How to Keep Your Child Regulated During the Holiday Season by
Supporting Their Senses
Besides the 5 common senses we are all aware of:
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
Vision
Hearing
Touch
Taste
Smell
There are 2 very important senses, which play a very important role in integrating
the senses above, as well as regulating our system through release of
neurotransmitters, communicating with other structures in the brain and
organizing neural pathways.
6. Vestibular sense - this is the sense of your position in space as it relates to
rotary/angular movements and or linear motion. The head, inner ear and eyes
play a huge roll in this sense. The vestibular sense is what gives us balance, head
and trunk stability, and controls posture. Input from the vestibular organs to
other areas of the brain impacts higher cognitive functions, such as temporal
orientation, spatial orientation and arousal levels.
7. Proprioceptive sense -is a feedback loop between the brain and the
peripheral body indicating where joints and muscles are in space and giving
information about position, motor control and gauging of force.
How we support the senses of the dysregulated child can have a big impact on
interactions with the child, how the child will learn and integrate information and
the families overall enjoyment of the holidays. Here are some tips as they relate
to each sense and what you can do for you and your child to maximize neural
development and a sense of deep connection with your child over the holidays.
Vision
 Winter is a time of darkness, especially when getting ready to start the day.
Use of indirect and dim lighting when awakening the child, dressing and
grooming will assist with dampering down adrenaline, which once revved
up is work to overcome.
 Play visual/ocular motor games to improve visual attention and
convergence of the eyes, which tend to be an area of difficulty for many of
our children. For example, using green and red pom poms and 2 straws
play a game of blow soccer by seeing who can blow their pom pom through
the other persons goal first.
 Make a Christmas village using old Christmas cards, a piece of cardboard or
poster board, markers, adhesive magnets, a short piece of 1/2" dowel and a
matchbox style car. The dowel and the car have the magnets attached, and
the child will move the car through the Christmas village by controlling the
dowel from underneath the cardboard, stopping at different points of
interest. This is a good activity for tracking, scanning, visual attention, as
well as for working memory plus the child will have fun helping to make it.
 Defer from use of media such as TV, computers, and portable devices as
much as possible. Staring at a screen increases adrenaline, making more
work for you and stress to assist with regulating your child.
 Tell your child a told story before bedtime. Looking at picture books overstimulates the child, can impact settling for bed, as well as quality of sleep.
 Drape cluttered bookshelves and dressers with solid silks, old solid colored
sheets or fabric to reduce visual stimulation and to make the bedroom
more welcoming to sleep.
Hearing/Sound
 Humming or singing of low tone songs, or short repetitive verses can help
to stimulate the inner ear and induce a just right state of arousal for
starting the day, getting ready for sleep, for learning and doing. These
verses can become ritual at mealtime and during other distinct times of the
day to prepare the child for what is to come and assist with temporal
orientation.
 Teaching your child short rhythmic verses can assist with temporal
orientation and auditory processing, building stronger, wider pathways in
the brain.
 Use of a pentatonic glockenspiel to calm and or alert also assists to build
your child's tonotopic map in the temporal lobe and stimulates expressive
language.
 Low frequency instrumental music in the background can assist with
emotional control of both parent/caregiver and child, and improve
attention and focus.
 Avoid ambient noise from TV and instead listen to instrumental Christmas
music in the background.
 Take time during the day to go outside to hear nature sounds. How many
nature sounds do you hear?
 Use a low tone in your voice when talking to your child...it's like a massage
to the inner ear.
Touch
 Firm but rhythmic tapping over the body can help in waking the child,
pretend snowflakes are falling and melting on them, or reindeer hooves
dancing on them.
 Start the day with firm, big hugs to start a dopamine release.
 Always use firm pressure over as much surface area as possible when
making requests of your child, shoulders and hands, as well as top of head
are good spots. This will improve their integration of auditory information,
but also assist with attention while you are speaking.
 Use of tight long underwear and undershirts under clothing will not only
keep your child warm, but also assist with keeping your child calm...a built
in dopamine releaser.
 Repetitive activities that provide novelty to the sensory nerve endings of
the fingers and warmth to the hand help calm and focus the child, such as
playing with beeswax, wool, making apple sauce cinnamon Christmas
ornaments and playing the sock game. Take 2 old wool socks and place
several of the objects in each sock. The child needs to find the same object
in each sock. Pick up jingle bells with toes and make them ring.
 Use of a heavy weight comforter will assist with settling for bed, and
staying asleep.
 Giving your child a foot bath and foot massage using lavender oil at
bedtime will assist with calming and preparation for sleep.
 Refer to wet sock treatment. This helps to stimulate a calming effect on
the body by facilitating a parasympathetic response, and is especially useful
if the child is getting a cold or is congested.
Taste
 Avoid foods that are hard to digest, such as acidic foods, complex
carbohydrates, gluten and cow's milk products.
 Flavor foods with warm spices such as nutmeg and cinnamon.
 Refer to dopamine and serotonin enhancing foods on "The Science We
Use" handout.
Smell
 Use of cinnamon and mulling spices to calm and alert at waking, as well as
during the day while at home from school. Scents have a strong impact on
the limbic system and emotions, and can assist with working memory and
storing memories for the child.
 Use of lavender at bedtime helps to stimulate sleep. Sprinkle a little in
bathwater or on the child's pillow.
 Noxious smells are adrenaline drivers, especially to the child who is not well
oriented. Use of cut limes in the kitchen and bathroom can help neutralize
odors.
 Cinnamon-Applesauce Christmas ornaments can be used on the tree, but
also as sachets in dresser drawers and on bedside tables.
Vestibular Sense
 Walking in and out of a spiral helps to stimulate the vestibular sense. Make
a spiral in your yard out of pine boughs or tree branches and make a ritual
out of walking the spiral each night after mealtime. Your child could carry a
heavy stone, push a wheelbarrow or a sack over their shoulder to give
proprioceptive input at the same time.
 Give a sense of temporal orientation to the season with the use of an
advent calendar.
 Provide lots of opportunity for your child to swing and bounce to stimulate
good neurochemistry and damper down on the adrenaline which tends to
run high with the excitement of the season. Swinging activities with the
head in an inverted position are especially helpful. Have your child pretend
they are different winter animals eating off the ground, polar bear,
reindeer. Get your child a trapeze for Christmas. We had Zuzi make one
for us.
Proprioceptive Sense
 Have your child do lots of heavy work (pushing, pulling and carrying) using
their muscles by making a runway for Santa's sleigh out of stones, bricks,
sandbags in the yard, or use these heavier objects to make your spiral.
 Pretend to be Santa and have child carry a heavy sack full of old toys.
 Tactile and proprioceptive sense are supported with use of big firm hugs
and holds, and lots of massage.