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Monday
Sep192016

Choosing Therapeutic Activities

 

In my practice, I am always connecting with other professionals who offer services that my clients may also need.  In a recent conversation with one of these professionals, a wonderful occupational therapist that I often refer appropriate cases to, she happened to bring up a question she often hears from parents: are there activities I should be doing with my child that will enhance the therapeutic process?  In this world of overscheduled children, it is often difficult for parents to narrow down the activities with which they should get their children involved.  This leads to a desire to “kill two birds with one stone” and focus energy on activities that will be enjoyable but may also work on issues that the child is facing.  This discussion with the occupational therapist caused me to take a deeper look into what other activities could be used to help kids work on the issues that bring them to my office.

For my colleague, her answers are straightforward.  Any activities that involve fine or gross motor skills and offer sensory input are great.  If you have a child with fine motor issues, enroll them in piano, guitar, art class or rock climbing, for example.  All of these activities require the use of pressure and muscles within your hands and strengthen those things.  For balance issues, yoga, gymnastics, karate or dance might be a good recommendation.  But what can I offer as suggestions to parents whose kids have ADHD, social anxiety or poor self-esteem? I began to look at what skills I was trying to build and what activity would help build those same skills.

So if your child has social anxiety or low self-esteem, you would be looking for an activity that builds confidence and allows them to build comfort with being part of groups and builds leadership skills.  Girl or Boy Scouts seem like a great way to achieve these things.  Volunteering is also great for this.  Look for opportunities for your child to become a part of the community at large.  Work at a soup kitchen or food drive. 

If your child has ADHD, you will likely be looking for activities that promote working memory and executive functioning skills.  In order to accommodate their need for stimulation and activity, you might steer your child toward active things that are more solitary in nature such as running or swimming.  As an added bonus, you could involve them in things that are active but involve strategy such as fencing or rock climbing.  Activities that require thinking ahead or anticipating an opponent’s next move will help them train their brain to slow down and organize information.  Chess is a fantastic game for these kids.

Instead of just signing our kids up for whatever activities in which they express an interest, given the limitations on everyone’s time these days, I think it is smart to think about how an activity might help them learn the life skills they need in a fun and natural way.  Instead of having to fight with them to practice skill building activities that seem like work, they can be building the same skills in a way that they enjoy.  While this doesn’t replace the need for therapeutic intervention, it certainly could lessen the time that is required and build skills that could grow with your child throughout their lives.   Using these methods can help you incorporate these interventions into your child’s activities in a more time efficient and enjoyable manner. 

References (6)

References allow you to track sources for this article, as well as articles that were written in response to this article.
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    I think the social anxiety of a child can be reduced by letting the child speak out his feelings. I was an introverted child and now I provide Help With Dissertation Proposals to students after knowing their requirements and all. So; you can figure out a change in me and that ...
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    Mental therapy needs mental healing plus physical activities. I remember a few years back I was struggling with my Business Management Dissertation Topics; I couldn’t find any help nor was I able to submit them on time; this gave me so much stress but my therapist told me to do some ...
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    Only is a story which you have shared with us which You have faced in an office or other place of your country but I think Noone will take interest in reading your story due to low quality of your content.

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