Tips for Keeping Your Young Child With a Disability Busy During COVID-19
Well, it’s official. Most states have closed schools for the rest of the year due to coronavirus. Some of us have child care of some sort, but most of us do not. And most of us haven’t had the chance to be with our child for such a long uninterrupted time (aka 24/7) since our kiddos were teeny tiny. And even if we have been, well, there just aren’t as many places to take your children as there were before.
So what the heck do we even do with them? How can we fill their day enough to satisfy them, without us going wild, or having to watch “Frozen” 1 and 2 on repeat 742,000 times? I’ll start this mini-series by providing activities we can do indoors with our children, since unfortunately, the weather hasn’t been great everywhere. Some of us still have snow, some places it is too cold, or in other places, it is just too rainy (for us, one day it is rainy, the next it is cold, then it just repeats. What does the weather think it is, shampoo?).
For those of us who have children with disabilities, it can be tough to find indoor activities they are physically or cognitively able to do. Or they may not have the attention span to engage in and/or complete each project. Or, certain projects may be triggering to them. My goal here is to provide an extensive list of activities that children can do. Some activities do require more cognitive or physical abilities. However, there is something (and hopefully more than one something) for every child on this list. So go! Enjoy!
Easy and Not Too Messy Art Project
First, there are the typical art projects. Our go-to activities on rainy days:
- Paint.
- Play with stickers (our youngest likes to sticker his whole body. Or sticker us. Why not?).
- Draw/color.
- Play with Play-Doh.
- Build with modeling clay.
- Finger paint (super easy to clean up with wipes. I promise!).
- Make macaroni or Cheerio necklaces.
Then there are easy and fun art projects we don’t always think about, such as:
- Make bath bombs (pretty easy, even without a kit).
Here’s a basic recipe! - Trace your hands and body and using that to color or draw.
- Color in the bath with bath crayons.
- Make sock puppets.
- Make a crown and decorate it.
- Have your child paint your nails (hey, no one will see it!).
- Use pipe cleaners to make people and animals.
- Use a muffin pan to sort objects (ok, not quite art, but isn’t art in the eye of the beholder? Maybe?).
- Paint using a cotton ball instead of a paintbrush.
- Make musical instruments out of found objects in the home.
For those active kids, you can:
- Draw a town on a cardboard box and use it with other toys.
- Make race tracks on a cardboard box and use them to race cars.
What about acting? That is considered a form of art!
- Make shadow puppets.
- Put on a play.
- Do puppet shows.
Let’s Get Physical
Art is all nice and good, but we parents can get art-ed out. And a lot of our young kids need to be on the move! But how, when they are cooped up inside?
- Obstacle courses! Kids love them! You can easily make them using chairs and pillows and toys or balls, and using masking tape! Super easy and the kids will play with them forever!
- Pretend the floor is lava. Blow up a balloon and don’t let it touch the floor!
- Or try to keep multiple balloons up in the air!
- Play follow the leader (the leader could even convince tiny people to stay quiet or clean up! Yippee!).
- Dance party! They can even pick the music, which will help keep them invested in the game.
- Scavenger hunts in the house (a good way to get things cleaned up or find lost toys).
- Copy dancing. Each person has to copy the dance move of the leader.
- Simon says.
- Balloon volleyball!
- Bean bag toss (you can even make your own with rice or dried beans in a sandwich bag).
- Freeze dance.
- Have your child play golf using a fly swatter instead of a club.
- Parent horseback riding (only if you are physically well enough to have a rambunctious child on your back…)
Getting Those Sensory Needs Met
What about active and fun sensory activities? Try:
- Play with balloons
- Have balloon fights
- Make and play with slime (messy, I know. But sometimes, this is necessary)
- Make oobleck (this stuff is amazing. Even adults love it! Just don’t play with it on the carpet!)
- Animal races (such as waddling like a duck, slithering like a snake, or hopping like a frog)
- Tug-of-war.
