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Tips - From Behaviour to Toileting
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Topics: Behaviour
Glasses
Play Ideas
Speech & Language
Toileting Tips
Reward Chart Adaption Ideas
Have 3 or 4 photos of reward activities printed on the right hand side of a piece of paper. Leading up to each reward have 3 or 4 circles or boxes. Each time your child is behaving in the desired manner, let them put a sticker on the chart towards a treat of their choice. When they've achieved all the stickers in a row they get their reward. This is particularly useful if you wanted the good behaviour to be going on throughout the day as they dont have to wait so long for the reward, and the incentive is there to persevere.
Laminate Sticker Reward Charts
If you laminate reward sticker charts, you can just peel off the stickers at the end of the day and your chart is ready to go again for the next day.
Reward Charts for Younger Children
Try enlarging a picture of a favourite activity and cutting it up into 3, 4 or maybe 6 pieces. A piece of the puzzle can be given each time they are good. When all of the pieces are in place they get their reward.
Second Pair
I would recommend when you go back to hospital for a check up is to ask for another voucher for a second pair of glasses. I made the argument that while we were trying to establish him wearing glasses, if he broke them we would be back to square one while they were being mended.
Techniques for getting your child to wear glasses
I'm not sure if there is a perfect age at which your child has to start wearing glasses, but somehow I feel three years old isn't the easiest! It took us six months to get our son to wear his glasses most of the time. We had taken the eye hospital at its word when the doctor said - dont worry too much to begin with, just encourage him to wear them. A few months later they began to get more insistent with us that he really needed to wear them to ge the benefit of early diagnosis. In the end, after trying out strategies that Supernanny would have been proud of, it came down to simple bribery! He was allowed to watch his favourite programme if he wore his glasses. As soon as he took them off the television went off. Once this had some success, we extended it to watching anything on television required him to wear his glasses. What would then happen was that he'd go off and play, forgetting he was wearing his glasses. We then built up getting him to wear his glasses for other activities with very little protest. The last thing was getting him to wear them out of the house. He still has days when he doesn't want to wear them. I try to remain firm, but avoid a big scene if he refused to put them on. If he remains adamant that he's not going to wear them, I put them away and try half an hour later.
Paint the Garden
You'll need a brush (the bigger the better) and a bucket of water. Send them outside to paint the fence, wooden garden furniture or even the patio, infact anything that changes colour with water. Great for visually orientated children. For more adventurous families, teach them how to make patterns by flicking the brush, or have competitions to see whose water drop will roll down the slide the fastest.
Playdoh - Make Your Own
Just 2 cups of flour, 1 cup of salt, 1 cup of water (put a drop of food colouring in the water before mixing it if required) and a splash of oil makes fabulous soft playdoh. It is easy for children to make themselves, and I find it is softer than the shop-bought variety so it is easy for little fingers to manipulate. Keep it in the fridge in an air-tight container to make it last longer. Get them to add lentils, grains of rice or seeds to vary the texture. You can even put in drops of lavender oil or something similar to vary the sensory experience.
Audiobooks
Our SLT recommended my son listen to AudioCDs to help him become exposed to new vocabulary. For reluctant or unconfident readers it is a good technique to expand their vocabulary.
Blow to let go!
I have heard other parents mention that their children do not like going to the toilet and will “hold on to it” rather than do it whilst sitting on the loo. A great tip that we learned is to make sure your child is seated comfortably with their feet resting on a step then give them a whistle to blow. Any blowing instrument will do, we even invested in a saxaphone! When pushing out of one end it is actually extremely difficult for a child to hold anything in the other end. You may even end up with a budding musician into the bargain!
Getting them to sit on the toilet
I used a magic toy box! I selected some new washable toys from gimmick shops and normal toy stores. My son was ONLY allowed to play with them when he were sitting on the toilet. There was no pressure in that he didn't need to produce anything, he just had to sit there. For the first time he actually wanted to sit there. The important thing to remember is that the 'magic' is in the fact that they do not play with these toys in any other situation or else they loose interest in them. I used items like washable bath books and colourful slinkys as well as sensory squeezy balls that light up. In fact anything that could be washed. I spent about £25, which to me was well worth it, but in retrospect, I could have borrowed some old sensory toys off friends which would have been new to him.
Give the boys something to aim for
My son is easily distracted and by giving him a target to aim for made concentrating on what he was doing much more interesting for him. Ping Pong balls work, but as they need to be fished out eventually (and preferrably not by your child who thinks they've found a new toy!), we opted for the cereal Cheerios which flushes away.