Therapy Hacks for Kids

Door creaks as I enter to wake up the eldest for school.  Being able to get her off into the shower is always such a sweet victory.

Off to room number two where our boy is wiggling under his covers, clearly playing some game with his stuffies.

“Hey bud, time to get up.”  Out pops his head with wacky grin and a big, “Surprise!”  Already dressed – this should help make the morning relatively smooth.

With things humming along I pop into the shower knowing that hubby has breakfast covered.

Once ready, down the stairs I trot, sports radio blaring as expected, daughter pushing her food around on her plate with a “yuck face”, also as expected, and brother slowly trying to finish his water.  Greetings to the breakfast maker as he hands me a slice of bacon and offers me some eggs.

“NOOOOOOOOOO.”

A flood of tears, body convulsions.

What in the world?

You would think something precious just died.

But no, turns out, I ate the last piece of bacon.

And the world as we know it is over.

Unfortunately, this type of reaction in our household has not been uncommon.  As an adoptive family with kids facing childhood trauma and a variety of mental, behavioral and developmental challenges, we are constantly at work relieving, treating and healing mental and emotional ailments – doing therapy.

It is reported that 1 out of 7 children ages 2-8 have a diagnosed mental, behavioral, or developmental disorder in the United States. Move that age up to 17 years of age and we see the current diagnosis breaking down like this:

• Attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) (6.8%)
• Behavioral or conduct problems (3.5%)
• Anxiety (3.0%)
• Depression (2.1%)
• Autism spectrum disorder (1.1%)
• Tourette syndrome (0.2%) (among children aged 6–17 years)

(read more about this study here)

This doesn’t even identify things like Sensory Processing, Speech and Motor Skill delays, Reading and Learning Disabilities, etc.

Therapy- social and emotional learning programs – are, in my opinion, essential for all people.  We are not just talking about treating current conditions and challenges, we are talking about prevention. Extensive research (check it out here) reveals that teaching children life skills—the kind you might learn in therapy—in advance of their needing them can help prevent mental, emotional and behavioral disorders.

Powerful stuff.

But what do you do when you have kids who have been so involved in therapy, they can smell an exercise, a program, a tactic, a therapist, a mile away?

3 THERAPY HACKS WE USE WITH OUR KIDS

 

HACK #1

A highly beneficial approach in addressing ADHD is Yoga. In fact at least two randomized controlled trials have found evidence that yoga is a potential alternative ADHD treat, according to a 2013 review published in Frontiers in Psychiatry (see more here).

Yoga, with its controlled movements and breathing, can bring a sense of focus, confidence and calmness to those practicing it.  A sense of wellbeing, anxiety reduction, and even an increase of attention span can be associated with this mindfulness approach.

But mention Yoga to my kids and they run in the opposite direction.  Even the cute animal poses don’t fool them.

 

Our yoga hack – “SPIDEY SENSE”

Here’s how it works:

Laying out our exercise mat (yep, a yoga mat), we test how strong our super power senses are by:

Hearing – hand raised, closed eyes, I tap our Tibetan Singing Bowl (or play a chime on an App), we listen and when we can no longer hear a sound we lower our hand.  We do this a few times and often there is a little “competition” factor going on.  The need for silence in order to hear, the stillness of the body and slow breathing are a perfect beginning to practice focus and concentration.

Touch – we have a collection of rocks, we each pick one, close our eyes and rub it for a short period of time, we open our eyes and talk about what we felt.  Then we switch the rocks around and do it again.  The focus on touch, desire to remember details to be able to report back, and slow movements to capture the best descriptions help a grounding process bringing us to the here and now.  Great for calming big emotions.

Smell – with a few different candles available, we choose one, take a big inhale and quietly share what we smell and what it makes us think of.  We trade and take another turn.  Nice deep breaths are key here, bringing oxygen to the brain and important neural pathways allowing the brain to relax and enter a new state of alertness.

Body – stretching and holding poses to highlight our super muscles is what this is all about.  Basically, yoga.  By this time the kids are less resistant to doing these kinds of activities, they even enjoy picking out a card from our Yoga Pretzels deck.  Bringing balance to the body and finding our centers again strengthens the grounding process for the mind and body.

HACK #2

During emotional stress our nervous system can get accelerated affecting all sorts of physical responses. Racing heart rate, rapid shallow breathing, stress on a variety of systems in the body.  If this happens over a longer period of time, becomes a “normal state”, this imbalance can deteriorate our physical health in numerous ways, including our mental health.

Deep breathing is the best and most effective way of calming the nervous system.  It is easy, portable and a natural pain reliever.

Yet, mention this to my kids, and the already heightened emotional state becomes a volcano.  They insist this doesn’t work for them, resist any encouragement to breath from deeper than the chest, and work themselves into a frenzy.

Preventative approaches, like cute games with a picture of a candle or hot chocolate, meant to practice belly breathing are scoffed at.  Pinwheels and bubbles in our calm down box, tossed aside.  Ugh.

 

Enter our deep breathing hack – STRAWS

We love those Build Your Own Straw kits.  In the height of an “episode”, taking the time to build a straw in order to have a drink of water, coupled with the kind of breathing used when manipulating said straw, well it’s magic in our house.  Bringing balance to the autonomic nervous system, relaxing the brain, and calming the part of the brain controlling impulsivity – these things are priceless.

In terms of preventative approach, playing games like Minute to Win It’s “Suck It Up”, using straws to suck up the air to pick up marshmallows, candies, etc., and transfer them to another container, make deep breathing practice fun.

In short, we use straws (and hidden deep breathing work) to help our kids relieve stress, have better brain function, be more attentive, relax their anxieties, and practice better judgement.  Over time, we have seen them become less easily frustrated and more relaxed. Life skills baby!

HACK #3

Sight, smell, hearing, taste and touch – the 5 senses.  Did you know there are two other senses that can affect motor skills, and often impact what we might perceive as behavioral challenges? One is the vestibular sense, controlling balance and movement. The other is the proprioceptive sense, and it manages body awareness.  These senses tell us where our body is in space and what each body part is doing.

Kids with sensory processing issues can have barriers with these senses and may need help getting them to function in more typical ways.  If a young one’s proprioceptive sense is impaired they might seek (or avoid) certain sensory input in their own attempt to “balance” the system, which might look like running around the room and crashing into people or things. Um, danger Will Robinson!

Heavy work activities are ways that occupation therapists help individuals get the appropriate and safe input their body needs to function in a more organized way.  Activities that push or pull against the body can help kids feel centered and grounded.

Animal walks, wall pushes, yoga (not again) are some of the arsenal of heavy work therapy, and my kids are no dummies.

While resistance is helpful in heavy work, my kid’s stubbornness isn’t.

 

Time for our heavy work hack – CLIMBING

Our eldest scared and impressed me the first time I saw her on a climbing wall.  Because she is typically apprehensive, cautious, timid, I was very surprised to hear her rave about the experience.  She said she loved it because it’s “like a puzzle I have to figure out while hanging there”.

The push and pull, stretch and reach, strength and grip that come from climbing activities – be it wall, rock, tree or other – is the best heavy work for our kids, and they don’t even know it!  In addition to the calming, organizing, centering, regulating and grounding benefits, climbing is re-wiring our kid’s brains and the best therapeutic activity we have come across.

M the amazing climber

A with Dad

 

What therapeutic “hacks” are you using or in need of?