by Deborah Hanyon, MPH, RDN, ACE-CHC | Mar 19, 2021 | Education Materials, Homeschooling
4 Ways to Involve Kids with Disabilities in the Arts
(Post contains affiliate links).
Children who have learning disabilities can become extraordinarily successful individuals (think Walt Disney, for instance); they might just take a different route to get there if traditional classroom instruction isn’t working well for them.
One way to instill confidence in kids with learning disabilities is through the arts – a paintbrush or a musical instrument might be just the ticket a child needs to unlock their confidence and self-esteem.
Here are 4 ways to help your child with learning disabilities enjoy and learn from the arts.
4 Ways to Involve Kids with Disabilities in the Arts
Explore all the Arts
The term “the arts” includes a wide variety of activities, including music, performing arts, visual arts, dance, crafts and more. Explore one or more styles to determine what might work best for your child based on their interests and learning personalities. If your child is an auditory learner, for example, music might be a better choice for them than painting. A few quick descriptions will help:
- Art: Enhances creativity and gives an appreciation for shapes, dimensions, and textures. Also helps communicate ideas and emotions.
- Music: Helps develop rhythm, sound, pitch, rhyming, math and more. (See below for more on music.)
- Crafts: Let kids solve problems and express themselves.
- Dancing: Helps with motor skills while teaching rhythm, counting, following directions, and working with others.
- Drama: Performing plays can help with memory retention, teamwork and appreciating literary forms and structures.
How Music Helps
Music promotes brain development in all kids but learning a musical instrument can be particularly helpful for children with learning disabilities. It helps them feel good about themselves and relax, while the rhythm and beat give them a greater sense of logic and organization. Singing can help them focus, while the motions required to play an instrument help improve motor skills; playing music also helps kids to multi-task and become more confident in what they can do.
Choosing the right instrument for your child will depend on a combination of things, including their interest and ability. A child who likes to move around, for instance, will do better with an instrument that allows them to stand and move such as a string bass, clarinet, or percussion instrument. The cello gives kids who have motor skill difficulty room to move their fingers. Read here for specific suggestions about which instruments work well with which disabilities.
Create Space
You should give your child a particular space in your house where they have the freedom to express themselves through the arts. Include a desk or table to provide a clean work surface, and stock the room with everything they might need – paints and paintbrushes, paper, crayons, scissors, musical instruments and much more. While the room should be fairly organized to start with, it should also be a place where your kids can make a mess and it really doesn’t matter. Include a designated place in the room to display any work they do and give them a sense of pride and accomplishment.
Keep in mind that you could use this space to teach other children about the arts. For example, if you play an instrument and want to share that knowledge with others, give lessons and teach classes from the comfort of your home. Just remember that you’ll need to make sure you follow local regulations about registering your business with the local government. If you plan to register as an LLC before you start teaching classes, make sure you brush up on your state's guidelines to ensure you protect yourself and your business.
Join In
Kids will be delighted if you join in experiencing the arts along with them. Learn a musical instrument at the same time as your child. Sit down to paint with them. Take them through an art museum. Stay for their dance practice. These gestures will help ease any discomfort or embarrassment kids might feel because of their disability. You desperately want them to succeed, so give them the greatest chance possible.
Teaching the arts to kids with learning disabilities is a fantastic way to help them develop. If they are not using ideas and techniques like this at your child’s school, consider promoting the concept with their teachers. A little creativity goes a long way in raising talented kids with disabilities.
Photo from Unsplash
Article courtesy of Alyssa Strickland
Alyssa Strickland created millennial-parents.com for all the new parents on the block. Alyssa believes the old adage that it takes a village to raise a child, but she also thinks it takes a village to raise a parent! Millennial-Parents is that village. Today’s parents can be more connected than ever, and she hopes her site will enrich those connections. On Millennial-Parents, she shares tips and advice she learns through experience and from other young parents in three key areas — Education, Relationships, and Community.
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What is the Healthiest Snack Ever?
by Deborah Hanyon, MPH, RDN, ACE-CHC | Jan 8, 2021 | Getting Kids Moving, Nutrition and Health
Guiding Kids to Healthy Choices
(Post may contain affiliate links).
