I have seen the promised land of therapy rooms.
I have visited these amazing basements equipped with swings, trampolines, a trapeze and quiet tent spaces. Rooms filled with sensory balls and body socks and noise canceling headphones. I have stood in the doorways of these spaces but have never crossed in.
Because it’s not my house. Thou shall not covet thy neighbor’s therapy room.
I’ll admit it. I’m envious of what they have.
I want that. How different our lives could be if we only had…all that.
This popped into my head at our most recent IEP meeting for my 4 year old son Howie. Every morning when he gets to preschool, his amazing aide takes him immediately to the school’s OT room. Each day they assess what he needs at that moment. Maybe it’s time in the swing. Maybe it’s the trampoline. Or maybe it’s just quiet time doing a puzzle. After 10 or 15 minutes in the room, he has built up his sensory inputs enough to be able to make it through the morning routine. And if needed, he takes more sensory breaks during the day.
While this works for him now, the time that he’s in the OT room takes away from his time in his preschool inclusion classroom, and he misses some of the daily routine. The conversation around the IEP meeting table turned to kindergarten, where this type of “before school OT time” might not be as possible.
My husband spoke up. “What if we did some of the sensory input work at home before he goes to school? Would that get him ready for the day?” The teachers were all in agreement that this was a wonderful idea.
It sent me into a panic. How on earth could we do any of that at home? With my two other sons around? And with what equipment? And where?
As I spiraled into “No, we can’t” land, my husband decided “Yes, we can.”
Can you say role reversal? I think you can.
My husband took it upon himself to spend a morning with my son and his aide to watch their routine in the OT room. He observed the teacher as she walked Howie across a balance beam. He took notes while Howie lifted coffee cans filled with beans over his head 10 times before he jumped on the trampoline.
And he came home with a plan.
On the mornings when my husband is home, he takes fifteen minutes to do “exercises” with my son after my older son gets on the bus. First, they lift three pound weights together over their heads. Next, they do “X-Jumps” together: My son jumps in the air and makes his body into an “X” while my husband holds him up there.
Then, they do “Heavy Howie”. My son stands on a bathroom scale as my husband gently pushes down on his shoulders, giving him deep pressure input. My son giggles in delight as my husband shouts out the numbers on the scale as they get higher and higher.
Finally, my husband holds the scale up against the wall, and Howie pushes as hard, working his muscles and getting him ready for the day.
And then he drives him to preschool.
The results so far have been pretty good. On most of the days when he does his exercises at home, he doesn’t need all the heavy work and sensory inputs at school to start his day.
Here I was thinking we had nothing in the house that could help him. My husband took the things that we already had, and turned them into our own personal therapy equipment.
Sigh. Can I share something with you?
While I am so grateful that we’ve found something , the problem is my son will only do these exercises with my husband. While he goes to me for everything else, this is theirs alone. On the days when my husband can’t be home in the morning, Howie gets nothing before school. Nothing. I know I help my son in so many other ways. And I know I am so lucky to have a partner who understands what his kid needs and wants to help.
But now I stand in the doorway in my own house, looking in as my son and husband have their time together. I am envious of this new relationship they have. They took the “Yes, I can!” attitude and turned it into a special activity that gets immediate results. And I…I still flounder in the “No, we can’t”.
Envy. No wonder it’s one of the seven deadly sins. I want what they have.
I’m sure in time my son will let me participate too. But until then, I’ll have to remember that he’s getting what he needs from his dad – the other most important person in his life. And that is the most important goal of all.
“You can’t always get what you want
You can’t always get what you want
You can’t always get what you want
But if you try sometimes well you just might find
You get what you need” – You Can’t Always Get What You Want by The Rolling Stones
Comments
Joyce
What a fabulous idea – the scales, I try to get my lad to do more of pushing against the wall, but he gets bored with that. That scale idea is ingenius. Thanks so much for that.
I understand the other part of this post. I too would love to have the normal issues of schooling but instead we deal with sensory issues. But on the flip side we celebrate the smaller parts of his learning.
love your posts and writing.
Joyce
Alysia
Thank you Joyce! That’s so nice of you. The scale idea works out so well – helps with number recognition and heavy work. Definitely give it a try!
And I am totally with you about celebrating the other parts of his learning. The days when he gets through w/o extra sensory breaks is a huge celebration for us!
Brenda (mamabegood)
I love that your husband came up with these! Loan him out?! No? *pssst* a secret … with my son? we both have to find our own games we do with him. Yeah, I know.
