Life Skills
Life Skills
Children learn in many different ways so you might need to vary your approach. You are the expert in your child and you know what approaches might work better than others, different techniques can be used on their own or a combination of things depending on what suits. Please be aware that some children cannot look and listen at the same time so limit the amount of information you give.
Try…
- Physically assist your child, try using a hand-over-hand technique
- Doing the task alongside your child
- Give a running commentary and talk through each of the steps required for the task using clear and consistent language
Some children will learn better through watching first. The below link shows a range of videos designed specifically for children who struggle with movement skills to learn every tasks.
Video Library - Watch Me Do It Project
Top tips when teaching life skills
Start at the right level
When working on developing a child’s life skills it is important that the skills that you are working on are at the right level. If a task is too hard for a child the they will more reluctant to try.
Look at the stages of development, identify which stage the child is currently at and work to master all the skills on that stage that they may not be as confident with or start with a skill from the next stage.
Create goals
A child will make more progress if they are motivated and ready to learn, encourage the child to set their own goals of what they would like to be able to do.
Consider when is the best time to learn and practice
When working on dressing skills, it is best not to complete on busy mornings where time is limited, if a child is rushed while they are trying to learn it can lead to frustration and the child can be less likely to succeed. Start with evenings, weekends and school holidays and build in aspects of dressing into their morning routine that you know they can manage.
Build routines to enable practice
•Once the child is able to achieve the steps, build practice into their daily routines to allow them to master the skills this will help to complete the tasks quicker.
Use larger clothing
•Start with larger sized clothing as this will be easier for the child.
Give the child time to problem solve
•Resist the urge to take over too soon, give the child time and opportunity to figure out what went wrong themselves, along with bucket loads of encouragement. If necessary, talk them through what to do and only step in if they get really stuck.
•Look and check in the mirror to encourage them to identify any mistakes.
Remember to praise, encourage and be positive
Backwards Chaining
Backward chaining has been found to be particularly useful when learning dressing skills. It helps to give children a sense of achievement as they learn. This can be particularly helpful for children who may have low self-esteem.
Backwards chaining involves you doing the steps of the activity and the child completing the last step, this allows the child to successfully complete the task each time.
As the child then works backwards as they master each step until they are completing the whole task.
Lets look at an example:
Putting on socks has several steps in the sequence:
1. Hold your sock by the edge with both hands.
2. Push your toes in to the sock.
3. Lift your foot and pull the sock over your heel.
4. Pull the sock up your leg.
Using the backward chaining method, your child would learn step four first, then learn the other steps backwards, through steps four to one.
Backwards chaining can be used with all items of clothing with your child.
Click on the tabs below for strategies and more information for each aspect of dressing.
How Schools Can Help
Many practices have changed within schools, resulting in children now attending in their PE kits and unfortunately opportunities to practice and develop dressing skills have been lost, leaving only opportunities to practice during weekends and holidays, this may result in the skills taking longer for children to master.
There are many ways in which children can be provided with opportunities in school, including;
•Changing for PE - Getting changed for PE in schools has many benefits and something to consider if you are finding that lots of children in the class would benefit from extra practice of dressing skills.
•Dressing up - providing dressing up clothes, not just costumes but old shirts, skirts, hats that they can put on over their clothes that can allow extra opportunities to practice.
•Painting aprons - Use old shirts as painting aprons with buttons at the back - encourage children to practice fastening a few buttons on a friends shirt
•Clothing for dolls or teddies
•Playdough activities - Using knifes and forks when playing with playdough to practice cutting food
•Role play - Providing spoons in role play corner and encouraging to feed the dolls/ teddies
•Sand play - Provide spoons in the sand tray to allow children to practicing scooping up the sand and transferring it to a container