Sensory tips for children who have a hard time sitting

The children I work with often find it really hard to sit, for example at school to do classwork and at home to eat meals, so I wanted to share some ideas to help support any families with children who struggle with this.

I feel strongly that children should have lots of movements breaks and time outside and they should not get into trouble at school for rocking and fidgeting; they can't help it!

Consider specialist seating

In addition to getting adequate movement breaks specialist seating can be helpful for some children. Schools often use wobble cushions like this one Wobble Cushion for Children. They are relatively cheap and they can work for some children. I often find however, that children like to mess around with them and throw them about, they seem to get easily lost at schools and they challenge a child's postural control, which can cause fatigue and make a child find it even harder to sit.

I tend to prefer the Zuma Rocker chairs from South Paw UK and they also have an Ergo stool, which can work for some children. Check out my YouTube video comparing the Zuma and Ergo options Seating for Sensory Regulation - YouTube.

Other things that might help

Another solution is using resistance band and this works surprisingly well for a lot of children and is cheap and easy. I have a video explaining this on my youtube channel.

Finally, for children who seek lots of tactile input, feet hedgehogs can be helpful and I demonstrate these here.

I hope you have found this information helpful and if you have any suggestions for future topics you'd like me to cover then please free to email me and I will do my best to accommodate. 

Hanna