FIVE SIMPLE WAYS TO HELP YOUR CHILD WITH EXCEPTIONAL NEEDS TRANSITION TO SUMMERTIME

Five Simple Ways to Help Your Child

with Exceptional Needs Transition to Summertime

By Annette Nuñez, PhD, LMFT

IF YOU AND YOUR CHILD WENT THROUGH A PANDEMIC TOGETHER, YOU CAN HANDLE ANYTHING, RIGHT? JUST AS THE WORLD STARTED TO OPEN BACK UP AND YOUR CHILD WAS SETTLING INTO THEIR NEW IN-PERSON SCHOOL ROUTINE, ANOTHER TRANSITION HITS…SUMMER! MANY FAMILIES ENJOY SUMMER BECAUSE IT IS A TIME TO RELAX, GO ON VACATIONS, AND JUST TAKE A BREAK FROM THE STRUCTURE OF A SCHOOL YEAR. HOWEVER, FOR PARENTS WHO HAVE CHILDREN WITH EXCEPTIONAL NEEDS, SUMMER CAN BE A CHALLENGING TIME OF YEAR AS MORE STRUCTURE AND ROUTINE ARE NEEDED FOR THEIR CHILD. THE TRANSITION FROM SCHOOL TO SUMMER CAN BE A DIFFICULT ONE.

With that being said, just know you are not alone! During this big transition, here are some important things to keep in mind. Your child feels the anxiety and stress of the world much more than you realize. So, it is important to stay positive by thinking of all the positives that come with this break. You can work on skills that will help prepare your child to become more independent in home and in school, work on their social skills, and work on self-help skills. Being at home with your child during the summer will take a lot of patience, creativity, resourcefulness, and positivity.

Your child likes sameness and routine, so it is essential to create a schedule and stick to it. This schedule will keep both you and your child calm. Even if you are bored with the schedule created, stick with it because your child is not! There are many schedules you can find online and modify to fit with your lifestyle as well as your child’s. The schedule you create does not have to be elaborate; you can use a notebook to write down or draw a picture of what your child’s schedule will be for the day. Go over the day’s schedule with them the night before and in the morning. This not only helps your child but also helps YOU stay accountable and structured.

Also, include various alone time within the daily schedule. This allows for both you and your child to take a break from one another. You can include screen time during these breaks; you don’t need to feel guilty about doing so. Just remember to set a timer for when you would like your child to end screen time because it will make the transition a lot easier.

Last but not least, create a few summertime goals for your child, then choose activities that will help your child reach those goals. Choose activities with a clear start and end and only do them for five-to-ten-minute increments, gradually increasing the time. Using a timer is always helpful because it lets your child know when the activity is over. There are so many summertime activities to choose from that it can often be overwhelming to a parent. Based on this, I have created a list of activities both my clients and their parents have found to be beneficial. These activities are divided into five categories: sensory, gross motor, fine motor, games, and working on self-help skills. The great thing about these activities is you don’t have to buy expensive materials to implement them. All you have to do is look for simple objects lying around your house. Do one or more of these activities with your child daily and watch the social bond between you and your child become stronger while having fun. while as you monitor their speed. Spray shaving cream on the table and have your child write letters and numbers within it or draw. There are so many recipes online to make your own slime, foam, moon sand, cloud dough, etc. Hide small items, dinosaurs, zoo animals, or whatever your child likes, in a plastic bin filled with water beads, then have your child search for them. You can change out the materials in the bin to shredded paper, pasta, sand, etc., every week.

1ENGAGE IN SENSORY PLAY Sensory play is wonderful because it encourages your child to use their senses of sight, touch, taste, smell, hearing, vestibular, and proprioception. Some sensory activity ideas include blowing bubbles and having your child chase and pop them. Use a rolling chair and allow your child to spin for a 2WORK ON GROSS MOTOR SKILLS Focus on strengthening your child’s core while working on leg and arm coordination and muscle development. A favorite activity is Wax Paper Ice Skating. Start by cutting two pieces of wax paper big enough for your child’s foot, then have your child place their foot on top of each piece of wax paper and skate around your house. You can also create an obstacle course in or outside of your house. Some ideas for creating an obstacle course include having your child walk on tape (to work on balance), throw a ball into a basket (for eye-hand coordination), and crawl under a rope. Be sure to take physical brain breaks by having your child hop like a frog, crab crawl, wheelbarrow walk, or crash into couch cushions. Or maybe have your child do a chore for you like carrying a laundry basket. These are some great examples of having your child’s sensory needs met.

