Activities

One thing I hear consistently from people in this field is the ongoing desire to get people involved in “activities”.

Usually by activities people mean they are reaching for ideas to help people get off their duffs and just do something. This is an important step, considering that many people with labels of developmental disabilities have been warehoused in facilities or shut in their homes and have limited experience with doing many things outside these spheres.

There’s some considerations here, we can’t just go do whatever comes to mind, obviously there’s budget constraints, supervision constraints, transportation might be an issue, in some instances accessibility is an issue (for wheelchairs and whatnot), but if you’re willing to tackle these barriers, there’s a world of doing out there.

Some advice to help get out and do something:

1) Kill the TV. If you can’t kill it, at least set boundaries for it (times of day, days of the week). TV is an attention stealer and is probably the most passive of activities I can think of, and in my opinion keeps people from doing more meaningful activities.

2) Look out your front door. So you can’t go to Disney world every day and be massively entertained. But what can you do that’s close by? How about right outside your front door? Plant a garden in your yard, go for a walk around the block, walk to the convenience store or in the local park.

3) Become a member. Get involved with a church. Hey, there’s people out there who want to do things with you, meaningful things, like pray and sing and build the kingdom of God with you. Membership with a library or in a garden group or civic associations and some clubs brings your gifts and talents to others. You can do more with others than you can alone.

4) Be willing to “fail”. I’ve had some experiences with people who felt very disrupted when they were going out on activities. The stress of getting out of their familiar and often very sedentary world was so great that they flipped out and made quite a scene. Sometimes it was the people around them who made the scene, they were surprised that someone didn’t know the unspoken rules of behavior for the given public setting and when someone with a label unknowingly violated the norm, some people flipped out and called security. At the end of a day like that, pat your friend on the back, “you tried, good job”, and pat yourself on the back , too. Tomorrow is another day. As a Supports Coordinator, I am much more likely to feel for someone who tried to do something worthwhile and had a disruption, than for someone who never tries.

I remember this advice from a past talk at Circle of Hope: "In order to be great at something, first you have to be just good at it. In order to be good at something, first you have to be bad at it. And in order to be bad at something, first you have to try. And in order to try something, you have to just do something."

So what is out there that worth doing? If it’s information your looking for, here’s a couple of pieces of information:

The Philly Official Visitor’s Guide

Visions for Equality Fun Guide

Still looking? Talk to me, talk to your friends. Do something together you both like doing, or do something for them that they like to do even if you don’t. I’ll go along if you need someone. Give me a call.