The proprioceptive system involves the input to muscles and joints. Kids who need more input to feel calm or know where their bodies are in space may seek out rough and tumble play or be climbers. If you find your child doing some of these kinds of activities, they may be seeking to stimulate their proprioceptive system.
Here are some appropriate proprioceptive activities. Help guide your child to a better suited activity if you feel they are seeking to stimulate their muscles and joints.
Using your own body weight is a great and safe way to stimulate joints and muscles. Push-ups and crawling are two easy activities. Kids can do push-ups on the floor, on a wall, or off a table top. Include some fun incentives or come up with games to make the push-ups more fun. Crawling can be done on all fours, like a crab, backwards, forwards, or make up your own game. A peanut ball can provide a combination of push-ups and crawling. Have your child push themselves back and forth across the peanut ball to offer a crawling like feeling and push-ups. This will also strengthen their core muscles. Peanut balls come in a few sizes, so be sure to get one that isn’t too tall/large for your child.
Resistance Activities such as pushing and pulling objects offer different kinds of joint and muscle movements. But together, they offer the joint compressions talked about in the Wilbarger Protocol Bushing technique. Vacuuming, mopping, and raking leaves are good for older kids. Pushing and pulling a medicine slam ball across the floor or pushing their body on a scooter board while either sitting or laying on their belly are great activities for smaller children. Make up games by tying jump ropes to a bag or rice and pulling it across a “lava pit” or push a “pot of gold” (basket of canned goods) to the rainbow across the room. Be creative!
Heavy lifting activities can easily turn into chores around the house. Carrying in the groceries, taking out the trash, moving the clothes from the wash to the dryer, pushing a wheelbarrow, shoving snow, and carrying a medicine ball are all easy to implement. Want to change things around in your house? Have your kiddos help carry those heavy books to the other room. Involve them even if you think they can’t do something, they may get creative or just be stronger than you think. And they will greatly enjoy spending time with you, helping, and working their muscles and joints.
Anything involving running and jumping provide good cardiovascular strength. Play a game of tag, make up a reason to run a race, create hopscotch on your floor using painters tape, teach them how to jump rope. This is where toys like foam pogo jumper, trampoline, skip ball, and a jumping horse all come into play. Cardiovascular activities are easy to create on the fly and better when more kids are involved.
Some kids really receive a lot of calming sensations by biting and chewing on things, working their jaw muscles and joints. If you notice your kiddo chewing on their sleeves, pencils, or other things, replace the item with a kid safe chew necklace. These come in all shapes to mimic fun toys or look like a necklace the child might wear, making it not seem like a baby toy.
For older kids, try different kinds of gum or sucking on sugar free cough drops. Silly straws provide lots of heavy oral activity, especially if they are using them to suck up a smoothie. Blowing bubbles with these Super Miracle Bubbles provide a different oral stimulation. And one of my favorites, the Magic Blowing Pipe floating ball toy and the Alligator Eye Pops toy are my kiddos absolute go to’s. This not only provides oral muscle stimulation, but also works eye convergence, timing strategies, and lung strength. Another added bonus is this will help them get that deep breathing in they may be refusing to do.
Deep pressure can be extremely calming for kids. They feel a sense of security, their body knows where it is in space, their muscles can finally relax, and it feels good on their joints. Tight hugs are the number one way to provide this. Just be sure you help your kiddos to let you know when it becomes TOO much, because that can actually over stimulate their senses and cause stress and anxiety….starting the cycle all over again. An activity we use is taking the peanut ball and rolling it with force and pressure over their body while they are laying on the floor. Also, my kiddos like to lay on their stomachs while we hit them with a soft pillow. Find the areas they like best, for example, Whitney likes the backs of her legs best. Play a rough and tumble game with them where you ‘squish’ them on the floor. Pile pillows and cushions on top of them, provide a small space for them to sit in while crunched up, or get out that weighted blanket and give a deep pressure massage. Sensory Socks are great for kids who like the deep pressure, but don’t like the weight of the weighted blanket. They can completely cover their heads and body, or have their heads stick out but feel the compression of the sock.
The best solution I found for Wes looks so weird, but has worked amazingly. This basket has provided the most comfortable, relaxing, soothing environment for him and he will sit in it for hours. Because I use it for blanket storage, we asked if we could “go to the basket store” and buy him in own. Boy was that a trip…we got lots of weird looks while trying out each basket at Home Goods…but whatever works!!
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