All parents want the best for their kids. But at the end of the day, kids are their own people who make their own choices. As parents, all we can do is teach them, love them, and give them the tools to make good decisions. One of the most important ways parents can guide their children toward healthy choices is by influencing habits like diet, exercise, and drug and alcohol use.
Homeschooling Dietitian Mom aims to help all families be their absolute best. With that in mind, read on for some valuable information on shaping your child’s behavior now for good health throughout life.
Guiding Kids to Healthy Choices
Diet
Diet is the foundation of good health. As the Novak Djokovic Foundation discusses, the eating habits people learn in childhood carry through to adulthood. So, while relying on processed junk foods to satiate a picky eater might seem like no big deal today, it’s a choice with serious long-term implications.
It’s rare that children enjoy the diversity of foods that adults do, but parents can promote healthy eating by offering healthy choices and modeling a good diet through their own behavior. To overcome the fear of new foods, parents should repeatedly offer new, healthy foods in low-pressure environments. Rather than forcing kids to eat something they don’t want, encourage them to try new ingredients by making them available, pairing new foods with liked foods, and getting kids involved in cooking.
In the kitchen, start by having them help with dinner, either by mixing ingredients by hand, using the toaster oven (which is safe under supervision and easy to use), or measuring portions with a kitchen scale. When they get involved, children have a personal stake, which makes learning more enjoyable.
Exercise
Like eating habits, exercise behaviors are formed early in life. If you want to raise kids who enjoy being active instead of viewing exercise as a burden, incorporate fun physical activity in the fabric of your family life.
Many parents sign kids up for extracurricular sports to keep them active, but playing sports isn’t enough. Because few adults participate in team sports, it’s not an activity that’s easily carried through to adulthood. In addition to sports, weave physical activity into your family’s everyday life. Going on family walks after dinner, running errands by bike, and getting active in the backyard together are wonderful ways to get active and strengthen your family bond.
Drugs and Alcohol
As children grow into pre-teens and teens, another health concern comes into the picture: drugs and alcohol. Substance use doesn’t just get kids into dangerous situations, it can also permanently impair their brain development. Alcohol use before adulthood affects the development of the hippocampus and the prefrontal lobe, the parts of the brain responsible for memory, learning, and decision-making skills. Drugs like marijuana have similar effects, and both drug and alcohol use in adolescence increase the risk of addiction in adulthood.
Kids who turn to drugs and alcohol are often seeking an escape from their problems. In fact, Reuters reports that kids who are bullied are more likely to smoke, drink, and use drugs. Without healthy coping mechanisms at their disposal, substance use becomes a way to escape stress, relationship problems, and poor self-esteem. By giving kids better tools for managing stress, parents can reduce the risk of substance use.
Modeling
A popular book on parenting (and a short film) is titled, “To a Child, Love is Spelled T-i-m-e” – the idea that what children really need from their parents is time. Similarly, what children need to learn is for their parental figures to model healthy behavior, set a good example, pursue their dreams.
For many adults, having children often means that plans get paused, career tracks shift and we find ourselves ending up somewhere we didn't expect. If it's time to ‘right the course of life' as a parent and pursue that online business degree, flexibility is incredibly important because of everything you are already juggling. But it's not impossible, and your children will benefit from the example you set. You got this!
Parents may not be able to control the choices their children make as adults, but they do play a crucial role in shaping those choices. While it’s possible for adults to undo unhealthy habits learned in childhood, it’s much easier to start with healthy habits and maintain them for a lifetime.
For healthy kids that grow into healthy adults, make good nutrition, physical activity, and positive stress relief a priority in your household.
Connect with Homeschooling Dietitian Mom for more valuable insights into your family’s well-being.
Image via Unsplash
Article courtesy of Alyssa Strickland
Alyssa Strickland created millennial-parents.com for all the new parents on the block. Alyssa believes the old adage that it takes a village to raise a child, but she also thinks it takes a village to raise a parent! Millennial-Parents is that village. Today’s parents can be more connected than ever, and she hopes her site will enrich those connections. On Millennial-Parents, she shares tips and advice she learns through experience and from other young parents in three key areas — Education, Relationships, and Community.
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by Deborah Hanyon, MPH, RDN, ACE-CHC | Nov 16, 2020 | Holidays and Special Events
I can't let Black Friday pass by without offering some of my beautiful Christmas cards with envelope template FREE to my readers. All cards have bible verses on the back.
