Overwhelmed: A Child’s Safe Space

Written by Deb Hopper

Published in

Navigating through the day as a child can be an exhilarating, yet daunting process. There is the fun and joy of play, friends and family. There is also the challenge of meeting new people, the social challenges of interaction with play, the environmental challenge of coping with noise, lights and movement at preschool or school or at the supermarkets. Just as adults, if the challenges outweigh our capacity, children can experience stress and overwhelm.
The signs of overwhelm are exhibited differently between different children but may include:

• needing to take control of situations that may be seen as being bossy or dominant in play
• meltdowns and crying
• ‘behavioural’ issues, whining, clinginess or oppositional behaviour.

These signs or clues that your child may be overwhelmed may be shown more at home, at school or both. Many children can ‘hold it together’ at preschool or school, but once safe at home, they feel safe and their emotions overflow.
Other children find the preschool/school environment overwhelming and their stress cues/signs are more pronounced at school. Either way, it’s important to be a detective and notice the signs of overwhelm and once identified, put a plan of reducing this stress before it escalates.
It is also important to be aware that overwhelm may come from a combination of at least 2 sources. Mental or emotional overwhelm – feeling that the demands of a task are way too difficult, or sensory overwhelm – with factors of the environment being too much to handle. Examples of sensory overwhelm might include too much noise, glare or too much light, not liking the feeling of touch of some objects such as tags in shirts, seams in socks or messy glue.
How to create a safe space when your child is overwhelmed.
When a child shows signs of overwhelm, it’s important to provide a safe place. This might be a physically safe space, or it may be simply verbal acknowledgement that it looks as if things are difficult.
Five top ways to reduce overwhelm for a child may include:
1. Create a physical space in a corner of a room at home or in the classroom such as a small tent. A safe space could include cushions, fidget toys, favourite books, a bean bag half-filled so they can nestle in and feel safe, a heavy blanket, calm music and fairy lights or oil timers or oil toys. This can be called the safe space, or create a fun name for it that your child owns.
2. Have a conversation about the reason why they may feel overwhelmed. Tell them you want to help them, but that you need some clues as to why they feel this way and then tell them you can help think of some ways to make things easier.
3. Use a visual chart such as the Just Right Kids Technique Model (see link below) to help kids map and point out how they are feeling. A visual map helps them to identify how they feel and having them being able to communicate about this, can relieve some stress and worry.
4. Give them verbal permission that if they are feeling sad, overwhelmed, angry or mad that they can come and tell you, or that they can take themselves straight to the safe place.
5. Empower your child or the children you work with to know that having feelings and emotion, including being overwhelmed is normal, but that there are ways that we can help change how we feel, including using a safe space as in point 1 above.
As parents, carers and teachers, we tune in to the needs of the children in our life. However, sometimes we can become a little disconnected or busy and not notice the cues of overwhelm. Creating a sensory safe space is one strategy that can be used to help children cope with overwhelm. Teaching a child to have more independence in knowing their emotions and experimenting with strategies to reduce stress, is a great life skill that will be well used through to adult hood.
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Download this article to print easily here:Deb Hopper Overwhelmed-A-Childs-Safe-Space
Deb Hopper… Occupational Therapist, author, workshop presenter. Deb is passionate about empowering parents and educators to understand the underlying reasons of why children struggle with behaviour, self-esteem and sensory processing difficulties. A practicing Occupational Therapist, she understands the daily struggles that children, parents and teachers face.
Deb is the co-author of the CD Sensory Songs for Tots, and author of Reducing Meltdowns and Improving Concentration: The Just Right Kids Technique. The Just Right Kids Technique Model can be downloaded at: http://www.lifeskills4kids.com.au/just-right-kids-model/
You can contact Deb on 02 6555 9877. She is available for clinic and phone/ Skype consultations.

Learning with Games at Home

Written by Deb Hopper

Published in

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Children naturally love to play games. Play is the ‘occupation’ of children and is how they learn the best. Even though this comes naturally for children, in the past few years TV and other screens (tablet/phone games) have stolen large portions of time previously spent on play and learning activities.
Sometimes these games and activities, requiring active participation by the child, are thought of as being ‘boring’ or even too challenging as they do require a little more concentration and social interaction for children than the immediate feedback that screen play gives.
How do we encourage children to get back to basics and ‘play’ in a super duper fun way? Here are five fun games to try. Encourage their use as they will improve learning and social skills giving you and your child some special
time together.
1.   Create an obstacle course.
This can be tailored to any age and can be inside, on a deck, veranda or outside. The process of creating the obstacle course develops the skills of ‘ideation’ or coming up with new ideas or variations
on general and spatial planning. So many children struggle to come up with new ideas these days and having to create something from scratch encourages their imagination and creativity. Also, making up a course with
pillows, chairs or tables inside or planks of wood, rope or chairs outside encourages the use of our gross motor strength or coordination.
2.   Pictionary is a great game for encouraging turn taking, creativity and communication.
It can be fun yet very challenging for some children who find writing or drawing difficult. This gives some assistance and breaking down the task can be helpful and supportive.
3.   Pulleys.
Rigging up some pulleys and rope in the back yard, over a tree branch, or off a deck is guaranteed endless fun and problem solving. Children just love hooking up buckets of sand, water or food to pull into the cubby house or onto the deck. Let them go for it and then come out with morning tea that they need to figure out how to ‘hoist’ it over a ‘river’ into the cubby house.
4.   Papier Mache.
This is a great multi-sensory craft for making fun and creative structures, such as a piñata with contents inside that can then be dried, painted and then used at a party. Tearing the paper encourages fine
motor manipulation skills, dipping into glue and sticking is a very sensory task and painting and decorating is just fun and creative.
5.   Crafts and origami. 
Craft and origami are fun ways of having some time with your children, as well as time where they can be set up for more independent play while you get dinner. Set it up on the island bench or dinner table so you can chat to your children while they do the crafts and to be a resource when they need help. These are great for refining cutting, drawing, pencil grip and fine motor manipulation skills. Origami is also fantastic for creating logic and problem solving difficulties and for following written instructions for older children. Children learn the most when they are relaxed and having fun which involved less ‘in screen’ time. Keep things simple, aim for cheap, reusable and recyclable materials and encourage them to let their imaginations go wild!