Dyspraxic child going on Scouts overnighter

[VenusClapTrap]

Ds is ten and has just moved up to Scouts. They are doing a hiking weekend which involves a hike, followed by overnight in the Scout hut, followed by another long hike.

Ds is dyspraxic and chaotic with his stuff, and terrible at tying shoelaces. This is not from want of training - it has been a monumental effort and he can now tie laces, but not very well. He can’t do it tightly enough and they come undone all the time. He then gets bored of constantly re-tying them and runs around with them undone.

This is fine if I’m around to remind him, but on a long hike it’s important his hiking boots have properly tightly tied laces, or he’s in danger of twisting his ankle.

Second problem is his stuff - rolling up and tying up his mat and his sleeping bag, not to mention keeping track of his clothes which will be scattered to the four winds and never found again. Goodbye woggle, goodbye socks.

Any tips that anyone with a dyspraxic child can offer? Or just a generally chaotic child?

I was going to have a quiet word with the leaders staying overnight, to see if they can keep an eye, but it turns out that none of their pack leaders will be there. The adults staying overnight are from different packs (it is a big thing with multiple local groups doing the activity), so he won’t know any of them. There’s absolutely zero chance of him asking a stranger to help him with his shoelaces, even if I tell him to.

I probably just need to let him sink or swim, but if anyone has any tips or tricks to help organise him I’d be very grateful.

Ds has ASD and on over nighters I used to put clothing sets into clear ziplock bags and label them. Sleep wear and Toiletries went in ziplock bags to so everything was easy to find and see.

In my experience both with NT ds and the one with ASD they often came home with the zip lock bags tightly sealed and still in the pants they left home in 🙄

Same here 😂

The advantage is that the bags of clean, sealed clothes can go directly back into the clean drawers at home 🤣

For general Scout/ Guide camps, I love this waterproof holdall/ rucksack (price has gone up since I bought it though!). My Scout/ Cub always seems to get the leaky tent that floods, but they have come home with dry kit after their holdalls kept the water out. The rucksack straps help with lugging kit across a large site on foot. Plenty of space to shove everything in haphazardly at the end of the camp (after it came back through the lost property system thanks to everything being named...)
Bigger bags where things don't have to be precisely arranged really helps.

Make sure they're involved in packing, know how their kit works and can recognise it. Label everything.
The alternative laces are a great suggestion.

I've done many camps with children of varying organising skills (known SENs or otherwise); it does feel very different sending my own children with executive function issues, but I have picked up some strategies on the way. It's weird when I've been on camps with leader and parent mode and encounter my children sporadically around a camp!

You can get rucksacks that open on the side rather than the top which makes it easier to find things.

Yes, for any trips that don't involve hiking DS finds a holdall with a flap opening top easier to deal with than a rucksack, so a combined one sounds great.