My Child Is Not A Chocolate Chip Cookie (Part 3 Of 3: Your Strategies — An Overview)
My Child Is Not a Chocolate Chip Cookie Why we can’t take a “cookie cutter” approach to SPD therapy: every child is different and needs a different strategy
Your goal and process (a short review)
In the previous two posts we discussed why we need so many different approaches to SPD therapy, and how you can go about finding the particular strategies that will help your unique child achieve his/her “ideally balanced” emotional state and flourish.
A brief overview of Sensory Integration strategies
Here is a quick look at the different categories of calming and alerting activities you can engage in together with your child, as well as ways you can adapt his or her environment. We will examine them in much more detail in upcoming posts.
Calming activities
- Gentle, slow rocking or swinging
- Massage, deep pressure, compression or hugs
- Breathing activities
- Mouth comforts such as sucking or chewing, drinking through a straw
- Heavy work for the body such as wearing a weighted backpack, playing with push-and-pull toys and games, squeezing a foam ball, etc.
- Therapeutic body brushing
- Lowering your voice
- Retreating to a quiet, comfortable space (a calming environment).
Alerting activities
- Any movement activities that engage your child and “wake the body up”
- Jumping
- Swinging
- Bouncing
- Fast rocking
- Exercising
- Stacking objects
- Playing on a playground
- Going into a stimulating space (an alerting environment)
Alerting environment
Take your child into a well-lit room with bright colors and interesting visuals on the walls. Introduce plenty of engaging toys and games. Put on music with a fast beat. Eat sour or spicy foods.
Regularly engage your child in enjoyable, sensory-stimulating activities to help him or her stay in the “ideally balanced” emotional state and not withdraw.
Other strategies
We will explore many other regulating techniques such as:
- Using stories to give your child perspective about a situation and how to manage it
- Redirection
- Easing transitions
- Play, movement, art, and music therapy
- Hands-on sensory activities (using finger paints, shaving cream, play dough, etc.)
- Making sensory-based snacks
- Teaching your child how to increase self-awareness of his/her emotional state and learn to self-regulate
- Integrating a “sensory diet” (which is a group of activities) into your child’s daily play in order to supply the sensory input s/he needs in order to maintain the “ideally balanced” state
- Regularly engage your child in enjoyable, sensory-stimulating activities to help him or her stay in the “ideally balanced” emotional state and not withdraw.
Looking ahead:
In upcoming posts, we will thoroughly analyze the various techniques, activities, and tools you will build up in your backpack of strategies to help regulate the different calming and alerting needs of your sensory children.
Are there techniques you are particularly interested in exploring? Please share your thoughts in the comments section below. Also, let me know there or via email what topics you would like to discuss or hear more about.
Feel free to share or quote from this blog (with attribution, please, and if possible, a link), and to repost on social media.
I look forward to hearing from you!
All the best,