The Strappening! Keep Your Child In Their Chair During School From Home!

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The Strappening! 

Keep Your Child In Their Chair During School From Home! (Quick Post)

The title sounds a lot worse than it actually is. For us parents, who are living through the pandemic with small children who are schooling from home, keeping them in their seat is a HUGE challenge. To be very honest, most office chairs or chairs we have around the house are not ideal, nor are they meant to for our children to be in for long periods of time. They squiggle, squirm, lay down, zig zag, and even sliver out of their seat. So, what do we do? Keep reading and I'll tell you what worked for me in five easy steps!

Step 1: Talk to them!

Photo by Sai De Silva on Unsplash

The    Most    Import    Step is talking to them. I can guarantee your child is not sitting still or properly in their chair is because they're uncomfortable! Talk to them. Make it very clear that they are not in trouble and that you don't want them to get in trouble with the teachers. Also, tell them that moving around a lot can distract their friends and get them in trouble too. Explain that it is distracting and maybe give an example or two.

Second, ask them what is wrong. Younger children DO NOT know how to express themselves well so you will need to provide examples,  yet again. "Is the chair to hard? Is the chair too wide? Is it too tall or short?" 

Lastly, ask them how you can fix it. Again, provide examples! "Do you need a pillow on your back or sides? Do you need me to lower the chair?" Really, the list goes on but make every effort.

Step 2: Getting the right chair

So, maybe the talk didn't work out and maybe your chair doesn't allow flexible comfort options (example: folding chair). Getting the right chair is a huge benefit but in some cases is not affordable. A good legitimate child's office chair is expensive from what I found. However, a standard office chair with a few of the following chair "hacks" may be the affordable option you need!

Step 3: Pillow up!

Brentwood Originals from Amazon.com

If you are going with a standard affordable office chair for adults you are going to want to pillow up! Like I mentioned in my School From Home Help For Parents post, you may want something like what I call a bed chair. This covers all sides of the chair and may form fit your child into the adult sized office chair.

If this is out of your budget or you need something a little more immediate, find pillows to fill in the gaps.

Something else to keep in mind, make sure to provide really good back support. I use the thickest pillow I can find in my house and it works out great!

Step 4: So begins the STRAPPENING!

Image by Ridiculouslyben.com

My child slithers out of her chair CONSTANTLY! My solution? "Honey, would you like a seatbelt?" It worked like a charm and she gets excited about it every day! I've experimented with a few solutions however, when doing this we need to keep safety in mind! So I thought conventional belts with loops, clips, or buckles may work, but may be difficult to get out of. 

So after some experimenting, the number one solution I have come to was Velcro! You can use any of the belts you can find in the following or you can make your own. (Of course be sure to match the size with the size of chair + child)

Velcro Duty belt     Work support belt

This allows your child to easily and safely undo their own belt. What I did was contract grandma 😉 to make the belt out of a soft cushiony material with about six inches of Velcro at each end. You may want to measure around your child and chair with a soft tape measure used for fabric and give a little slack for adjusting. 

Step 5: Preventing Rotation and Drift

So other than keeping your child in their seat, be sure the chair does not rotate or drift from the desk. Sadly, most affordable office chairs do not have rotation locks or wheel locks. Here's my solution:

Step 1: Rotation Solution

So, to prevent the chair from rotating you can use rope or tie towels together however, I've noticed using old belts you don't really care to work the best. You can really get creative with this. You want to strap the base of the chair down to the base of the rollers. It works like a charm. I'll provide a picture of what I did for example.

Image by Ridiculouslyben.com

Step 2: Solving The Drift

Image from AIFUDA

Solving the drifting problem is even easier! You can use a towel or wire to blog the wheels on the chair, but this could be potentially damaging to the item you are using. Also, putting the chair on a carpet or a rug makes it more difficult to drift.

To avoid the damage your wheels can produce I would suggest wheel cups. You can get them almost anywhere and they just slide under the wheels. I would suggest the following cups as they give you enough for all your wheels and they work like a charm. Cup link here!

In the end, it's about safety!

The way I see it, the more they can move in their seat, the more potential they can fall and hurt themselves. Drifting can cause them to fall forward, you can imagine the dangers of spinning around, and slithering backward out of the seat can cause a combination of all three.