Self-Care without Meltdowns

For children with special needs, self-care activities such as toothbrushing, bathing, getting their hair brushed, and getting their hair or nails cut can be difficult.  These activities provide a lot of sensory information and for some children this can be too much causing them to refuse to participate in or have meltdowns during these activities.  To help make these self-care activities less stressful, try the following:

• Start Slowly & Don’t Rush

Since these tasks provide our children with a lot of sensory input, start slow and build up to the final task. For example, if we are working on being able to tolerate getting our fingernails cut, maybe we start with only clipping one fingernail at a time while building up to the task of tolerating getting all of our fingernails cut at once. Short, positive exposures consistently over time can be very helpful.

• Practice on Parents

If our children see us tolerating self-care activities without aversion that will teach them that this is a normal activity and nothing to be scared of.  For example, if our children see us getting our hair cut or trimming our nails without aversion, they will learn how to appropriately respond in these situations. Another thing we can do is have our children practice these self-care tasks on us. For example, if our children get to comb our hair, help us brush our teeth, or help us trim our nails and they see us engaging in these tasks without aversion, that will help them to calm down and see these self-care tasks are nothing to be worried about.

• Stay Calm and Keep it Fun

Children mimic our emotions.  If they start to get upset or overwhelmed during a self-care task, we as parents need to be able to stay calm ourselves in order to help them stay calm. If we are having fun, smiling, singing, and making silly faces during the experience, our children, in turn, will have fun and have a positive experience with their self-care.

• Look for Hairdressers / Barbershops who have Experience Working with Children 

Some hairdressers and barbershops cater to children and children with special needs. Looking online ahead of time could help make the whole hair cutting experience go a little smoother.

I hope these strategies help you get started by providing self-care without meltdowns. Please email me at blog@goflowoccupationaltherapy.com if you have any additional questions.

See you soon!
Michael Jankowski, MS, OTR/L