This holiday we got a Pure Fun 9012TS trampoline with a safety enclosure (from Santa) for our kids. One of our children needs vestibular input, while the others need to play outside and get some exercise so this was the perfect family gift. The large, very heavy box arrived from an outside shipping company (Santa’s sleigh) with a large tear in it, so we feared we would be missing pieces when it came time to assemble it. Thankfully, it turned out that everything was still included.
We have a nice, level area in our backyard which is important for safety. The trampoline frame went up fairly easily. After checking the company’s website for updated instructions the rest of the setup went well, thanks to my handy hubby and handy-in-training pre-teen son. My younger kids and I pitched in when we were needed. Overall, it took just over four hours to put up – and a little longer to break up the fights about which child was going to try the trampoline first. It has bright blue and green colors that look great and so far it has been a huge hit.
If you decide to let your kids use a trampoline, be sure to pay careful attention to the safety rules like only one person at a time, land only on your feet and more. For additional safety info on trampolines from the Mayo clinic, click here. After a full day of jumping, one of my children got an upset stomach. The second day another one had a bad headache and the third had a sore back. We decided on our own family safety rules, which are in line with the ones at the Mayo website – 20 minute turns each, a few times a day. Setting limits and forbidding horseplay seems to have cured all the injuries…so far.
According to occupational therapist Barbara Smith, author of The Recycling Occupational Therapist: Hundreds of Simple Therapy Materials You Can Make, the vestibular system is a sensory system that provides information about posture, movement and balance. Many special needs kids crave vestibular input like rocking, swinging and jumping so a trampoline can be a great source of fun as well as good sensory input as long as it is done under supervision and with safety in mind. This sort of sensory input also tends to calm special needs kids. Combining fun, exercise and calming benefits made the Pure Fun trampoline the perfect fit for our family!
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