Finding The Right Activity

All children are different and finding the activity they enjoy can take time. If your child has learning and / or physical disabilities it can take a bit longer to find the right activity for them.

• If your child has health professionals working with them ask them for ideas on what might work for your child.
• Discuss what activities might work for your child with nursery and school too.
• Look for local activity and sports groups – get in touch and explain your child’s needs. Ask how they will help your child join in.
• Ask other local parents for recommendations.
• Get other children they enjoy being with to join in and they will be able to copy what they do.

Trying Activities

If your child or young person has a physical difficulty, you could try these ideas to get you started with trying out some activities.

Try activities which encourage your child or young person to move their head or clap or shake their hands and wiggle their fingers. You can gently help them to do this, if they cannot do it by themselves and you can show them what to do by doing this yourself.

Think about the movement that your child or young person has and encourage, such as lifting their feet up and down or in and out or circle their arms. You could play some music to make it more fun.

• You could throw ball or a bean bag onto a target together or to each other.
• You could make safe indoor balls from rolled up paper, sticky tape or papier-mâché.
• Balloons are a great alternative to a ball; you could pop some things inside it such as rice for sound or water for touch. Have fun but be careful the balloon does not pop!
• Bubbles are good fun and not expensive. You could blow some bubbles for your child or young person to watch or to try to burst.

Affordable Activities

Getting your child active doesn’t have to be expensive or need special equipment.

• Games and races like egg and spoon, sack races, catch or tag in the garden or park are good ways of children not noticing they are ‘exercising.’
• Get together with other families for a game of football / rounders. There may be some children and grown ups who are really good and some who find it harder – split the teams fairly and let everyone have try.
• If your child finds ‘joining in games’ hard try setting timers on your phone and see how long it takes to run to the tree or jump round the garden.

Explain games simply to your child – if your child finds understanding instructions harder you might need to repeat them a lot, use any communication aids your child finds helpful.