29th September 2021, Parent-Carer Group

Here's an overview of this week's parent-carer group session...

This Wednesday our parent carer group focused our discussion as to how we can help to identify and relieve anxiety in children with Special Educational Needs.

We welcomed George, a #Thrive Children and Young Person’s Wellbeing Practitioner, who presented a workshop, providing lots of information and useful hints and tips. This session gave our parent-carers the opportunity to talk about their personal experiences in recognising and supporting anxiety in their child/children.

George gave us some great advice as to how we can aim to relieve children’s distress, such as

Bubble Blowing

Support your child to blow bubbles (from a bubble tube/wand) to create calming long outward breaths, which will not only serve to relax them when in crisis but will also provide a welcomed distraction.

Finger breathing.

If children are unable to do this for themselves, you can do the finger tracing for them. In addition to providing them with an opportunity to meditate and feel calm, they may also like the touch sensation that this activity provides. Here’s an example tutorial, but remember, this can be led by you and completed anywhere and anytime, whenever your child needs.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DSgOW879jjA

Progressive Muscle Relaxation

Our learners would no doubt enjoy copying some of these techniques and this activity can also be great to do with play dough too, follow the video below for some guidance.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cDKyRpW-Yuc

Recommended book list:

The Huge Bag of Worries

Overcoming your child’s fear and worries

Parent-carers also shared their ‘tried and tested’ approaches with one another, sharing situations and solutions.

I also suggested that our parent-carers take a look at the Chatta app as the boards that can be created will most certainly relieve anxiety in our learners, for example, they can be created using your own personal photographs and are therefore relevant to you, boards can be made for every situation such as bath time, bedtime, doctors’ visits, bus trips, etc.

Some parents also raised their own anxieties about how they’re feeling in regard to supporting their children who are in the onset of puberty, this is something which I will now research and aim to gain information to enhance the support that our parent-carers receive.

Thanks for attending, see you next week.

Carole

Springside School Family Support Worker