(Post contains affiliate links).
I love to encourage people to be more healthy. But I also know that the practical day-to-day world of homeschooling involves getting schoolwork done, even when the holidays are here.
During the Christmas season, dealing with the excitement of the holidays can make focusing on school more difficult. This is a perfect time to do art AND send Christmas cards out to the important people in your life. These beautiful high resolution Christmas cards can be printed and sent to friends and family without leaving your house. As long as you have a printer, scissors and paper, you can make envelopes to go with the cards in this freebie.
Learning how to make envelopes is not only fun, it gives you the opportunity to learn a new skill. Printing envelopes at home saves money too!
Create Your Own Envelopes
Yes, you CAN create your own envelopes for your Christmas cards. 🙂 It's super easy. All you have to do is find an envelope that fits the card you want to mail (it can be used). Open up the envelope and trace it onto paper. Then cut, paste, and you have a handmade envelope!
The cards I've created should fit A6 sized envelopes. Which you can purchase as well.
If you prefer, and you have an envelope in your house that's the right size, you can carefully open it up and use that as a template as well.
You can use any color or pattern of paper you prefer!
NOTE: MAKE SURE THE ENVELOPES ARE AT LEAST 4 1/4″ X 6 1/4,” AS ENVELOPE SIZES VARY EVEN BETWEEN GIVEN SIZES.
Grab the FREE Christmas cards here.
NEW for 2019 – Super Bundle of Bookmarks and Cute Cards
If you like to read and want some Christmas bookmarks, click here.
5 Ways to Prevent Holiday Weight Gain
by Deborah Hanyon, MPH, RDN, ACE-CHC | Nov 13, 2020 | Food Allergies and Special Diets, Holidays and Special Events
6 Tips to Get Picky Kids to Eat Vegetables on Thanksgiving
My son has sensory issues with food and has since birth. As a result, I have discovered that forcing him to eat foods he can’t tolerate OR waiting until he is hungry enough to eat the foods he hates doesn’t work. Instead, I have found ways to encourage him to at least eat more of a variety of foods than he may otherwise eat.
Here are 6 Tips to Get Picky Kids to Eat Vegetables on Thanksgiving. (Post may contain affiliate links).
1. Serve at least one favorite vegetable (or fruit, if she doesn’t like veggies) as part of the meal.
For example, my son likes broccoli the best, but he also likes carrots. Since carrots (and fresh green beans) are part of our traditional Thanksgiving meal, we won’t have to serve anything extra for him.
2. Serve combination foods separately, if you can.
For example, my son is not willing to eat most combination foods. By serving the parts of mixed dishes separately, I can encourage him to eat more variety.
This year for Thanksgiving I discovered a salad that I know everyone except my son will like. The reason I’m going to serve this salad is:
- It’s healthy
- The recipe has several foods he likes–if they are served separately
- It looks delicious!
I’m planning to serve each food ingredient in a separate bowl. I will also offer another salad dressing as an option (one that I know more than one person likes, if possible). This won’t require more work because when preparing a salad, I chop everything up separately. The only extra work will be cleaning the dishes.
If you’re having special company this Thanksgiving, and you decide to serve this salad or something similar, you could put the dressing on the table in a cute salad dressing bottle and place the salad ingredients on fancy dishes. Most young children will eat the lettuce, apples, and cheese. If they don’t have an aversion to nuts, like my son does, the pecans will probably appeal to them as well (especially if you caramelize them*). If all they eat is the lettuce, apples and cheese, you’ve gotten two servings of veggies and fruit into their cute little bodies! The pecans are rich sources of magnesium and essential fats. So, if they eat the pecans, even better.
As a bonus, the little ones can pick up these foods with their hands, which I know toddlers love to do!*
3. Encourage your child try at least one new vegetable, fruit or other food that she didn’t like previously.
One taste is enough.
For example, we have green beans every year. They are southern style and have salt pork and onions in them.
Okay, so problem number one, it’s a combo food.
Problem number two, it’s not a preferred vegetable.
Problem number 3, he doesn’t really care for green beans.
So, this year my challenge is for him to put one green bean on a plate (just the green bean) and take a small taste. Then if he likes it, he can have more. If not, that's okay. Praise him for being willing to put the food on the plates.
