. More specifically, praxis is the neurological process where cognition directs motor actions (Ayres, 1985). In other words, praxis is the planning of what to do and how to do it.

Man Wearing Black and White Stripe Shirt Looking at White Printer Papers on the Wall

In practice, praxis is the complex series of events that an individual’s body must execute in order to produce a desired outcome.

First, we must conceive the idea of what to do using ideation (i.e. kicking a soccer ball into the net);
Then, we have to plan how we are going to achieve the desired outcome using motor planning (i.e. giving self a running start and kick with your right foot).
Next, we need to execute the movement correctly in order to be successful (i.e. kick the ball with enough force and good aim);
Lastly, we need to be able to reflect on the feedback from the movement to adapt our actions to increase likelihood of success for the future (i.e. kick the ball harder using a longer running start);

For most people, praxis is a complex process that we take for granted since it occurs mostly automatically. However, for some children, learning novel activities is something that requires extra practice and effort due to a missing piece in the multi-step process. In today’s society where a lot of activities are planned and video games have rigid objectives and processes, praxis can be underdeveloped simply because it has not been practiced! Think of riding a bike; while most people learn this skill at a young age and practice it throughout their lives, there are adults that have never learned how to ride! Similarly with praxis, if we didn’t learn and practice this skill as children, we may not have developed it fully. Either way, working on praxis can help everyone, especially when we think of what to do in down time.

Signs of Praxis Difficulty

If your child is having difficulty with praxis, you may observe:

Difficulty learning new motor skills or requiring more practice time than their peers (i.e. riding a bike, learning a dance, etc.).
Appearing clumsy or uncoordinated.
Unable to follow multi-step directions to complete a physical task (i.e. an obstacle course). This becomes particularly apparent with verbal cues (instead of visually demonstration)
Avoidance of gross motor or novel activities.
Difficulty retrieving the right materials for a play activity.
Appearance of laziness and incomplete work (Caused by not knowing how to start).
Failure to perform movement(s) safely.
Difficulty knowing where their body is in space.
Frequent falling, tripping, or bumping into obstacles.

Praxis Difficulties & Technology Use

Simply put, technology is both a blessing and a curse. Even prior to the pandemic, balancing technology and physical play was a common concern voiced by parents. However, during the pandemic, the world has increased its reliance on technology to include almost all daily functions. From attending remote school to having virtual holiday parties, technology has become one of the only outlets to safely interact with the people around us. With this increased reliance on technology, children and parents are having an increasingly difficult time separating the now blurred boundaries between productive technology use and “down-time” technology use. Video games and YouTube videos are a preferred activity for children with praxis difficulties because it eliminates the need to come up with activities to do independently. Technology use also fulfills our natural need for stimulation and impacts the pleasure systems of the brain by releasing dopamine and can, therefore, become addictive. In addition to making children feel good, it is often used more so as a crutch for children with praxis difficulties due to their difficulty with planning and executing activities. Methods to decrease technology reliance include but are not limited to: setting “tech free” breaks, fostering motivation by including siblings, giving explicit ideas of activities, encouraging outdoor play, and setting expectations for screen time and down time.

Home Praxis Activities

Man in Blue Polo Shirt and Woman in Beige Pants Sitting on Blue and White Mat

Try these activities to try at home to increase praxis skills:

Simon Says
Can help improve ability to spontaneously movement plan and improve body awareness.
Floor is Lava
Can help to improve ideation and problem solving skills determining safe and efficient ways to avoid touching the floor.
Unstable Obstacle Course
Create an obstacle course with unstable surfaces: walking or climbing over unstable surfaces is a great way to increase strength and motor plan unpredictable movements.
Twister
Increase body awareness while building upon the problem solving skills to determine the best way to move your body with obstacles.
Yoga Cards
In addition to the many benefits of yoga, it challenges the ability to process and motor plan actions by giving a visual demonstration of the movement.
Animal Walks
Increase problem solving and ideation naming an animal and having your child act out how the animal would move.
New Card Game
Learn a new card game and teach the family
Heads Up
This is a great way to help your child learn how to describe a particular topic/word
Mix ‘N Match
Give your child 5 items and see how many different ways they can use them! For example play dough, a coin, a string, a cup and a marble!
Charades
Can help improve ideation of desired movement and increase problem solving and processing when conceptualizing the other person’s movement.
DIY
Create your own game! Don’t forget to tag us @SascoRiver in your creations.

Tips for Praxis

Woman Holding A Poster On Proper Hand Washing

Tips for children with praxis difficulties

Use “first, then” language
This helps the child understand what sequence they need to complete the demand. For example, “first have a snack, then start your homework.”
Break instructions into parts
Instead of saying, “go and get your shoes and backpack and go outside”, say “get your shoes”. Once that direction is accomplished, you can continue to the next direction, “get your backpack”, and etc.
Give visual cues
Children with praxis difficulties can rely heavily on their visual system to “mimic” novel motor actions. Giving a visual cue for an action will increase the ease of processing the movement.
Physical cues
Physically guide the child through the action so that they can learn what the movement feels like.
Repetition
Practicing the movement allows for increased success rate and increased confidence.

