The following are suggestions to assist with making different activities at home and in the classrooms more manageable.

• Break down the task or activity: when getting a child to do something at home or at school, simplify the task you need to do. Only give part of the instruction, or make the child only complete the easiest part of a task. This makes the task more manageable and minimises the stress in an activity.

• Make sure that you finish one task before you move onto the next task. This way confusion is minimised and the child is not left confused with having to follow through with different levels of instructions.

• Don’t overload a child with multiple instructions: use one specific instruction at a time.

• If a specific task or activity is difficult, talk through the stages of the task and discuss what steps need to be taken to complete the task. Alternatively, you can work through the activity or task together with your child, taking one step at a time.

• When doing different activities, try to at all times use the natural setting to practice ie. the time and place that you would usually be doing an activity anyway, rather than setting aside a separate time to doing skill work. This way, stress is reduced for you and your child and “extra work” time is not needed.

If your child is having ongoing issues with this please speak to your Occupational Therapist, Speech Therapist or Psychologist who can assist you with different ideas to approach the challenges.

Written by Alannah Sofianos – Occupational Therapist for De Silva Kids Clinic