Manner #1: Proper Posture

 

 

We are working on Table Manners at our house.  I'm making a sign for each "manner" we work on and hanging them near the table.  Here is the first sign, front and back, for using proper posture at the table!

 

Teaching Kids to Play: Solitary Play

 

Solitary play is when a child is engaged in an independent activity, showing no interest in joining or interacting with other children. For example, a child is in a room of children, sitting alone and stacking blocks.

"Babies usually like to spend much of their time playing on their own. They are exploring all aspects of their environment from the sound of their own voice and the feel of their own body parts to those of others. They want to gaze upon, grab, suck and rattle any object that comes their way.

Older children at times will also prefer to play on their own. They may spend hours making up stories with their GI Joes or Barbie Dolls. They like to build, draw, paint, invent and explore by themselves. They hopefully will also like to read and even write on their own."

http://childdevelopmentinfo.com/child-development/play-work-of-children/pl3

We generally think of the solitary play stage as something infants/young children engage in, but there are important skills learned in this stage that older children and even adults need in order to function in a school, work, and social environment. As children get older they are expected to complete more activities independently or to play quietly by themselves while an adult is working on something or while waiting for an appointment. The older a child gets the longer the period of time they are expected to focus and work independently.  If your child missed this important stage of play or is struggling with some of the skills learned in this area, it will be extremely important to go back and teach them how to do solitary play.

Benefits of Solitary Play:
One of the benefits of solitary play is that it leads to more self-confidence for your child. The child is able to have control over something and be successful. Children will also learn to focus on an activity, occupy themselves and use their imagination to keep themselves interested.  Their ability to work independently will be increased as well as their skills in the area of thought process.

Evaluating Solitary Play Skills:
When evaluating whether your child has mastered solitary play you will want to look at how long will child play with a given toy independently before reverting to Unoccupied play or getting bored and moving on.  Does your child get easily frustrated wit cause and effect, problem solving, or decision making tasks/activities/toys and what is there response to frustration?  Do they move on, have increased anxiety, become aggressive, immediately request assistance or persevere till they are able to accomplish the goal?

Goals for Solitary Play:
Once you know where your child is at with Solitary Play you can determine appropriate goals for your child, such as:
Increase focus and attention to one toy/task
Increase Independence at play
Increase Exploration of environment
Increased skills in the thought process – problem-solving, remembering, focus, and decision-making.
Increased Imagination Skills-  if this is an area your child struggles with they will need direct instruction with an adult before able to successfully master this during Solitary Play (This will be addressed in Teaching Kids To Play: Pretend/Imaginative Play)

Toy Ideas:
Cause and Effect Toys
Montessori Toys
Stacking Toys
High Interest Toys for your child


TEACHING/PRACTICING SOLITARY PLAY:

In order to teach solitary play you will want to set up an area that your child is to stay in, pick a toy they may be interested in (Cause and Effect Toys, Montessori Toys work well).  I try and pick an area that is relatively free from other distractions.

To increase ability to focus on toy or independence while playing:  Once you have a baseline (average length of time child can concentrate on toy) you will want to try and increase it by increments that your child will be successful at, this could mean 10 seconds longer, it could mean 2 minutes longer.  You want your child to be successful at the increase a few times before pushing them to go longer.  For us, our goal is to engage in solitary play for 15 minutes, we currently are at about 10 minutes.  I set a timer for 12 minutes and explain that child can have a treat if they can play with this toy in this spot for 12 minutes alone.  We set some rules:  You have to stay on carpet, you can only play with this toy, you can talk to yourself or imaginary friends but no one else unless you have an emergency (review situations that constitute an emergency).  For some children you may need to provide a reinforcer (treat, song, etc.) every time they look at the toy and increase from there.  Wherever your child is at is fine, start there. 

