This is the day I share a tip based upon my experience as a pediatric speech-language pathologist and a mother of a child with special needs.
Today's tip is:
How much extra help is enough at home?
Being a parent makes life busy. If you are a parent of a child with developmental delays and/or a disability, life is even busier. Therapy is a big part of a child and a parent's life when these delays are present.
When Jaycee was 2 months old, I started her in home early intervention therapies, specifically physical therapy or occupational therapy. Before she turned 3 years old, she had 4 different therapists addressing all areas of development because she was globally delayed.
These therapists were extremely helpful. Part of their job was to give me ideas to help Jaycee at home. If you have 4 people giving you ideas every week, then you might understand why I felt overwhelmed at times during those toddler years. While they did their job well, I felt I HAD to do home practice with Jaycee or else I was a bad mother. I also felt her progress or lack thereof was a direct result of what I was doing with her at home. I pressured myself to run her through exercises even when she clearly did not want to participate. It was extremely hard finding a balance between helping Jaycee with her developmental needs and not feeling crazed by the home activities that I felt needed to be done.
Now that Jaycee is 11, I have a better perspective. Our life does not center around therapy appointments and home intervention practices. I look back on those early years and regret many things I did. I let therapy take over. While my help at home most likely did help her achieve some skills, I hated doing home therapy most of the time. Looking back, I can see too that some things we were trying to work on were just too hard. She needed more brain maturation and time not more repetition and practice.
While I am past those critical early years with my daughter, my job as a pediatric speech-language pathologist means that I am still in a position of offering families ideas to build skills with their toddler at home. Many parents question me about how they can help their child.
Here are some things I tell these parents in our on-going discussions on helping at home:
-How much home intervention by parents is enough?
Every parent and family is different. Some parents like to focus on specific tasks throughout the day. For instance, they may focus on getting their child to say "drink" whenever the child is thirsty. Another example would be going over a few body parts at bath time during the week. Some parents like this idea of spreading out the home interventions throughout the day in natural routines. That is how the birth-three program is designed to help parents.
Still, other parents like to block off times to "work" with their child. This is what I always preferred with Jaycee. I set aside 20-30 minutes a day working on various tasks. I made a chart (I know I'm strange) marking what I would do for the 5 blocks of time a week. One day would be a sensory activity, another would be gross motor, another would be a signing/language activity, etc. It is not to say that I ignored Jaycee the rest of the day. I merely liked having our home therapy time together and then scratching it off our list of things to do. I did not like spreading things out all day. It didn't work for my brain.
Deciding what is enough is difficult. It really depends on your child. Speaking as a parent, if home intervention is causing lots of stress, then it's time to reconsider what you are doing.
-Can we have days off?
Yes!! Everyone needs a day off! Please take a day off from therapy and just enjoy your child. You are probably doing things to help them throughout the day that you aren't aware of. So, even on your days off I am sure there is something you are doing to help your child in a natural way.
Near the end of my daughter's birth-three program experience, she sometimes had two, 1 hour therapy sessions in a day. On these days, I did nothing specific to "work" with her. I imagined she had enough therapy already and didn't need me to do even more.
-You mentioned that I am helping my child naturally without really trying. What do you mean by this?
There are many ways parents build language naturally with a toddler. Many parents just instinctively do these things. Here are just a few examples:
-Peek-a-boo and patty cake are social games that we often play with toddlers. This encourages social interaction and imitation, which are important components of language development.
-Nursery songs are also commonly sang to babies and toddlers. Songs like "Wheels on the Bus" or "Itsy Bitsy Spider" are great for language because they are repetitive, encourage vocalization, and also encourage imitation as we look for the toddler to mimic the motions we do.
-Simply playing with your child is another good way to help them. When you play with them, you are modeling words and showing them how to play with toys. This encourages them to imitate what you are doing and saying.
-If you are talking to your child, you are modeling language. The main way a young toddler learns language is by hearing it from another person. If you are speaking to your child, then you are helping them understand new words and hopefully (and eventually) say those words.
-Giving your child directions is a way to target receptive language (the understanding of language). By telling your child to 'come here,' 'give it to me,' 'get your cup,' 'give me five,' 'give me a kiss,' you are checking your child's understanding of language via simple directions.
-Books are also things that parents often naturally do. Reading books encourages the child to look at pictures, build vocabulary, and attend to an activity that requires listening.