3DEVELOP FINE MOTOR SKILLS Fine motor skills are important because they help with writing and self-help skills. Some fun fine motor activities include searching for a Play-Doh recipe on the Internet, making it with your child, and then playing together with it. Roll the Play-Doh into small balls or make little snakes/animals to work on finger and hand strengthening skills. You can hide objects such as small beads or coins in the Play-Doh and have your child find them. Another activity is to buy stickers of characters or objects your child likes. Get a blank piece of paper and randomly put dots all over the paper with a pen or marker. Have your child put the sticker on top of the dots. Make it educational by making dots into shapes, numbers, or letters and have your child place the stickers on the dots to produce the shape, number, or letter. Show your child how to color within the lines and teach an appropriate pincher grip or print out simple coloring pages with limited detail and thicken the lines. You can inspire writing, create shapes, write numbers and letters, or write your child’s name on a piece of paper and have them trace it. Make pasta necklaces. You can teach the concept of cutting by teaching your child how it’s done. You can even have your child bead their own fidget bracelet by using a pipe cleaner. teaching the concept of chase and tag to help get some of your child’s wiggles out. You can first have them walk or run after you and prompt them to tag you, then turn around and walk or run and tag them. It is the most foundational play skill to have because a lot of playground play revolves around the game of tag. Once your child enjoys playing simple games, you can begin to teach games with more complex rules such as Candy Land, Hide-and-Seek, and Simon Says.

4PLAY GAMES TOGETHER Games promote the concept of turn-taking and following rules. Summer is the perfect time to teach the concept of playing games in a one-on-one setting. When your child goes back to school, they will have the basic turn-taking skills needed to play games with their peers. When teaching turn-taking, begin with games with simple rules—games that promote the “My Turn/Your Turn” concept. You can start by doing puzzles within your house and taking turns putting the puzzle pieces together. You can also take turns coloring parts of a coloring page. Some simple turn-taking games to play are any matching game, Don’t Break the Ice, Honey Bee Tree, or Memory. Fun physical games include Freeze Dance and Red Light Green Light, in which you can pair a visual with physical activity. For example, you can hold up a green piece of paper to initiate dancing, jumping, running, etc., and then hold up a red piece of paper to stop. Try 5WORK ON SELF-HELP SKILLS Self-help skills are critical because they not only help your child become more independent but promote problem-solving skills too. Select one or two self-help skills each week you would like your child to work on. Once you decide, it will be essential to break down the self-help skills step by step, teach them in small sequential steps, and then chain the steps. For example, if you would like to teach your child to dress and undress themselves, you may first help them put on pants and socks but show them how to put their shirt on independently. Once they can put their shirt on independently, you can work on having them put on their pants independently as well. Continue to do this until your child can dress themselves entirely. Some self-help skills to work on are dressing, tying shoes, brushing teeth, opening and closing the lunch box/backpack, using utensils or a napkin, washing hands, and more. If your child needs visuals to help them, look on the Internet. There are so many downloadable visuals for each of these self-help skills that break them down into small sequential steps. These are just some examples of fun summertime activities you can do with your child. If you look on the Internet, there are many more. When finding the right summer activities for your child, remember to follow your child’s lead. Move on if your child isn’t interested in an activity and find something your child enjoys. By choosing activities your child enjoys, they are more likely to stay engaged with that activity for longer periods of time. Their social connection with you will also be more likely to strengthen. The ultimate goal of summer is to make memorable social connections with your child while having fun.

Annette Nuñez, PhD, LMFT is the founder and director of Breakthrough Interventions, LLC and Potential Health, LLC. She is a licensed psychotherapist and has worked with children with ASD and other related disorders for over 28 years. As part of her doctorate work at the University of Denver, Dr. Nuñez developed the Children’s Social Competence Scale (CSCS). The CSCS is an early intervention evaluation tool that measures social competency in young children. She served as the Program Director for Connect Us, a non-profit organization that helps children cultivate positive relationships through facilitated play. Her research interests include the mainstreaming and socialization of children with high functioning autism. Dr. Nuñez co-wrote and self-published the Friendship Is… book. She conducts many seminars both nationally and internationally and has consulted with many schools in China and supervises the therapists at Breakthrough Interventions in South Africa. Her most recent project is starting Potential Health, LLC—a hemp line that offers various products to children with autism and their caretakers to help with sleep and relieve the stress of day-to-day living. Dr. Nuñez has been featured in the Huffington Post, San Francisco Chronicle, NPR, ABC, CBS, NBC, FOX News, Forbes, The Jenny McCarthy Show, and The Today Show.

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