I recently wrote a blog about what do when everything triggers your PDA child. Dropping demands on its own will get you a long way, but it is also crucial to increase the amount of time your child spends engaged in regulating activities too.
Casey Ehrlich talks about 4 ways to regulate our PDAer’s nervous systems.
- Co-regulation: Undivided attention from a safe, trusted person.
- Engaging in a special interests.
- Incorporating novelty: This gives our kids a dopamine hit. Dopamine is the happy hormone for our brain.
- Screens: These can be helpful for the times when 1:1 co-regulation isn’t available.
- I’m also going to separate out calming sensory input as a stand-alone 5th category.
Often these components don’t occur on their own, usually it’s a combination of a few done all together at once. For example, choosing a novel task, that is aligned with a special interest, and doing it in the presence of a safe adult, is a pretty ultimate combo.
Specific regulation activities are going to look different for every child. These are a few examples that work at our house with our 5 year old PDAer.
Playing Monster Trucks and Lego. These are our PDAers current special interests. Spending 1:1 time together, immersed in these interests, is always guaranteed to be regulating. It can be as simple as reading a Monster Truck book together, racing Monster Trucks down the driveway, or creating elaborate Monster Truck arenas with various challenges. For Lego, it might just be me observing as he builds a new set step-by-step, or it might be me helping find pieces for a unique design that we can then use as part of a pretend play game. It might even be watching monster truck or Lego Youtube videos together and then re-enacting what we have seen.
Playing swing kick. We throw a ball or stuffed toy up in the air for our PDAer to kick back to us as he swings. Our PDAer absolutely loves the vestibular input he receives from swinging. This alone is regulating in itself. Adding in an adult to create a game makes it even more effective and novelty can be included by changing it up to add new variations of the game.
Adding water to the sand pit. We often start out by digging to create something like a fort or dam wall. Our PDAer then chooses in what way he will incorporate water. Some days he creates a dam with channels for the water to flow down, some days we builds a sandcastle with shells hidden amongst it and ‘melts’ away the sand with water to reveal the hidden shells, other days he creates a current with the hose and we float boats to deliver little treasures to each other. Digging provides proprioceptive input, being outside and the sound of running water is calming for our PDAer. Each instance we change up the game which adds novelty, sometimes we include Monster Trucks, and the presence of an adult makes it a lovely opportunity for connection.
Playing ‘Boulders’. Boulders is our latest rough and tumble game. Our PDAer lies on the couch with a cushion on top of him and pretends to be stuck underneath a boulder. I then playfully squish him, whilst attempting to pull the heavy boulder off but it keeps sliding back on top of him. He then thoroughly enjoys swapping jobs and squishing me. This activity incorporates deep pressure touch, which is calming for our PDAer, and a beautiful playful interaction with a safe adult.
Making ‘Potions’. We find any type of experiment has huge novelty factor out our house. Often, I can set up matching equipment to make this work when I have both the kids. An activity that we are getting a lot of mileage out of lately is making pretend potions. I put out water, food colouring and a range of bowls, cups, spoons, scoops and droppers and the kids mix and pour to their hearts content. They can then change it up by adding in things from around the yard like leaves, berries, sand, sticks, seed pods and herbs from the garden.
Figuring out what activities are regulating for your child can take some trial and error. We have to tune into our kids and notice what the specific conditions are that make particular activities regulating. For example, our PDAer loves jumping on the trampoline and can find this soothing if he does this on his own or with a safe adult. However, jumping with a sibling or friend is guaranteed to have the opposite effect and end up being dysregulating.
What are your child’s go-to regulating activities?
Drop them in the comments below, it might just be the inspiration that other families need.