Finding a balance between therapy needs and home life can be difficult, especially if your child has more than 1 area of delay. It is important to find that balance to maintain healthy relationships among family members and to decrease stress that may arise. I hope that I have showed you that approaching therapy can look differently from one home to the next. If you are needing help finding this balance or for some better strategies to integrate activities into your daily routine, please ask your child's therapist.
These therapists were extremely helpful. Part of their job was to give me ideas to help Jaycee at home. If you have 4 people giving you ideas every week, then you might understand why I felt overwhelmed at times during those toddler years. While they did their job well, I felt I HAD to do home practice with Jaycee or else I was a bad mother. I also felt her progress or lack thereof was a direct result of what I was doing with her at home. I pressured myself to run her through exercises even when she clearly did not want to participate. It was extremely hard finding a balance between helping Jaycee with her developmental needs and not feeling crazed by the home activities that I felt needed to be done.
Now that Jaycee is 11, I have a better perspective. Our life does not center around therapy appointments and home intervention practices. I look back on those early years and regret many things I did. I let therapy take over. While my help at home most likely did help her achieve some skills, I hated doing home therapy most of the time. Looking back, I can see too that some things we were trying to work on were just too hard. She needed more brain maturation and time not more repetition and practice.
While I am past those critical early years with my daughter, my job as a pediatric speech-language pathologist means that I am still in a position of offering families ideas to build skills with their toddler at home. Many parents question me about how they can help their child.
Here are some things I tell these parents in our on-going discussions on helping at home:
-How much home intervention by parents is enough?
Every parent and family is different. Some parents like to focus on specific tasks throughout the day. For instance, they may focus on getting their child to say "drink" whenever the child is thirsty. Another example would be going over a few body parts at bath time during the week. Some parents like this idea of spreading out the home interventions throughout the day in natural routines. That is how the birth-three program is designed to help parents.
Still, other parents like to block off times to "work" with their child. This is what I always preferred with Jaycee. I set aside 20-30 minutes a day working on various tasks. I made a chart (I know I'm strange) marking what I would do for the 5 blocks of time a week. One day would be a sensory activity, another would be gross motor, another would be a signing/language activity, etc. It is not to say that I ignored Jaycee the rest of the day. I merely liked having our home therapy time together and then scratching it off our list of things to do. I did not like spreading things out all day. It didn't work for my brain.
Deciding what is enough is difficult. It really depends on your child. Speaking as a parent, if home intervention is causing lots of stress, then it's time to reconsider what you are doing.
-Can we have days off?
Yes!! Everyone needs a day off! Please take a day off from therapy and just enjoy your child. You are probably doing things to help them throughout the day that you aren't aware of. So, even on your days off I am sure there is something you are doing to help your child in a natural way.
Near the end of my daughter's birth-three program experience, she sometimes had two, 1 hour therapy sessions in a day. On these days, I did nothing specific to "work" with her. I imagined she had enough therapy already and didn't need me to do even more.
There are many ways parents build language naturally with a toddler. Many parents just instinctively do these things. Here are just a few examples:
-Peek-a-boo and patty cake are social games that we often play with toddlers. This encourages social interaction and imitation, which are important components of language development.
-Nursery songs are also commonly sang to babies and toddlers. Songs like "Wheels on the Bus" or "Itsy Bitsy Spider" are great for language because they are repetitive, encourage vocalization, and also encourage imitation as we look for the toddler to mimic the motions we do.
-Simply playing with your child is another good way to help them. When you play with them, you are modeling words and showing them how to play with toys. This encourages them to imitate what you are doing and saying.
-If you are talking to your child, you are modeling language. The main way a young toddler learns language is by hearing it from another person. If you are speaking to your child, then you are helping them understand new words and hopefully (and eventually) say those words.
-Giving your child directions is a way to target receptive language (the understanding of language). By telling your child to 'come here,' 'give it to me,' 'get your cup,' 'give me five,' 'give me a kiss,' you are checking your child's understanding of language via simple directions.
-Books are also things that parents often naturally do. Reading books encourages the child to look at pictures, build vocabulary, and attend to an activity that requires listening.
Finding a balance between therapy needs and home life can be difficult, especially if your child has more than 1 area of delay. It is important to find that balance to maintain healthy relationships among family members and to decrease stress that may arise. I hope that I have showed you that approaching therapy can look differently from one home to the next. If you are needing help finding this balance or for some better strategies to integrate activities into your daily routine, please ask your child's therapist.
Therapy Thursday is for educational purposes only and not intended as therapeutic advice.
Thank you so much for sharing over at the T21 blog hop, these are some great tips, and how wonderful that you are a therapist too!
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