To increase exploration of environment:  If your goal is to get your child to explore the environment around them, setting up an I Spy type game is a great way to do this.  Books such as Where's Waldo and I Spy encourage this during solitary play.  Another idea is to give your child a list of things to find on his own in the house, a scavenger hunt.  If they have trouble with this start small and help them at first trying to fade out for longer and longer periods till they are able to do it on their own.

To increase skills in thought-process, problem solving skills:  This is an area where some of the Montessori toys are really great for working with during solitary play.  Don't be afraid to start out with some basic toys designed for younger kids; things like stacking toys.  We have this Snowman Stacking Toy from Melissa and Doug, its great because it doesn't seem like a "baby" toy!  They have lots of other similar toys and puzzles that would be great.  Anything that will require your child to use some thinking to do can work in this area!

Teaching Kids to Play: Unoccupied Play

Unoccupied Play is not seen much past the infancy stage in typical developing children.  The child is uninterested in toys or exploring their surrounding.  They tend to stay in one place and make seemingly random gestures or movements. For an infant or young child these gestures and movements are an attempt to interact with and learn about the environment.  Older children who may be stuck in the Unoccupied Play stage are sometimes referred to as "stimming", relatively common for kids with autism, neurological or developmental disabilities.  Children who have suffered trauma and as a result have PTSD or have other mental health issues may appear to be in Unoccupied Play when they dissociate from reality.

It can be difficult to interact with children who are engaging in unoccupied play or stimming/dissociative behaviors.  If your child is engaging in unoccupied play behaviors after the infancy stage you will first want to figure out the underlying reason.  Many children use these behaviors to manage anxiety, fear, anger, and other negative emotions or help themselves handle overwhelming sensory input (too much noise, light, heat, etc).   If you can identify the cause of the unoccupied play behavior it will be easier to choose what strategies to try and keep them actively engaged in play.

Here are some things you can try to move past unoccupied play behaviors:

Play music in background

Provide environment with different colors and patterns

Provide toys with different textures

Singing Songs

Use sing-song voice when talking to child

Use expressive and excited voice tones

Provide positive reinforcement for interacting with toys/others

Provide positive reinforcement for making eye contact

Begin teaching the specific skills needed for Solitary Play
Re-direct child to toy

If you have difficulty getting your child out of the Unoccupied Play stage you may need additional assistance from OT (Occupational Therapist) or ABA (Applied Behavior Analyst).

Teaching Kids to Play: Stages of Play Overview

One of the first things I noticed when my boys first came to me was the lack of ability to "play".  They didn't know what to do with toys other than crash them into each other or bang and throw them. They obsessed with bad guys and beating bad guys, but not in an imaginative cops and robbers way, just a focus on hitting toys against each other. They were not able to follow rules, share or wait their turn.   There was no imagination, making up scenarios and stories and cooperatively playing with other peers did not come naturally.  If I had a chance to do that first year over again I would have focused on direct instruction of play.   They didn't pick up on these play skills naturally and never caught up, as I thought they would, by watching and imitating peers play.  We had bigger fish to fry at the time, or so I thought, and it wasn't something I thought I could really deal with then on top of everything else, nor did I realize the importance of play skills in other development areas.  The thing is,  now that I've spent a lot of time looking into teaching kids to play, it is not something that would be difficult to incorporate into your daily routine!  Hopefully this series will help you identify the play skills your child may have missed or be having difficulty with and give you some great ideas to help them succeed in play!



 

STAGES OF PLAY

 

In 1932, Mildred Parten categorized the stages of play for children that we still use today. Those stages are Onlooker, Solitary, Parallel, Associative, and Cooperative Play. We will be looking at each of these stages over the next few weeks in more detail, but read through the brief descriptions and began looking for where your child might fit in, what stage are they at?  You may find that your child completely skipped one of the stages in their development or never mastered a particular skill within an area of play.

 

Unoccupied: In this stage a child may observe others playing, but not join in. They may make seemingly random movements or gestures.  For example, an infant may look around a room and reach out their hand, but not engage in play.

