When it comes to the summertime, all parents, whether their child is five or 35, have the same question: “How do I keep my children busy?” You can use the Live, Learn, Work and Play model to get some ideas to make this summer a good one.
Live
Give your young adult certain chores around the house. For example, they can mow the lawn, weed the garden, take care of pets and many other daily duties. Remember to work to your young adult’s strengths – use check lists, pictures or charts, whatever is the best way to help them understand what to do.
Learn
Learning doesn’t stop once the school ends. Encourage your young adult to read at least one new book this summer or have a family reading night. You may also want to look at the “Continuing Education” catalog from your local school district and choose a class to go to where you can learn something new together, like photography or computers. Have fun with this but also try to keep your young adult’s IEP (Individualized Education Program) objectives in mind.
Work
One idea may be for your young adult to come to work with you or your spouse to get an idea of what it is like to work. If that is not possible, several area businesses offer summer internship programs for young adults. Another idea is to have your young adult do odd jobs for a neighbor, maybe someone who cannot do those things for themselves.
Play
Encourage your young adult to do things outside of the house and get away from watching TV and playing video games. Several camps and day camps exist in the WNY area for kids of all ages. If they enjoy sports, there are several Challenger baseball leagues, fishing, sailing, TOPS soccer, the local YMCA and many other options. Go to the movies or to play miniature golf as a family.
Looking for recreation ideas, activities or events? We’ve got you covered!
Community Calendar
Visit the Parent Network of WNY community calendar for updated events in the community.
2015 Recreation & Leisure Services Directory
The Recreation & Leisure Services Directory is a resource for individuals with disabilities and families. This directory is intended to assist users in finding physical, social and creative opportunities to enrich one’s life.
The 2015 A-List
Summer Fun for Children with Autism Spectrum Disorders. From sensory friendly movies, camps, sports, dance and community activities.
Summer Camps in WNY
from fun4kidsinbuffalo.com
Transition – Summer is a great time to try new activities. Cooking is a great way to work on just about everything including planning, organization, reading, writing and math. Making a grocery list, traveling to the store, finding the items, reading the recipe, measuring ingredients, mixing, setting a table and of course, enjoying the meal or dessert.
Behavior – Summer can be fun, exciting, overwhelming and challenging with all kinds of changes to routine and people. Take a moment to make a list of those changes – the different routine, environments and activities. Tie each of them to the behavior techniques you have used successfully throughout the school year.
Developmental Disabilities – If the heat is a challenge for your child or adult with a developmental disability there are some creative ways to spend a fun time together. Mall meandering is a great way to take advantage of air conditioning. It gives an opportunity to be active, social and to talk about activities and dreams.
Autism – Summer gives us many opportunities to help our children carry over the social skills they have learned in school into life in general. Choose and focus on a couple of the most important skills to you as a family and use the strategies learned in school. Don’t forget to HAVE FUN!
Advocacy – Encourage your child to use their “Voice” to learn how to advocate for themselves. Ask questions like… Did you like the event or activity? Would you like to do it again? What part didn’t you like and why? You will learn “what works” as they learn to “speak up.”
Special Education – Look for summer friendly goals in your child’s IEP. Think about what they learned throughout the year and make a connection. Social skills are great to encourage at the playground. Did they learn about the Civil War? – take a trip to Forest Lawn to see the graves of Civil War soldiers. Are they learning to cook? – let them make the dish to pass for the next picnic.
Apps – Summer is a great time to learn how to create schedules that will help keep some of the structure in place that happens during school year. You can help your child “see their week” by using apps that help organize time. Recommended by Understood.org, First Then Visual Schedule (FTVS) HD helps organize time using multi-senses.
Featured in photo: Scot Hollonbeck
Download Hot Topics – June 2015
