The Curated Gift Guide #2 (2024's Version)
Holiday shopping season: ACTIVATED
The first Curated Gift Guide of 2024 focused on shopping for the kid who “wants to be a doctor when they grow up,” and will probably be voted Most Likely to Succeed her senior year of high school. For the second and third Curated Gift Guides, we’re going to be shifting our focus juuuuuuust a bit to kids with neurodivergent profiles. It is my wheelhouse after all.
A Curated Gift Guide for the ingenuitive builder who loves animals and was recently diagnosed with ADHD. Let’s call him Dylan.
Some hypothetical background and family history:
Dylan is about halfway through second grade.
His first grade teachers provided feedback about consistent hyperactivity, difficulty focusing attention in the classroom, and increasing work avoidance during his end of year parent-teacher conferences. However, Dylan’s teachers also believe he is very intelligent, and find that he is intrinsically motivated to work hard when he is available for learning. Soon after, he was evaluated and given an ADHD diagnosis.
Developmental milestones were otherwise met within an expected time frame.
Dylan is a sweet, compassionate child who loves animals. He is especially interested in learning about fish and insects.
He loves to build with blocks and make intricate obstacle courses with random objects around the house. Unsurprisingly, his favorite game is The Floor is Lava.
Dylan is very athletic and well liked at school, but it can be hard for him to play with other kids for long periods of time. Very enthusiastic and full of ideas, he is always trying to assume a leadership role during play and can be misunderstood by his peers.
My Goal: By tapping into his love of nature and need for movement, I want to curate gifts for Dylan that are enticing, regulating, and capable of promoting collaborative play (especially when he has friends over).
1. The Gone Fishing Set from Wonder & Wise
This first gift is a pretend play paddle boat and fishing set. It combines Dylan’s love of fish and insects (because, worms). It’s also providing him with opportunities to expand his thinking beyond learning facts and collecting animal stuffies. Dylan gets to role play being a fisherman or a passenger on a fisherman’s boat, sometimes having delightful outings catching fish on the lake and other times trying to survive a scary storm. Maybe he even gets to be the fish while a friend or family member pretends to be a fisherman attempting to catch him?
Role play allows us to take the perspective of others and build empathy, as well as adapt to new and unexpected scenarios. This type of play with give Dylan the tools to navigate social situations with increasingly levels of independence.
2. Lawn and Tabletop Action Games
Since Dylan loves setting up obstacle courses, I think he’ll love playing any (or all) of these games. Each one parallels the elements of an obstacle course in a developmentally appropriate way. These types of games are perfect for repetitive open-ended play and so much fun to use with a group of friends!
The object of The Ricochet is to bounce a ball across a sequence of boxes and complete a trick shot. Boxes can be set up in various combinations to explore and attempt to master understanding the concepts of depth, intensity, volition, and force. You can even incorporate objects from around the house, like pots and pans or different sized cups!
The animal themed bean bag toss is similar to one he might play at a local carnival or state fair. Like Ricochet, it will continue to expand Dylan’s understanding of the world and its physicality as it relates back to him and the way his body is able to function.
Dylan can also interact with the dominoes in different ways, such as playing the actual game or setting up a domino rally. Importantly, this nautical flag themed set can be tied back to his love of fish and may lead him to an interest in learning more about boats, the ocean, and other ideas within a maritime context.
All three games may also help improve his executive functioning skills, because they require planning ahead and sequencing multiple steps. After all of that organizing, which may help Dylan remain regulated for longer periods of time, the games inherently require him to practice self-monitoring when he makes mistakes. He might have to change his throwing speed, recalibrate his aim, and modulate his movements as he places dominoes the right distance from each other as not to knock down the whole sequence too early.
This will teach Dylan resilience and help him build frustration tolerance during an activity that is much more motivating to him than his writing activities at school. The hope is that building up a tolerance during something fun and playful carries over to him persevering through the challenging academic activities he has been avoiding at school due to trouble sustaining attention.
3. An LED Climbing Rope Swing
Having worked with many wonderful occupational therapists, I have learned that one consistent way to help kids stay regulated is through playing on swings.1 This rope swing is extra fun because it lights up. It can be hung on a mounted hook inside your home or on a tree outside in the yard, depending on where you live and your children’s individual differences.
4. Spot It!
Another great game that an OT friend introduced me to years ago is Spot it! It’s part card game, part matching game, and great to take on the go. Need something to do while you wait for a table at a restaurant? How about on a long car ride or on a flight? Throwing Spot It! in your bag is a necessity.
This type of card game is great for Dylan, because he has trouble focusing for long periods of time and can be impulsive. Playing Spot It!, he will either harness that quick processing time to find the pictures immediately, or it can help him to slow down and focus as he searches for the matching images round after round.
5. A Bug Jar
The kid loves bugs, wouldn’t you rather he has a bug jar than use one of your food containers or even worse, one of your stasher bags?
6. A Yoto Player and Cards
Since working with students who have dyslexia, I have become immersed in the world of audiobooks. The Yoto player is one of the coolest and most unique audio tools for kids on the market today. Technically screen free, kids can listen to their favorite books on The Yoto by inserting a card into the top of the speaker. It can also be used as an okay-to-wake nightlight, a white noise machine, and a music player. There are 1,000’s of cards to choose from across many genres and themes.
You can even buy blank cards and make your own! This would be a great choice for your child to practice reading their own favorite books aloud for a younger sibling or cousin in addition to themselves. It’s also a nice way for grown ups, like grandparents and parents that have to travel often for work, put their voices to memory by sharing a sweet message or telling a favorite story.
Moreover, it’s ad-free, so you need not worry about what your kids are listening to and whether or not an algorithm is exposing them to inappropriate material.
7. Interlocking Wooden Blocks Construction Set from Haba
Gift number seven is a block set, because Dylan loves to build (and it wouldn’t be a Curated Gift Guide without a set of blocks). Because these blocks are interlocking, he can play around with understanding weight distribution and balance to create archways—something that isn’t always feasible with conventional set of blocks.
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For more information, check out this website from The Collaborative for Leadership in Ayres Sensory Integration : https://www.cl-asi.org/parents