 

Solitary:  Solitary play is when a child is engaged in an independent activity, showing no interest in joining or interacting with other children. For example, a child is in a room of children, sitting alone and stacking blocks.

 

Onlooker: During onlooker behavior a child may watch others play but not join in, differing from unoccupied play in that the children may engage in forms of social interaction like having a conversation with the children playing.  For example, a child walks up to a group playing with legos and talks with them about what they are building but does not join in and play with the legos.

 

Parallel: In parallel play, children may play next to each other, possibly even with similar toys.  They may interact but the focus is on their own individual play.  For example, two children may be sitting next to each other driving trucks.  They may even comment to the other child what they are doing, "My truck is digging a hole."

 

Associative: This stage involves children sharing and interacting with each other, but they utilize separate storylines and themes.  For example, children may be coloring next to each other and sharing crayons, but create individual artwork and tell different stories about their picture. The interactions are more reciprocal than in parallel play, with the conversation going back and forth and the child asking questions or commenting on the other child's play.

 

Cooperative:  This stage of play is highly complex, as it combines skills learned from previous stages in order for children to participate in organized, goal oriented play.  This stage involves children sharing materials, working together to develop and assign roles and storylines to coordinate and play together.  For example, children may gather together pretend food and carts, set up a grocery store and check out area, assign roles of shopper and cashier and carry out a storyline of purchasing food and checking out.

 

 

 

List of Topics in "Teach Kids to Play" Series:
(As each topic is covered I will link up to it here)
 

 

Unoccupied Play

Solitary Play

Onlooker Play

Parallel Play

Associative Play

Cooperative Play

How to set up a Direct Instruction Play Session
Joint Attention
Communication
Resources
What is "Play Therapy" and how is this different?

 

 

 





Calm Down Corner and Command Center

As I am mentally preparing to head back up the mountain with my middle son James, I spent the week making a "Calm Down Corner".  There were a few reasons behind having this corner.  First, I'm trying to develop a positive parenting approach with James to help with his underlying attachment issues.  Spending so much time focusing on everything he is doing wrong and being upset with him is not helping either of us with bonding and increasing self image.  We had been using the typical "Time-Out" with him, but it never resulted in any changed behavior.  Instead his anxiety increased exponentially and it turned into a battle of wills.  If I am trying to teach him to change his behavior I need to focus on his anxiety first.  Then we can focus on the actual behavior. Which brings me to the calm down corner.  We are working on a variety of strategies he can use when he gets upset or anxious.  I have placed these in the calm down corner with the hope that he will be reminded to utilize these skills to get himself back under control.  Once everyone has calmed down then we can discuss the behavior, what he can do differently next time, and then coming up with a way to repair any damage to relationships he may have done.

Here is the "Calm Down" Corner side.  It is located on the landing of our stair case.  This wall contains the calm down strategies and the other wall is out "Command Center".

 

 We are working with James on identifying emotions and picking up on emotional social cues.  I put this emotions poster in the corner so he can point out what he is feeling throughout the day.  Above the Emotions Poster is our House Rules which are Be Kind, Be Respectful, and Be Safe.  No matter what they are doing wrong I relate it to one of these rules.  For example if they are jumping on the couch I say, "That is not safe".  By focusing on these three words I believe we have seen a lot more understanding from my younger boys.  Less Talking equals More Listening :)

Here are larger print outs of the Relaxation Books I have talked about previously.  There are eight relaxation techniques that are kid friendly.  James really likes the Lemon one where you pretend to squeeze lemons with your hands for ten seconds.  Next to that I have a print out of a rose/candle to practice deep breathing.  I have the boys pretend to smell a flower through their nose and then blow out the candle through their mouth when we are "breathing".  Behind that is a printable to keep track of taking 5 breaths in the shape of a star.  I cant find the link for that one, but will add it if I come across it again!

Here are a smaller version of the relaxation cards that we can grab and take with us outside or to the store.

