Thinking about Increasing Activity - For Parents, Carers and Trusted Adults
When a child or young person has been unwell and is experiencing symptoms like tiredness or pain, it’s important to take a careful and gradual approach to increasing their activity levels. Jumping back into normal activities too quickly can lead to setbacks, so we need to ensure their recovery is well-paces and personalised. The National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) guidelines recommend a personalised approach to increasing activity. This means creating a plan that takes into account the child or young person's current level of activity, their symptoms, and how to respond to any increase in activity.
Safe steps to increase your activity:
- Step 1 - Collaborate planning: Together with a healthcare professional, you and your child or young person can think about how they feel and what they enjoy doing.
- Step 2 - Pacing activities: Pacing is crucial for managing your child or young person’s activity levels and helping them do the things they enjoy without overexerting themselves. Pacing involves breaking activities into smaller, manageable chunks and finding a balance between activity and rest. This ensures they are able to do the things they enjoy without making their symptoms worse.
- Step 3 - Avoiding the Boom/Bust cycle: We want to avoid the Boom/Bust cycle. Check out our page on Fatigue for more information on this. Pacing and rest can help prevent this cycle and ensure your child or young person is able to do something they enjoy each day, even if it is in little chunks.
- Step 4 - Gradually increase activity: Increasing the activities your child or young person does in small, gradual steps is important. When it is time to start doing more, it is important to do it slowly and carefully to avoid ‘payback’ or an increase in fatigue or pain.
- Step 5 - Have a flexible plan: The plan you, your child or young person, and their healthcare professional create will be flexible and responsive to how your child or young person feels on a day-to-day basis. This flexibility is key to making sure the plan remains realistic and achievable. Activities should include things that your child or young person finds enjoyable or rewarding.
- Step 6 - Expecting ‘blips’: Recovery is rarely a straight line, and it’s normal to have setbacks or ‘blips’. These are periods where your child’s symptoms may worsen temporarily, and this can feel frustrating and upsetting, especially if things have been going well. However, these blips are a natural part of the recovery process, and to be expected. During a blip, the plan can be adjusted until your child or young person feels ready to increase their activity again. It is important to remember that your child or young person’s recovery is not always smooth sailing, and these ‘blips’ are a normal part of getting better. If you’re finding that you or your child feels sad, worried, or angry when they are in a blip, this is a very normal reaction. You might find it helpful to have a look at our page on Coping with Difficult Thoughts and Feelings.
With a carefully planned approach, your child or young person can safely increase their activity levels while managing their symptoms. Recovery takes time, and you can support them to get back to doing the things they love in a way that feels comfortable for them.