Heavy work is often recommended by occupational therapists (including me!) for children who are having sensory processing challenges.
There's many benefits to heavy work including:
- Calming your child
- Increasing body awareness
- Strengthening gross motor skills
- Improving coordination
- Improve regulation, attention and focus
Like most things in life, heavy work will be more effective when done consistently and when the activities appropriately match the needs of the child.
For example, If you take your child to the playground to get their energy out, but they often leave the park more wound up than when you got there. This can be very puzzling & frustrating.
Going to the park is still very beneficial, but for some kids this activity is more altering VS calming.
How To Solve
It could be as simple as adding a few heavy work tasks to the end of your child’s park playtime to help them calm down.
Or re-thinking how you structure your child's day. The park may be better for your child early in the morning and an activity like yoga could be something they do before you need them to be alert and attentive.
One of my favorite things is helping parents create a customized heavy work guide for their child. Feel free to book a free 15-min call with me and we can see if your child would benefit from it!
In the meantime, here are my favorite heavy work activities that can easily be completed at your house or local park!
- Fill a laundry basket/box and have your child push it around the house
- Carrying in groceries
- Taking out the trash
- Carrying a backpack full of items (great for the airport or at the zoo/amusement park!)
- Gardening
- Pushing another person on a swing
- Hanging from a monkey bar for an increased amount of time
- Wheel-barrow races
- Yoga
- Vacum
- Tug-of-war
- Tennis
- Washing the car
- “Hands and knees” play activities
- Sidewalk chalk
- Playing with cars
- Drawing on large sheet paper on ground
- Building with blocks or legos
Emily Schreiber OTD, OTR/L