- Tickle fights!
- Tickle chase (chase them around the house while tickling them).
- Bowling in the hallways with a ball and empty water bottles.
- Playing catch with stuffed animals.
- Building with blocks.
- Floor race tracks! Use masking tape on the floor to create huge race tracks for the kiddos and have them use their toy vehicles to race.
- Play ping-pong with balloons.
All right, we just got those kids totally amped up. How can we calm them down a peg, enough to take a nap or go to bed?
- Use a meditation app such as Calm or Headspace. They actually have meditations for kids under 5, and my 4-year-old loves them!
- Yoga (kids loooove yoga!).
- Popping bubble wrap (sometimes you don’t even have to go buy any, as they come in boxes that may arrive in the mail).
- Balloon blow (have them try to blow their balloons across the whole room).
- Do a scavenger hunt in the dark with flashlights (requires heavy supervision, though).
- Make a pom pom drop. Tape up some empty toilet paper or paper towel rolls on the back of a door. Give your child different-sized pom poms and let them drop the pom poms through the roll and have them land in a bucket placed beneath the rolls.
- Make and play with sensory bottles (water, glitter, maybe oil, and anything else you want to include).
Anything Else?
I have some other goodies for you. If you are just done with the homeschooling (because, come on, no young child sits still for their parents and does actual work. If they do, man, you have a unicorn child!)
- Making silly faces. Cracks the little ones up every time.
- Lots of reading!
- Virtual field trips are amazing!
Aquarium Field Trips
Google Arts and Culture 360 Degree Videos
Baltimore National Aquarium – Jelly Cam
Zoo Webcams
Tennessee Aquarium – secret reef cam
Rhenen Netherlands Polar bear cubs
New England Aquarium First Friday Archive
Friends of Big Bear Valley – bear and eagle cams
Wildlife World Zoo & Aquarium – Aspiring Zoo Keepers
Museums Young Children Might Enjoy
National Museum of Modern & Contemporary Art Seoul
National Museum of the US Air Force Ohio
Smithsonian Air & Space Museum DC
Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History DC
Smithsonian National Postal Museum DC
Parks
Everglade National Park Florida
Yellowstone National Park Wyoming
National Park Air Quality Webcams across US National Parks
National Park Watching Animal Cams – Bear, Ocean & Eagle
The Best National Parks Webcam list
Another Best National Parks List
Other Awesome Online Resources
Virtual Field Trips pulled together by Mrs. Fahrney
Hopefully, this is enough to get you started. I know each child with disabilities has different interests and abilities, and hopefully, each child is able to engage in at least some of these!
For more on the coronavirus, check out the following stories from our autism community:
- I’m Autistic and This CDC Equation Says My Life Is Less Valuable If I Get COVID-19
- One Reason the COVID-19 Pandemic Might Be Extra Challenging for Autistic Adults
- What to Do When Your Child on the Autism Spectrum’s Routine Is Disrupted by the Coronavirus
- 5 Reasons to Try Telehealth Services for Your Autistic Child During the COVID-19 Pandemic
This story originally appeared on Midst of Chaos.
Getty image by Jovanmandic.
Jessica Temple, PsyD, ABPP-CN, is a board-certified adult clinical neuropsychologist. She has two children who have special needs. She and her husband, Lewis, host a podcast called Thriving in The Midst of Chaos (fubarpod.libsyn.com). On this show, they talk about all aspects of special need, including getting a diagnosis and treatment, self-care, relationships, transitioning to adulthood, school, and finances. They created the Thriving in The Midst of Chaos podcast to offer support to others in the special needs world as well as to provide an easy way to find the most useful resources. They aim to share helpful resources with others, advocate for improvement and change in the special needs world, and offer a different perspective on parenting in the special needs community. To find out more about how Jessica's work can help you, contact her at: fubarpod@gmail.com or @midstofchaospod on all social media platforms.
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