It’s hard to believe that at 18 months old V wasn’t able to sit or even hold her neck because of severely low muscle tone. Due to the lack of early intervention & medical help, she had poor to no ability to grasp. Soon, I started doing Occupational Therapy with my child at home. We played games and did exercises to make her muscles stronger. We began going to the park a lot to play and have fun. We also used swings to learn how to balance and go up the stairs on the slide. These activities not only made her stronger, but they also made me believe that I can help my child. I understand what she needs and I can add more activities to make her muscles even stronger, based on her abilities.
I noticed that we often overlook the free things available to us that can help our kids with their stability, balance, and muscle strength. These include equipment in the park like inclined platforms, swings, and stairs. We sometimes assume that only expensive equipment and therapy items can help our children. Here are a few things that helped Veda improve her muscle strength by visiting the park every day.
Swings
We are aware that for typical kids it’s easy to balance their bodies while walking, running, or doing daily activities but for kids with Down Syndrome, balancing issues always prevail due to low muscle tone, delayed motor development, and coordination.
I introduced swings to my child before she learned to walk, even before she started learning letters, numbers, or drawing.
We started using swings in a sideways position for the first 2-3 months until V gained control of the movement of her trunk and legs. For the next six months, doing swings and walking was our daily ritual. Yes, for six months, every day without fail, she learned to swing.
Swings are Free of cost, and help in sensory Integration, vestibular system, improving balance, coordination, body awareness, postural control and stability & increasing focus.
Walking on a narrow platform.
Don’t have enough money to spend on an expensive balance beam to practice balance and gait training, then try to make your child walk on a narrow platform at a specific height above the ground.
You can find such platforms, and logs in parks and help your child to walk on them. It can help in improving focus, stability, and core strength and your child is going to learn the art of balance while walking slowly on them. Watch the video here, Body Awareness.
Stairs
If you have been following our journey for the past three years, you know how hard she has worked to learn to climb stairs. It took a whole year of doing regular workouts on the stairs, staying patient, being determined, and putting in a lot of effort to reach this point.
Climbing up a slide
Climbing up a slide can be the best way to build muscle strength in arms, core, and legs. It takes lots of strength, patience, and coordination to climb up on a slide, so please give your child the time to build that strength.
Playground Climbers/Climbing ladder
Climbing ladders can be challenging for our kids as the child has to carry and push the body weight to climb up on the ladder and balance as the rope moves. This single workout is enough to strengthen her upper body, leg muscles, grip and core. It can also help with finger strength, hand-eye coordination, visual skills, and decision-making skills.
You don’t have to buy a rope ladder for this. You can also try to use the climbing frames in parks. Watch the video.
Hanging Bars
Before you try using hanging bars, it’s important to talk to a Physical Therapist to see if your child is ready to handle their own body weight. If they are, hanging bars can be a great tool to help them build up their strength.
We started with counting to 3, then 5, and then 10 and told V to hold the posture in a hanging position. It took regular practice and repetition. Once we achieved that, we modeled how to swing the legs simultaneously. These bars are so helpful in improving upper body strength, grip, core strength and confidence. Once V learned to hold the weight while hanging, raising her knees and swinging together, she felt extremely confident and proud of herself.
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