This is our calm down box, inside we have a few books about being angry, some I Spy books and a few little other things I will show you in the next few pictures.

We have a few glitter bottles that you can shake up and watch the glitter.

Here are balloons that have been filled with Play-Dough.  We drew sad and mad faces on them.  They can be squeezed like stress balls.  So far they are a favorite in the corner.

This was just a dollar store lacing activity.


COMMAND CENTER:

The other wall has our command center, basically everything important goes over here!

We have a weekly verse that the boys can memorize for a prize and a Character Trait that we are working on this week.  I will emphasize this trait throughout the week, giving out high 5's or stickers when I se someone demonstrating it!

 Our bulletin board has the weekly menu's and calendar of appointments.  I also have an individual behavior sheet that is used when someone is working on something individually.  Underneath the board we have what we are praying for this week, I have six categories (Family, School, Church, Friends, Country, Other Countries).  We rotate pictures and pray for different people in each category.  The "Friends" Category includes not only neighborhood/school friends but I have also laminated pictures and descriptions of kids we have received from Compassion International, so we will pray for them as well.  The Blue Schedule on the side was something I had picked up from the dollar store.  I keep James and Joel's afternoon schedule there since that is when we have the most issues.  It includes picture cards for the activities.  The white board above is Matthew's board.  It lists his chore for the day on the top.  Then there is a checklist for morning and a checklist for afternoon things that need to be done.  This has really helped, instead of me nagging him about making his lunch or putting away his coat, I just ask him if he's completed the list!  Its helped eliminate some control battles as it is no loner me telling him what to do.

Relaxation Books

We have been working with James on Deep Breathing and Relaxation. I avoided this as long as possible, as I was pretty much in denial that we were walking down this attachment road again.  I kept telling myself it was JUST ADHD, not attachment issues.  I feel like I just climbed over a huge mountain dealing with these same things with Matthew and we were finally down the mountain walking on flat land.  Just as you think the journey is getting easy another mountain comes into view.  There is a lot of mental preparation you have to go through to make another journey over the mountain.  You cant turn around cause you've got a mountain behind you, so your only option is to go over.   Ive been living the last few months on the flat land of the mountain trying to avoid the climb.  At some point you know you have to climb that mountain to ever get on with your journey.  I guess you could say Ive accepted it at this point and am gearing up for the next few years of teaching basic social skills and family values.  Given that I've already done (am doing) this with Matthew I have a lot of tools and no what to expect.  However I'm always looking for new strategies!  I found this great blog with tons of ideas.  My favorite was the relaxation books.  I made one and have been working with the boys on practicing these skills. 

Jaw: Chew That Carrot
Now, pretend that you are trying to eat a giant, hard carrot. It is very hard to chew. Bite down on it. As hard as you can. We want to turn that carrot into mush! Keep biting. (Hold for 10 seconds). Good. Now relax. You’ve eaten the carrot. Let yourself go as loose as you can.

CHECK THEM ALL OUT AT:
http://www.kimscounselingcorner.com/2012/06/18/fun-and-easy-to-make-relaxation-flip-books/

This totally inspired me to finally put together our "Calm Down Corner"!  Im almost finished and will share pics with you soon :)

Empathy: Part 2

Teaching Empathy:  Identifying Feelings

 

What struck me in the above definition of "empathy" was the last part 'without having the feelings fully communicated in an objectively explicit manner."  OH how are kids struggle with this, picking up social cues might as well be rocket science. 

 

When Matthew first came to us we quickly entered the wonderful world of traditional talk therapy, and well I didn't feel we really accomplished much in regards to his attachment and trauma issues, the one thing that each therapist we worked with focused on was identifying feelings.  This was SO essential for Matthew.  The ONLY feeling he knew and understood was MAD!!  Anytime feelings were discussed he would say he was MAD.  In reality all that MAD was really covering up the actual feelings; sadness, frustration, disappointment, guilt and so many more.  In order for our kids to understand the feelings of others they have to first understand and recognize their own feelings!  I realize that this is much easier said then done.  As a former Special Education teacher I had worked with a lot of children who needed direct instruction in recognizing feelings.  I treated recognizing feelings as a skill just like learning your addition facts. AND just like trying to teach addition facts to kids, you HAVE to make it fun!

