10 Ways Families Impacted by Disabilities and Special Needs Can Enjoy Spring

by jphilo | Mar 23, 2022 | Different Dream, How-Tos, Special Needs Parenting

10 Ways Families Impacted by Disabilities and Special Needs Can Enjoy Spring

These 10 ways families impacted by disabilities and special needs can enjoy spring was compiled by guest blogger Mark Arnold. His family, like yours, is ready for better weather whenever it comes.

If you find yourself being stuck indoors in the winter, then you might be as excited as I am to see spring coming. Little by little the days are getting longer, maybe even warmer. Snowdrops and crocuses are dazzling us with their beauty. After a couple hard years, we need a bit of cheering up and hope that life can return to normal in many ways.

Our children feel the same way too, and we know that a bit of sunshine, fresh air, and natural beauty can lift all of our spirits. These 10 ways families impacted by disabilities and special needs can enjoy spring can get your children out into nature again!

Find nature everywhere.

You don’t have to live in the country to get close to nature. Look for your local park. Visit someone with a garden. Even a window box can be packed with beauty and life.

What can you see?

Keep track of the different flowers and birds you can see. What else can you count? Insects? Clouds? Take photos of what you see.

Embrace the mud!

Accept that it’s going to be messy when kids are in nature. Dress them in boots and old clothes so getting mucky doesn’t matter. Give them the freedom to explore without worrying about them getting filthy. Encourage them to splash in the puddles.

Exercise you all can.

Depending on your child’s abilities, get some exercise outside. Go the play area in your local park. Kick or throw a ball. Walk or roll around the paths.

Breathe!

While your children are exploring, stop to take in a lungful of fresh air and slowly let it out. The stresses and strains of the winter will diminish as you focus on your breathing.

Look forward.

What are you looking forward to this spring? While you are enjoying the fresh air and your mood is lifted, think about what you might change this year? As you see the flowers opening up, let opportunities open inside of you too. Commit to making this a great year for you and your family.

Bring a little spring indoors.

If you have snowdrops, crocuses, or other flowers in the garden, pick some with your kids. Bring them indoors to brighten up your living space. Picking the flowers may encourage the plant to produce more!

Create a natural fiddles box

Collect items from nature to make a spring fiddles or fidget box. Try adapting ideas from this article, How To Make an Autumn Fidget Box, for spring.

Make Memories

Take photos of what you do and see. On a showery day when you’re stuck indoors again, look at the pictures. Then get paints or coloring pens out. Have your children paint or draw what they did when you went out. It may get them excited about going out again.

Have adventures outdoors with friends.

If you had fun exploring outdoors as a family, why not meet up with some friends next time? Go somewhere new that you haven’t explored yet and find new adventures together.

I hope these 10 ways families impacted by disabilities and special needs can enjoy spring puts a spring in your step!

Do you like what you see at DifferentDream.com? You can receive more great content by subscribing to the monthly Different Dream newsletter and signing up for the daily RSS feed delivered to your email.

By

Mark Arnold is the Additional Needs Ministry Director at Urban Saints, a leading national Christian children’s and youth organization. He is co-founder of the Additional Needs Alliance, a national and international advocate for children and young people with additional needs or disabilities. Mark is a Churches for All and Living Fully Network partner, a member of the Council for Disabled Children and the European Disability Network. He writes an additional needs column for Premier Youth and Children’s Work (YCW) magazine and blogs at The Additional Needs Blogfather. He is father to James, who has autism spectrum condition, associated learning disability, and epilepsy. To find out more about how Mark’s work can help you, contact him at: marnold@urbansaints.org or @Mark_J_Arnold

Author Jolene Philo

Subscribe for Updates from Jolene

Last week, my heart grew heavier and heavier as the media reported more and more bad news. Downed airliners. Fighting in the Middle East. People in this country shouting at refugee children, holding ugly signs telling them to to home. I gave God an earful. I told him I wasn’t sure about living in a world as cruel as this, a world stripped of loveliness and compassion, a world devoid of beauty. And then, God answered, as He so often does, on my morning walk. I looked up, and there on the edge of the woods, stood a doe. Immobile. I walked closer and closer to where she stood sentry. Closer than I’ve ever been to a deer before. Close enough to see her heavy udder, her swollen teats. She bravely held her ground, watching over a hidden fawn, trembling, but never flinching as I passed by. Then, at the end of my walk as I ascended our driveway, God spoke again. A male indigo bunting, very small, very young, sat on the gravel only a few steps away. He hopped about, flew into the bushes unsteadily, then flew with wobbly precision across the driveway and perched in one tree, then on the dead branch of another. I stood, transfixed by the courageous bird, patchy with iridescent blue feathers and intoxicated with the freedom of flight, until he took wing again and flew away. “My world is filled with brave mothers, with courageous children,” He said. “My world is filled with beauty.”

The Price of Beauty

by jphilo | Jun 6, 2014 | Walking Down the Gravel Road

Morning walks have been a parade of beauty
These late spring days.
An indigo bunting perched on the fence,
Baby bunnies hopping around in dizzy circles,
Cardinals, male and female,
Singing from the treetops,
Or flying beside the path.
And then, this morning,
The season’s first glimpse of a shy, spotted fawn
Crossing the road behind her mother.

I do not care that the drivers of the cars coming down the hill
Thought me a crazy woman
For holding up one hand in warning,
While using the other to point to the fawn ahead,
For urging people on their way to work
To slow down,
To stop
Until this small and speckled new life had crossed the road.
Such is the price of beauty,
And I am glad to pay it.

Hungry for Iowa

by jphilo | May 4, 2012 | Walking Down the Gravel Road

Spring is lovely along our Iowa gravel road.The rain washes away the dust kicked up by cars passing by, so the foliage is a deep and vibrant, soothing green. Every day is a feast for the senses.

The lingering scent of rain from a night time thunderstorm.
Toads betrayed by small movement in the grass.
Does hiding the shadow.
Cardinals singing in the treetops.
The stream rushing and gurgling under the bridge.
Goldfinches fighting for their turf in low bushes.

Each spring morning, I rush outside to greet new blossoms.
First the magnolias, the rhododendron, the red buds, and the daffodils.
Then the bleeding heart, the tulips and the lilacs.
Now the iris, the clematis, and the columbine.
Soon the peonies and the daisies.

I can’t bear the thought of missing the arrival of these friends. So most years, I stay home in May, determined to fully savor its beauty. But not this year. Not this week. Tomorrow, we pack the car and leave the beauty behind for a few days. I hate to miss the arrival of the peonies and daisies. But I know how much my daughter misses our gravel road after a year in Ohio while her husband finished grad school.

She misses the ancient silver maples in our yard,
The sight of leaves and grass,
The smell of trees and space and flowers,
The fairy ring where she played as a child,
The regularity of a gravel road each mile,
The greenness found only in Iowa,
Beloved by Iowa girls like my daughter and me.

She’s hungry for her home state, as I was during the seven years Hiram and I lived in South Dakota. So hungry, I could hardly bear it. So eager for a taste of home, I lived for my mother’s visits and feasted on the time she spent with us.

My mother left her roses,
And her yard work,
And her rhubarb,
And her invalid husband
To feed her daughter a taste of home.

So the peonies and daisies will have to bloom without us. Hiram and I are off to see our daughter and new son. Packing our car with Iowa air and comfort. Eager to share our feast with our hungry, Iowa-starved children. Bringing them the taste of our gravel road as my mother once brought a taste of home to me.