Your music therapist wants your child to have a great back to school experience! Check out these tips to start the school year off on a positive note!

1. Start your child's day with a song! This can be especially helpful if your child has a tough time waking up early and getting ready for school. Play a favorite song when it is time to wake up. If your child is a heavy sleeper, you can start it softly and increase the volume until they start to wake up. You can give them the opportunity to lay in bed and start to wake up while the rest of the song plays so they have a chance to prepare themselves for getting out of bed. You can also turn the moment into a chance for bonding by sitting with them and enjoying the song together!

2. Routine Playlists! Make a playlist for your child, along with a schedule of what each song means for the routine. A bedtime routine playlist may include a song for brushing teeth, a song for using the bathroom, one for changing clothes and getting settled into bed, and an instrumental song for a bedtime story. Use a visual schedule to help remind your child of the steps for each song, and as your child becomes more accustomed to the routine, they can start gaining independence with it. Letting your child help you choose songs for the routine playlist can help them feel in control and like an important part of the process. Pay attention to the lengths of the songs as well so they are appropriate for the amount of time each step in the routine should take. Music can help offer structure to transitions all throughout the day!

3. Building relationships through song sharing! As you wait for the school bus or while you drive your children to school, take turns sharing favorite songs with each other. After you listen to each song, everyone in the car can share one thing they liked about the song before the next person gets to share their song. This not only helps build relationships and conversational social skills, but can also help practice critical thinking skills as your children learn to listen carefully to each song to find something specific they like about it.

Our first session of Life Skills for Young Adults just wrapped up and it was a great success! Our participants spent 8 weeks working with Suzy, our recreational therapist, learning valuable skills about nutrition! This past session they learned about what a meal needs to be nutritious, how to budget meals, create grocery lists from recipes, take a rideshare to the store and shop from their list, and then how to turn their ingredients into delicious snacks and meals! 

The NEXT session of Life Skills for Young Adults starts on Wednesday, September 7 @ 5:30pm! This is a 16 hour class that spans 8 weeks and will cover a variety of topics! 

Call our office today to enroll! There are LIMITED spots available for this class in order for the participants to get the most value out of the class, currently only 4 spots still available!