A post originally from two years ago, of a time when I “got it right” with playfulness, and with seeing “misbehavior” as a plea for playfulness. *** My 2yo and I were sitting at the kids’ dinner table. My 3.5yo always has a hard time with dinner. He’s groggy from his nap and his blood … Read more
I originally recorded this lecture for a group who work tutoring children with dyslexia and other learning difficulties. It’s based on a lot of experiences I’ve had with children getting referred to me in my occupational therapy role, with goals to improve their handwriting. But how can I, an occupational therapist, work within the bounds … Read more
I had the opportunity to speak to a group at one of the schools where I work on the topic of discerning whether kids’ “behavior” could be motivated by sensory processing, or whether it’s just “acting out”. (If you’ve been following this page for any amount of time, you might guess the spoiler alert that … Read more
I posted last week about the overuse of the word “listen” to mean “obey” in adult/child relationships — i.e., “you’re not listening to me” when what the adult really means is “you’re not complying with what I told you”, not, “your ears are not processing the language I’m saying.” A lot of people in the … Read more
Earlier this year, I bought my 5yo “Apollo” new shoes. Apollo’s approach to clothing has always been pretty much functional. He’s gotta wear clothing to go out in public so whatever goes on his body works just fine. He’s occasionally been enthusiastic about a cool airplane shirt or whatever but mostly unconcerned with what he’s … Read more
One student used a giant Sharpie and a still-giant-but-slightly-less-giant Sharpie to draw the outline on this big piece of butcher paper. An artistic, abstract, scribble. Same student plus more students helped me make watercolors in a project I’ve talked about before here: we used pliers to break open washable markers that had dried out, harvested … Read more
Use ultra-washable paint (1 part washable kids’ paint, 1 part dish soap) — or, even easier, chalk — to decorate outdoor toys. A car like this one, a scooter/bike, a backyard slide…you name it, you can probably color on it. If you can’t get the chalk to stay, you can dip the chalk in water … Read more
Recently, my family and I visited a sandy playground, and it reminded me of this story about myself and sensory processing. My son was maybe 18 months old, and he was playing on a playground where the ground was hard rubber. Excellent. All was well. Then he realized that across a little strip of grass … Read more
This post has an audio and video recorded version for those who prefer to learn by hearing rather than by reading. Scroll to the bottom for the video of me reading it. Let me tell you a story about child-led learning, and about The Very Hungry Caterpillar. About one month ago, my coworker asked me … Read more
I grew up with a lot of technology. We had a home computer since before I was born and we had access to it pretty much whenever, as long as an adult didn’t need it right at that moment. I used to play simple clicking games when I was very young, like 3 and 4, … Read more