4. Make sure your child is hungry by the time you serve the meal.
Snacking all day long will obviously dampen anyone’s appetite, especially someone with a smaller stomach, like kids. Food always tastes better when you’re hungry. So, if possible, no eating/snacking for AT LEAST 2 hours prior to the main meal. This should help in the enthusiasm department.
5. Try not to worry too much if your child doesn’t want to eat much on Thanksgiving.
It’s a special day, and there are probably a lot of other things going on that are much more interesting than eating. Kid’s usually eat less when they’re having fun and are around new or non-routine people.
6. Put small amounts of each food they will be eating on the plate.
Sometimes an overfull plate can overwhelm the child and cause them to lose interest in eating at all. They can always ask for more!
GOING ELSEWHERE?
If possible, talk to the host ahead of time to get an idea of what will be served. That way you can create strategies ahead, especially if your child has sensory issues with or allergies/intolerances to food.
Pick something you know your child will like and serve it along with the other dishes served, so that it doesn’t appear like you are serving something special just for your child. For example, even if it is a peanut butter and jelly sandwich, make enough to share, and put it out there with the other dishes.
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Click here for the article, “Why a Zinc Deficiency may be Contributing to your kid's pickiness.”
DON'T FORGET I HAVE FREE FALL/AUTUMN THEMED PRINTABLE BOOKMARKS AVAILABLE FOR MY READERS!
ALSO, IF YOU SUSPECT MILK ALLERGY OR INTOLERANCE, CLICK HERE FOR MY FREE INFORMATION BOOKLET.
Read about Homeschooling Dietitian Mom here.
*Click here for the salad recipe.
Thanksgiving is the best time of year to think on what we are thankful for.
If you need some inspiration and encouragement, click here for awesome and inspiring Mother (and other) Quotes, complemented by beautiful images.
Other Articles by Homeschooling Dietitian Mom:
What Attracts Kids to Fast Food?
High Protein Meals
3 Superfoods that Are Really Healthy
by Deborah Hanyon, MPH, RDN, ACE-CHC | Nov 9, 2020 | Homeschooling
How Parents Working From Home Can Find Equilibrium
(Post may contain affiliate links).
Has your household felt off-kilter lately? It’s all-too-easy for life to become unbalanced when you’re a full-time parent and a full-time remote worker. Because it’s important to find a healthy equilibrium, here are these tips and resources:
Set Up for Success
If you’re trying to work in a space that doesn’t support your efforts, it’s sure to reduce your productivity. Stay industrious and focused with the right set up:
- Whether you’re working from home full- or part-time, a dedicated space is a must.
- Your garage can be an ideal place to set up your home office, but your flooring may need work.
- Your work area should be organized and tidy so you can focus and reduce stress.
- Natural light enables you to be happier, healthier and more productive, and it doesn’t cost a dime.
- Aromatherapy can give your productivity a boost, too.
Lighten Your Workload
An efficient and focused place to work is one positive step toward equilibrium. Next, make room in your days for your top priorities.
- Take breaks in your day for time with family and self-care.
- Cutting the stress out of your morning routine helps you start your day off right.
- Consider a windowed work schedule to help balance your days.
- Depending on the nature of your work, you might consider hiring some freelancers to help.
Focus Your Family
You’re a family, and you’re in this together. Make sure everyone is on the same page, and that your lifestyle is happy and healthy for everyone.
- Homeschooling Dietitian Mom offers a K-12 nutrition and food science curriculum!
- Have a productive conversation with your kids about your work.
- Give your kids appropriate activities to enjoy.
- Since kids love electronics, make sure they have video games that are beneficial.
- Everyone needs to eat; why not toss together a family picnic during lunch breaks?
- Exercising is a great way to burn off tension, stay healthy, and bond—do it together.
With the world shaken up this year, many families are feeling unbalanced. Moms and dads who work from home can regain equilibrium by incorporating these simple tips into their lives.
Other things you might find helpful:
How to Make Video Games Fun and Safe for Your Family
How to Send Love and Comfort to Pregnant Friends
25 Things A New Mom Will Love
Article written by Lacie Martin
“Lacie Martin created Raise Them Well to help inspire parents to raise
their children well by prioritizing love over everything else. She firmly
believes that all moms and dads raising kids who know they are loved and
cared for are successful parents.”
Image courtesy of Pexels