“I’m Bored”

Adapt to Praxis challenges during long breaks from school with these tips:

Activity Bingo
Use a blank bingo board and put different activities for your child to do in them, you can even have them help you fill it out. You can give a little extra “tech time” or other reward every time they get Bingo!
Make a visual “menu” of activities
Sometimes it is helpful for children to visually “see” options
Make a new game!
Keeping things new and novel can increase motivation to participate, including others can also help. For example, have your child make a scavenger hunt for other family members and then take turns doing the scavenger hunt. The act of making it works on praxis and increases the time engaged!
Have your child “video” their activity to send to family members
While this uses some technology, helping your child feel connected to others while doing a physically engaging activity can be more regulating than simply using technology.
Make a visual schedule
This can help children to visualize when it is time for “tech” and time to engage in other activities. While we typically think of this for scheduling extracurriculars, it can also help to know when it will be time for their “preferred” down time activity is within the house

Learning to Ride

Particularly for children with delayed motor skills, coordination and motor planning difficulties and/or low muscle tone, learning to ride a bike can be challenging (to say the least). At Sasco River Center, we work diligently with your child creating strategies and developing the skills required for them to ride their bikes safely and independently. During bike camp, your child will participate in games, activities, and crafts all geared towards getting your child riding his or her bike through mastering one skill at a time. Learning to ride a bike is beneficial to your child mentally, socially, physically and developmentally. Riding a bike helps to strengthen your heart muscles and build stamina promoting health awareness at such an early age. Children develop a sense of responsibility and independence as well as gain confidence from learning how to ride a bike. Riding a bike with peers and neighbors allows for your child to interact and build social skills with other children in an active environment. Biking is a great activity for a child to get outside while still working on their core strength, balance and muscular coordination, all while having fun!

By the way, there is no “right” age to learn to ride a bike, but if your child is ready, check out some tips below!

3 Secrets to Teaching Bike Riding

Secret 1: Don’t use “training wheels”

They teach kids to balance on training wheels, not on their own two wheels
They are slow and inhibiting (even for the best of riders – and I’ve seen some VERY proficient training-wheel riders.)
They don’t do corners well, and in fact teach muscle memory of the wrong technique.
They become an unnecessary crutch that prolongs a movement towards riding without training wheels at all.
Either simply remove pedals from an existing bike, or get a balance bike. (You can get a balance bike on Amazon for less than $100)

Secret 2: Start with developing trust in their own body

The best way to teach a child to ride a bike | Seattle's Child

Build up skills. First try having them keep their feel flat on the ground while they walk the bike. This way, they get to experience the sensation of leaning without falling. As an aside, make sure the bike fits properly; your child should be able to stand flat-footed over the top bar of the bike. If in doubt, a smaller bike is better than a larger bike. (As another aside, if you want to see truly AMAZING kids bikes, check THESE out! If I could back in time, I’d get one of them.)
Assure them that their feet will keep them from falling as they walk the bike forward and experience the sensation of leaning without falling.
Eventually, they learn to trust their body. It’s at this point when lessons become fun. Students are now motivated and excited to learn!

Secret 3: Be calm, present and patient

mom consoling her son who fell off his bike

This is more about you than your Child, but trust us, it helps.
The goal is to decrease anxiety and fear, while boosting confidence. Your calm and patient presence helps them maintain the desire to continue working while they experience setbacks and unfamiliar sensations.
Our demeanor, particular when children are learning a challenging new activity, very much affects children’s responses to learning something new.

Biking Fun At Home

It is never too early to start working on skills to help our kids learn to ride a bike.

Here are some activities to work on balance and coordination for our early bikers. These skills will help work on balance, which is certainly one of the most important steps to becoming an independent rider. Here are some biking activities seen at bike camp that you can do at home once your child is ready for the bike.

Off the Bike Activities

Try these to “warm up” our balance before getting on the bike

Jumping on each foot 10x with arms out to side
Walk across a line pretending you’re on a tight rope with arms out to side

Scavenger hunt

While on bike, have children go around looking for nature items outside to work on all aspects of biking such as coordination, balance, motor planning and strength. (The child can be scooting, gliding or pedaling)

Red Light, Green Light

Three children practice scooting and gliding on bikes with no pedals

Red Light = STOP, Green Light = GO & Yellow Light = SLOW DOWN.

How To Play: Start with everyone along the starting line, When you say ‘Green Light’ everyone will move towards the finish line, When you say ‘Red Light’ everyone must immediately stop. If players are still moving when you call ‘Red Light’, they must go back to the starting line.

BONUS TIP: To get your child more involved, have them come up with a color and a rule/ movement for that corresponding color to add into the game.

Want more? Try Bike Camp/Lessons with us!

Do your kids want to learn how to ride a bike? We can help! Sasco River bike camp can help your children gain the confidence and skills needed in order to get pedaling! At the end of bike camp, your child will walk away with not only confidence and a fun experience, but also a biking “license” to remember their hard work and dedication. Find out more HERE, or email us: hello@sascoriver.com.

EMAIL US AT HELLO@SASCORIVER.COM

mom helping her son learn to ride a bike