Alysia
wait…who said I wouldn’t loan him out?
and I’m working on finding my own thing with my son. I’m the hugger, my husband’s the fun one. I guess I can live with that
lanahowell
I’m praying everyday my husband will get on board with helping like this. What a blessing for your family… but I totally get how you feel.
Alysia
Thank you. do you know what helped? two things – having my husband go in and see what the teachers were doing in school (without me there) AND having him come up with this on his own. Without input from me. I played no part in all of this, and it made it something special for the two of them, and something beneficial for the two of them.
Moms and Dads interact differently and respond differently to their kids, so it had to be all my husband. That’s how it worked.
Heather
I love those ideas!!! Kuddos to your husband for getting involved! My husband is helpful, but mostly with what I ask him to do. We have asked for some therapy equipment for holidays and bdays. We have also purchased some ourselves. The mini-tramp is the biggest thing, but the child size exercise ball isn’t too bad to store and was pretty cheap! I like the isokinetics version of the disc-o-sit junior. Small things, not too expensive. We don’t own an indoor swing (we have a small hand-me-down, “jungle gym” outside). These things are helping, especially with homework!
Diane
Love these ideas!! We so badly need Dad’s to take a more active role plus the have the physical strength to make the activities give so much more sensory input!!
Alysia
you’re so right! I lack the strength that he has, so I can’t do what he can. There’s a definite difference there.
Martianne
I loved this post and sent it to my husband. My son really likes the x jumps. Thx!
Alysia
You’re welcome Martianne! That’s SO cool that your son is doing the x-jumps too!!
MarfMom
I’m bookmarking this post in my therapy folder! How to fill my son’s sensory needs at home has been a worry for me. Right now he’s 2, so he has another 10 months with an IFSP, which means 10 months of the county paying for him to go to a special sensory program. Once he turns 3 though, we’re on our own; the school won’t cover it I’ve been told. I look through these sensory catalogs online and I, too, think man, if only we had a house and lots of money…I’d create a whole sensory room for M and he could go in there whenever he needed! But, we don’t have either of those things. The scale idea is genius and would totally take the place of the trampoline our OT was suggesting. A lot less expensive and takes up almost no room!
Also, my son has separate activities for my husband and me to help him with too. I do all his squishes (joint compressions) and my husband does bed time and wrestling types of activities. Sometimes I think my son likes his dad more and I’m jealous too, but I try to appreciate that their activities give me a bit of a break/time to spend with our new baby, and I’m grateful my husband is involved with M’s therapies because I know not all dads are.
Alysia
You all are giving my husband a big head!
The scale is genius, and portable, which makes it even more awesome. We can take our show on the road! We also lost our private OT therapy once our son turned three, so we’ve been doing everything through the school as much as they’ll allow. We’ve written the need for sensory breaks into his IEP, so they know to take him out to do this. But we had to do it at home too. And Dad knew just want to do 
Thanks for the comment!!
Melody
Oh what a wonderful blessing! I soooooo want to build a sensory area in my basement, but I never thought “outside the box” to create the sensory input from what we already have. I’m going to have to REALLLY work on this. Thank you so much for this post!
Danica
WOW!! Way to work with what you have. GO Dad!
I understand how you feel about seeing other peoples therapy rooms and such. I am guilty of this as well….
Nancy Peske
Wow, great piece! Thank you for sharing this. So often, dads feel left out of the whole “therapy” thing, and start to doubt whether this “SPD stuff” is real. My own husband swears that empowering Dads to do something simple and concrete that makes a big difference for their kids really helps guys get past that denial and resistance. And this is a perfect example of how small and simple sensory diet activities can be!
jenn
Does he like that deep pressure input type of stuff? I was just thinking, my son used to love it when we’d make “Ryan Sandwiches”… that’s just taking the sofa cushions off and having him lie down between two of the bottom ones, then press down. Basically you just lie down on top of the top cushion, pressing down with all your body weight (but it’s all distributed.) Or you could get a big therapy ball and roll it all over him. I don’t know, there’s probably lots of stuff like that!
Dawn
This is wonderful, Alysia… the scale is brilliant!!! And you, my friend, are truly blessed in so many ways… those moments between a boy and his dad are a beautiful gift for your whole family. Pure love. You’re right, you have your own ways with him and now so does your husband – what a lucky little guy
Amy
You’ve inspired me!! They are forcing my son to go to kindergarten next year or lose a lot of his services. He is in no way ready at age 4 so I have decided to home school him and see how that goes. I’m hoping they will still let him keep is IEP, instead of the ISP if we don’t do kindergarten. But even if his services are cut, I think it would be worthwhile to pay out of pocket to get an SPD trained OT to help with a routine for him. Thank you!!!