 

One of the things Matthew's therapist had was a poster like this:

 

 

 

 He LOVED this poster, so we used it often in many ways :)  I think the silly faces helped him at first, it made it less "real" and more of a game.  We had the poster up in our living room area and in his room.  We would often look at it and point out what we were feeling.  This gradually got us away from "MAD" being the only feeling and it greatly expanded his "feeling" vocabulary.  Many times he was just picking random faces he thought were funny, that was perfectly okay!  Remember the goal right now is to just understand different feelings.  Whatever, he picked we would talk about!  Eventually I began to make him explain why he was feeling that way and he began reflecting more accurate feelings. 

Once he was getting good at identifying his feelings with the faces we began taking pictures of him or collecting pictures from the internet of different feelings to make it more 'real' when identifying feelings.  We played matching games with the funny cartoon pictures and real pictures, we identified situations and what feelings he might feel, we practiced making faces on demand (I would call out a feeling and he would make the face and vice-versa).  It became a fun time for us and made feelings less scary. We talked about feelings ALL. THE. TIME.  I would identify my feelings ALL. THE. TIME.  I would point out feelings on TV shows, movies, friends, etc.  ALL. THE. TIME.

At this point it was just about identifying feelings, what the feelings are, feelings vocabulary, identifying feeling faces in others and himself.  It was not about empathy or how to react to others feelings yet, he had to have the knowledge first!

 

Next Blog Post we will begin to address making the transition between identifying feelings and applying that knowledge!

 

 

Empathy: Part 1

 

 

Empathy is something that I often hear fellow trauma mommas struggle with in their children.  We envision our child running to help a sibling who has fallen and skinned their knee or comforting a friend who has been bullied on the playground.  It can be incredibly daunting to instead have a child kick the family dog, to have them call you vicious names, or to sneak out of their room in the middle of the night to be sexually inappropriate with a sibling.  You do what you have to do in your house to create safety, door alarms, line of sight supervision, safety plans, you never thought you would be living like this!  But in a way what is worse than all of that is when you sit down with your child to discuss these behaviors and you are met with a blank stare, a laugh, or a "Can I go watch TV now?"  It can leave you feeling hopeless, what will this child grow up to be, will I someday see him on the news at the center of some horrible event, will they  blame me and say I didn't do enough help my child.  I want to offer you some hope over the next few posts, encourage you to keep going, keep teaching, keep modeling empathy. 


This quote by Oprah Winfrey couldn't be a more perfect representation of the potential our children have for empathy, Our children who suffer with the lasting effect of traumas so horrible and despicable so early in their young lives.  Who better understands pain, abandonment, and disappointment than our children?  Its no surprise that when our children come to us they have no empathy!  Nobody cried for them when they were molested.  Nobody tended to their bruises after they were beat.  No one offered to split their sandwich with them when they had been starved.   Our children missed that window of opportunity in their development to pick up on empathy naturally from their environment, we must now teach it to them directly just like we would teach math or reading. 

According to this article empathy development begins in the womb!  Now throw in a birthmother who drank, did drugs, or neglected her and the baby's health during this time and its just one more reason our kids were set up to fail.  Our kids come to us often significantly behind in many areas, but where they really lack is in emotional development.  Our kids do not understand their own emotions, and they can't recognize emotions in other people if they cant recognize emotions in themselves.  In the next few days I will tell you our story and journey to developing empathy, but until then let me leave you with  picture of my oldest who ran upstairs to get his brother a band aid this week.  Melts. my. heart.

PART 2
PART 3
RESOURCES