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Helping Children Prevent, Recognize and Cope with Holiday Stress
By Ingrid Amerson, Director
TRI Child Development Center
Dec. 9, 2011
With the holidays approaching, our lives become filled with shopping sprees, holiday decorations, special events, parties, and travel to see friends and family. In today's fast paced world of meeting hectic holiday schedules, we must not forget how the holiday season can affect children. While these holiday events are approached with great anticipation and filled with exciting activities, they can cause both adults and children to become overwhelmed, tired, and stressed. As adults we play an important role in helping children prevent, recognize and cope with their holiday stress.
Prevention is the best way for us to help children feel secure and safe during the busy holiday season. We can help prevent stress in the following ways.
- Let children know what to look forward to, the time and day of the activity, and individuals they know who will be present. This allows them the time to mentally prepare. This way the child is not caught off guard.
- Keep consistency in a child's normal routine as much as possible. Insuring time for their mid-day quiet time or normal bedtime hours will lead to a restful, joyful child.
- Schedule plenty of time for transitions to and from an activity. Children like to observe their surroundings. Take in all the lights you might say.
Recognizing signs of stress is a vital role for adults. The earlier we recognize signs of stress, the easier it is to help the child. Children often do not have the words to describe how they are feeling. Instead, they communicate to us through their behavior. Their feelings of stress are generally demonstrated with inappropriate behaviors such as ignoring directions, increased tantrums, and reluctance to listen or participate in a particular activity. All of which disrupt what we wanted to be a joyful event for the child.
In the event your do observe stress in a child you can help them cope by providing a supportive atmosphere in which to talk about or play out concerns. It also might be a time to reexamine the family's schedule and make adjustment to help relieve stress in the child. Acknowledge and accept the feelings children express. If the child is nervous about an activity, it would be wise to talk about what the activity will involve and who will be there. You might even consider not going to the activity or make arrangements for childcare. An attitude of love, understanding, and acceptance helps children get through the stress of the holidays.
Let us not fall in the "holiday trap" of being so busy that we forget about spending quality time at home with our children. Sharing family rituals and traditions this time of year can be exciting and can create memories that last forever.
May your holiday season be filled with memories that last a life time!
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Meeting the Needs of Children
Who Are Deaf Blind
Nov. 18, 2011
Funded by the U.S. Department of Education's Office of Special Education Programs (OSEP), the National Consortium on Deaf-Blindness (NCDB) is a national technical assistance and dissemination center for children and youth who are deaf-blind. NCDB brings together the resources of three agencies with long histories of expertise in the field of deaf-blindness, The Teaching Research Institute (TRI) at Western Oregon University, the Helen Keller National Center (HKNC), and the Hilton/Perkins Program at Perkins School for the Blind. NCDB works collaboratively with families, federal, state and local agencies to provide technical assistance, information and personnel training.
The National Consortium on Deaf-Blindness (NCDB) conducts a yearly child count across each state to supplement the annual national Special Education Child Count, which includes children as deaf-blind only when deaf-blindness is their single disability. In contrast to the annual Special Education December 1 count, the December 1 Deaf-Blind Child Count data is collected for children with deaf-blindness in isolation, as well as those with additional disabilities. This is an important distinction in that nearly 90% of the children and youth on the Deaf-Blind Child Count have one or more additional disabilities. For 2010, a total of 9,320 children and youth are included on the December 1 Deaf-Blind Child count. To be included a child or youth must be in special education and be eligible for project services on December 1, 2010. In contrast the Special Education child count identifies only 1,581 students as deaf-blind.
The National Child Count of Children and Youth who are Deaf-Blind is the first and longest running registry and knowledge base of children who are deaf-blind in the world. It represents a 25 plus year collaborative effort between NCDB, its predecessors and each state deaf-blind project throughout the country, as well as those projects funded in the Pacific Trust territories, the Virgin Islands and Puerto Rico. It has been collaboratively designed and implemented as the common vehicle to meet federal grant requirements for both the state/multi-state and national technical assistance projects and serves as a common data collection and reporting mechanism for use across the country. Consistent with the priorities under which NCDB, its predecessors, and the state/multi-state projects are funded, this national child count is used to identify national and state technical assistance needs for children and youth who are deaf-blind, their families and the service providers and systems which serve them (Killoran, 2007).
This information is located in NCDB's National Deaf-Blind Child Count Maps. Each tool has different strengths that can easily be used to provide very specific information. The Data Maps are perfect for seeing the big picture and identifying states with similar characteristics. The Pivot Charts/Tables are better suited to delving down in to the data to find specific patterns.
More.
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Oregon Deafblind Project
Oct 22, 2011
The Oregon Deafblind Project provides technical assistance, training, and information to enhance services for children who are deafblind. The project provides services at no cost to districts and families of children from birth through age 21 years in Oregon. The project which is funded by a grant from the U.S. Department of Education serves children who are considered "eligible" by an IFSP or IEP team.
Dr. Lyn Ayer, the Project Director, oversees efforts to identify children who are deafblind, especially amongst the population of children who have multiple disabilities and children who are deaf/hard of hearing and may have Usher Syndrome. Registration of a child with the project entitles the child's family and team to no-cost training and technical assistance from the project.
For more information, visit the Oregon Deafblind Project Website.
In Memorium
August 2011
Dr. Victor Baldwin passed away Saturday, July 16th after a long and courageous battle with multiple myeloma at his home in Monmouth.
Vic began his work with the Oregon State System of Higher Education housed on the Oregon College of Education campus (now WOU) in April 1968 as an Assistant Research Professor with the Teaching Research Division (currently The Teaching Research Institute). He became the Director in 1978 and was at the helm of TR for the next twenty years. In his semi-retirement, he focused his work as a Principal Investigator in deaf-blindness with what is currently the National Consortium on Deaf-Blindness. He had more than 30 years of experience in the field of deaf-blindness, a strong background in administrative oversight, extensive knowledge of Federal and state legislation, initiatives and grants, and a history of collaborative relationships with a wide variety of Federal agencies and state departments and agencies.
Vic will be missed by all of us here at TRI and by colleagues and friends across the country.
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