Laura
Wow! Those are great ideas! I’m going to try some of that with Julia. How long do you do each activity? 1 minute, 3 minutes, 5? How do you know how much is enough, and how much is too much?
Thanks!
Alysia
We do it not by time but by amount. So 20 X-jumps, 10 times on the scale, etc. It will be different for each kid, depending on what she needs. and we increase it as time goes on. Give it a try and show your OT. Once she sees what you want to do, she may have suggestions for how much of each.
Kimberly
This is us too!!! Our son and I have so many great shared experiences and bonding moments that are just ours but my husband totally takes the cake on the ot exercises at home. They have these games that they play, “Pillow Fight” and “Monkey Taps”, and more but I’ve never once participated, I don’t know it’s just kind of their thing. They’re definitely physical boy games anyways. Often times I wish I shared that with him but I try to be grateful that my husband has taken the lead on this and just figured it all out. He did all the research and all the work. Some of the things he uses a LOT at home are a trampoline with a net around it filled with different colors and sizes of balls (cheap – from craigslist), a lycra swing in his bedroom (homemade), a trapeze from the ceiling (a couple misc pieces that were lying around the garage), a weighted blanket (made by grandma), and 3 different sensory buckets each filled with beans or etc and with a few little bright colored beads or buttons hidden in them. It works for us!
Kay
This is a fascinating article, and really inspiring. Thank you for sharing such great ideas.
Megan
Love, love this idea. We love a couple yards of bathing suit fabric that we bought at fabric store to swing in while he was younger and I could still pick him up now we go on rides across our hardwood floors:)
Sari
Alysia, thank you for sharing this. I already have some families in mind to share your scale activity and morning routine. I find that dad’s often feel out of the loop, your son and husband story is great! Maybe you can benefit from this recent blog I wrote for families EXACTLY like you that want much needed sensory input in their homes: http://www.kidzoccupationaltherapy.com/2011/10/12/in-home-sensory-items-you-can-create-or-find-on-the-cheap-2/
Patsy
What a great dad he is! I’m all for using what we have at home, too. When I first learned about SPD I was worried because we couldn’t afford all that sensory equipment. But watching what my son wanted to do anyway helped me realise what we had to work with. Eg our sofa cushions make great crash pads for proprioceptive input – and carrying them around to build ‘comfy spots’ makes great heavy work too. (Though the house is trashed constantly, that’s the downside!!)
Susan S.
Great piece. Love what your husband created. Let that be their routine. Do different things with your son. What about wheel barrows- have him walk on his hands while you hold his feet up? Have him carry a box weighted with books or cans- would it make it fun for him if you had music going? My son will do anything if you time him.
You could set up his routine as a jungle adventure (or whatever he’s into)- where he’s creeping up on a lion as he’s doing wheelbarrows, bringing in supplies as he carries a heavy box, and the like. And end it with a big, compressive hug! Good luck.
Nicole
Hi, just found this post via Pinterest and it brought tears to my eyes! Amazing parents! BOTH Mom and Dad!! Inspiring!
I’m a pediatric OT (in Canada) and most of the time the schools I work in don’t seem to give two hoots about what I recommend so it warms my heart to see kids getting what their sensory systems need somewhere somehow. AWESOME
Christa
found this from pinterest.
I have a 9 yr old son mainstreamed in school (for most of the day) and he gets to use the sensory room for breaks. It helps (most of the time). It is written into his IEP so the school has to do it. And they don’t have the best sensory room, but I am working/fighting with them to make it better.
You and your husband are amazing for working with your son. We do all we can and then some! Don’t ever give up!
Karen
This is a lovely post, heartwarming really. So glad to see a family doing these great activities at home. OT visits only last a short while and there is so much you are doing at home. Karen
wendy
I worked with children for many years that had sensory issues and now I am a mom of a 20 month old that just been diagnosed with sensory processing disorder. These are great ideas and I will use them when he gets older for sure.
I know you kind of feel left out a bit but have you tried to come up with a few fresh new ideas that are just you and your son exercises. Maybe you could come up with a few short sessions in a special spot that no daddy’s can come into. Don’t know if that would help but maybe worth a shot.
Marie
Thank you! For me, my son and my students!
Mojo
Wow, I envy those therapy rooms and women with such eager-to-participate coparents!