The security situation is challenging for everyone and especially special needs kids: the anxieties and fears of the unknown require a unique, special touch. Here is a series of recommendations for parents of special needs children for dealing with and mediating the situation.
Calm environment and calming messages despite the difficulty – It’s important to try and create a calm, tension-free environment. Prepare the secure room such that it has recognizable objects which calm the child. Avoid watching the news. Explain and communicate the emergency actions: “Now we’re hearing the siren, so we’re going to the secure room.” Try and create a daily routine. Repeat calming and simple messages.
Activity – Make sure they’re as physically active as possible: exercises, moving around, dances with music.
Use of water – taking baths/showers also helps to reduce tensions.
Activities and games
Calming exercises during panic attacks – breathing/soap bubble exercises. Breathing exercises help renew oxygen in the body and release pressure. Based on the child’s age and level of functioning, you can blow soap bubbles, blow on pompoms on the table/page and see that they leave the space, &c.
Muscle contractions – Releasing the muscles in the body leads to reduction in pressure and anxiety. Based on the child’s age and level of functioning, one can adapt exercises for muscle relaxation. It could be freeing of areas of the body one after the other with a form of exercise, and this can be done via “games.” For instance, drumming on the body, moving from limb to limb. Muscle contractions – one after the other. Contract and release.
Here are some pointers for achieving the desired result:
Imagine that each hand of ours has a lemon in need of squeezing.
Imagine you’re a cat that wants to stretch all the way.
Imagine we have a huge wad of gum in our mouth that we want to chew again and again.
Imagine there’s a fly on our nose, which we need to shoo solely by moving our nose.
Imagine our feet are uncovered and in the mud.
Communication via alternative supportive communication – in case your children communicate via alternative supportive communication, actively give them the iPad or communication board so they can choose the appropriate symbols to express their emotions and fears.
Sarit Binet is head of the autism field at the Perach Special Education Network
