Easy Winter Coloring Pages for Seniors Living with Dementia
Artist-created, simplified holiday and winter coloring pages perfect for seniors living with dementia.
Caregiver life is stressful, but I think the holidays seem to magnify it. Between trying to
- Get your mom(or dad – or both) to all their doctor appointments. (Is it just me or are there more dr visits these last 2 months of the year? ??♀️)
- Shop for and wrap gifts for everyone on your list and everyone on your mom’s list. (Because she can’t do it anymore, and it’s still really important to her to have a great gift for everyone.)
- Get your kids to all their holiday parties and events. (Plus the prep for those – especially when you have a daughter who wants to take reindeer made from marshmallows dipped in chocolate with red hot noses, candy eyes, and pretzel antlers … for 32 kids, their siblings, and their parents. Umm, those are really cute, but could we please just take a bowl of fruit?)
- Get everything “Christmas ready”. (Cleaning, decorating, Christmas card photos – why do we subject ourselves to that picture torture every year?)
- Answer your mom every time she asks the same question over and over with your happy/calm face on to the point that it’s getting really hard to fake it. (But you do, because you love your mom and want more than anything for her to feel happy, safe, and loved as she lives with this stinking disease.)
Tis the season. ?
With all this busyness, it gets even harder to make sure mom isn’t just sitting.
Like literally doing nothing.
The TV is on in the background, but she’s not processing. I can tell. And I have about 20 other things I have to do right now. So sitting down with her to work on a project or taking her out somewhere just isn’t possible.
It’s time to pull out something that she enjoys, can do independently, and that will take her more than a hot minute to complete and then come looking for me.
I have a new secret weapon for times like these. Special coloring pages designed especially for seniors living with dementia!
You see, Mom always enjoyed coloring. But she was losing interest.
Well, no. Actually, she wasn’t.
What she was doing was getting frustrated with the ridiculously intricate adult coloring books that made her feel like a failure. And she was never interested in those super simple coloring pages that were obviously created for preschoolers. (One way to tick off Mom is to pull out something for her that’s meant for small kids. She notices.)
A few weeks ago I created Mom a simplified fall coloring page. It was a big hit, and I wanted more pages like that for her.
But art isn’t my thing.
So I found an artist.
And this wonderful lady listened to me go on and on about these special coloring pages I wanted for Mom.
- They needed to have large simple graphics to help prevent confusion.
- The designs must look “adult”. Yes, they had to be simple, but couldn’t look like they were created for preschoolers.
- They needed thick stroke lines that were easy to stay within to reduce Mom’s frustration and allow her to be proud of the final product … because the final product still really matters to her.
- The designs also needed to come with color versions for Mom to refer to as she colors. These help her choose colors to use and to know which objects should be different colors, because sometimes those things get tricky for her.
- And since some days she is more confused than others, some of the designs need to come in a really easy version.
Well, this amazing artist listened to my coloring page wish list and knocked it out of the park. She did full-page designs and bookmarks.
And the color versions are gorgeous!
Oh, and every single design has an “easy” and “really easy” version.
Mom loves them! And I love that I have something ready to plop down for her when I have things I have to do and she’s just sitting, or following me around asking me the same thing over and over, or going on about a delusion that she had where she is convinced someone has stolen her teeth. (Yes, that really happened.)
These artist-created winter and holiday coloring designs are available in my shop. So if you could use some done for you ready to print coloring activities for your senior with dementia, check them out.
Want to remember this?
Save the Done for You Dementia Coloring Packs to your favorite Pinterest board.
