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Parents' Place - personal care

Summary: Tips to help teach your child about everyday routines.

• Personal care and daily living skills
• Getting dressed
• Washing
• Toilet Training
• Food glorious food
• Further Information
• Parents' Place health and wellbeing menu
• Parents' Place homepage

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Personal care and daily living skills

The ability to perform the routine activities of daily living, such as washing and dressing, are critical for a child’s well being and self esteem. It may be easier and faster to do things for your blind or partially sighted child, but in the end, you will only be “teaching helplessness”. Children will soon learn that if they “stall” for long enough, you will do things for them. Don’t!

The tips below can help to teach your child about everyday routines.

Getting dressed

• Start with undressing – it’s easier to take things off than to put them on.
• Teach your child to put their clothes away properly – good organisational skills are essential for blind and partially sighted people so that they keep track of where belongings are.
• Choose clothing that is easy to put on and take off.
• Choose zips instead of buttons where possible.
• Choose large buttons rather than small fiddly ones.
• Choose garments that have obvious fronts and backs.
• As image becomes important when your child gets older, shaped buttons (slade colour) can be purchased from RNIB and sewn inside garments to ensure that, for example, blue tops match blue bottoms.
• Be consistent – follow the same pattern and use the same language each time you go through getting dressed or undressed.
• Guide and work from behind. It is easier for children to feel movements from behind, and it feels more natural to be moved from behind than to be pulled forward.
• Shoes – start off with velcro fasteners until your child has learned the necessary manual dexterity for buckles and then shoe laces. Teach your child to tie shoelaces in stages, with your support from behind, co-acting each movement.
• What shall I wear? It is helpful for your child to learn about appropriate clothing – for example when to wear jeans and strong shoes, when not to wear a party outfit etc.

Washing

Bath time is a great opportunity for babies and young children to learn about body parts and to understand relative size with brothers and sisters if everyone’s in together.

• If your baby is afraid of water (wet, or unfamiliar substances can be upsetting for blind and partially sighted children), you may want to put him in a small baby bath, or use a sponge insert or baby bath seat to make things easier.
• Scented soap and bubble bath make bath time more interesting.
• Brushing teeth – teach your child to put the toothpaste onto their finger and rub it onto their teeth directly and then to start brushing. This way you avoid the problems of co-ordinating the end of the toothpaste tube with the toothbrush.

Toilet Training

Children learn to use the toilet at different ages and stages – it is important that you and your child are both comfortable to embark on this project. Accidents will happen and may require patience on your part as a parent or carer.

• Have you got a potty with a solid base, and can you put it in a place where it’s easy to locate, for example, within reach of a wall?
• Have you got a toilet seat for when she’s older?
• Does your child know that Mum and Dad go to the toilet?
• Is he happy to be in the bathroom?
• Have you got the time to sit and talk to your child while she’s on the potty so that she feels more secure?
• Talk to the teachers at playgroup or nursery and agree on a routine which works at home and at nursery.

Food glorious food

Feeding is an important daily living skill to teach your child. Mealtimes should be fun and are a good opportunity to develop social skills, though eating can be a difficult or stressful experience for blind and partially sighted children. The tips below may help to avoid difficulties:

• Prepare the eating area and protect carpets and floor coverings with plastic sheeting or newspaper
• Your child may like to practise eating skills with you in private rather than learn “on the job” at family meal times.
• Use a “Dycem mat” (available from RNIB Customer Services, telephone 0845 702 3153 or email Cservices@rnib.org.uk) under the dish to prevent it from slipping.
• Ensure that children understand the words you are using, and be consistent.
• Give children an opportunity to enjoy different smells, tastes and textures.
• Start with finger feeding and then work from behind, at first guiding the child’s hand from the dish to the mouth and then gradually reduce your involvement.
• Choose dishes with a rim at first, and cups or mugs which do not easily tip over.
• Give small portions.
• Praise any success, however small.
• With older children, use the points of the clock to explain about the position of foods on the plate. For example, carrots at three o’clock, potatoes at six o’clock.
• Cooking and baking are great ways of learning about food and different textures – if a little messy!

Further Information

Our Early Years series of booklets contain many more suggestions for teaching daily living skills. “Setting Out” and “Focus on Foundation” may be of particular interest. See RNIB Publications for further details.

Reproduced from an article for Visibility magazine issue 21 (Autumn 1997) by Joyce Chatterton, Director of RNIB Cymru.

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Content author: sarah.smyth@rnib.org.uk

Last updated: 20/11/2008 11:13