Holidays – Keep Those Kids Busy

Most children are used to relatively structured days and activities during the school term, at pre-school or school, and can be left a little lost during the holidays. Holidays do tend to set off the “I’m bored” in kids and leave mums frazzled and annoyed.

Avoiding this frustration is as simple as organising a minimum of one structured or semi-structured activity per day. Depending on the age or dependence of your children, will depend on your level of involvement; if you’d like them happily and safely occupied whilst you attend to something you need to, make sure you structure in activities they can do mostly unsupervised as well.

Activities may include:

• Craft - cutting and pasting, painting, drawing, playdough;
• Chalk drawings - either on a footpath, garage floor or the side of the house;
• Building a cubbyhouse using sheets, blankets and the furniture;
• Bug and insect catching;
• Set up a game, challenge or obstacle course (indoor or outdoor); and
• Research - have the kids research a topic or subject they’re interested in.

Other activities that keep the kids busy and wear them out include bike rides along a specific route or excursions – particularly if you can use public transport, as this makes the day just a little more exciting for them. Or how about exploring the neighbourhood on bike or foot?

If it helps, set up a timetable of activities similar to that of a school holiday program. Get the kids involved and help you set up the program. The structure will help lessen the school holiday chaos and the kids will have no reason to be bored.

Crafts That ASD Kids Will Love

Little hands like to be kept busy and craft activities are a timeless winner with kids of all ages and stages of development.

Craft projects allow for children to experience and experiment with different textures and colours, to plan and produce something of their choice and to tweak and adjust their masterpieces to suit their own taste and preferences.

If your child is uncomfortable with the sensation of sticky paint or paste try different combinations of gloves. Often soft cotton gloves worn inside of disposable latex ones will be easier to tolerate than latex gloves alone, and this will reduce discomfort of any sensitivities they may have to crafting materials too.

Encourage your child to feel different textures and try a variety of crafting methods, but keep them well within their comfort zone, otherwise their creative juices are likely to dry up before you even get started.

Work in a well ventilated area to minimize the odours of glues, etc, although bear in mind that any breeze will blow paper, glitter and any other light items around which can quickly become very frustrating.

HANDS in Autism have a wonderful range of craft and activity projects specifically designed with ASD kids in mind and each of the steps are easy for both adult and child to follow. They also provide some handy templates for How To Charts and all of their ideas leave room for adjustment to your child’s particular needs.

We stock Squeeze Scissors, Animal Finger Crayons and several other Art and Craft items that make great additions to your child’s craft kit. These items are all easy to use and help to personalise the crafting experience for your child.