Activities
Risky Play: Clipline Zipline
A delightful little example of risky play in action. There are a few different opportunities for kids to play with height in my rooms. This was a really fun, creative one that also worked on […]
Articles by The Occuplaytional Therapist
Babies
What is Behavior Communicating?
The phrase “behavior is communication” was invented in response to a set of ideas, a counter to them. One of these ideas is that children’s inconvenient or strange or annoying behavior is a sign of […]
Babies
A Proprioception Primer
When I try to define the word “proprioception” I usually refer to it as “deep body sense”. The sensing part of it also has to do with your sense of body in space and your […]
Activities
Make A Plan, Write It Down
I mentioned this idea almost offhandedly in a training recently and it was profoundly exciting to the people in the training— so I’m making it into its own post! Here’s the idea in brief: ask […]
At School
Packaged Regulation
A lot of public schools in the US, and at least some in the UK near where I live, have begun figuring out how they can teach social-emotional skills and things like self-regulation and coping […]
Activities
X-Ray Car Technician
I love it when kids merge the toys I have at different areas of my room. He merged the car table and my wooden “tools” and began pretending to use a screwdriver and a hammer […]
Child Development
“Why Did You…?”
It’s really understandable why adults ask children “Why did you do that?” After all, children are constantly doing things that seem honestly incomprehensible if not outright bonkers. An interesting side note is that in my […]
Activities
Big Pile of Pillows
It was 45 minutes until bedtime and my kids (6 and 4) were super amped up and high energy. Some days I have the energy to start playing goofily with them in a way that […]
Elementary
Yelling, from a Sensory Side of View
Did you know that yelling is, from a sensory perspective, a very regulating thing to do? That might sound weird and it might make your brain jump to conclusions that aren’t the same as exactly […]
At School
Clumsy Self-Advocacy
Recently I had an OT session with a child who I’ve known for many years. They were unusually irritable and on-edge, and at one point they were so frustrated with what they were trying to […]