As soon as I had a spare moment at my new work (and some spare mats), I made a keyboard mat again like the one I had in England. 😁 I just love so very much all the possibilities it has. Human bodies learn from big, to small. When children are first learning to form … Read more
One of my absolute favorite things about our new life in Australia is that we’ve made best friends with the neighbours, who have several kids close in age to both of my children. All of our kids are neurodivergent and watching these gorgeous ND friendships flourish is giving me life every day. (All of this … Read more
I have a guessing game called, “Which of these ‘behaviors’ is actually a sign of developmentally appropriate schema play in toddlers and babies?” (if you don’t know what schema play is, I’ll explain in just a sec 😉 ) Okay, so here are your options: a) Throwing toys, even after the adult has told the … Read more
A year ago, my children, who were 5 and 6 at the time, had similar-aged friends come over to the house. The four of them all played together, running around the house and roughhousing. One friend didn’t really get physically hurt, but the play got too rough and they were emotionally a little overwhelmed and … Read more
During one of the recent snow days home, my kids were getting really sick of being cooped up inside and struggling to be able to play with one another successfully. They both needed more space than was available inside, and they were both sick of trying to play bundled up in the snow, and the … Read more
Imagine this scenario: A seven-year-old with “just” fine motor difficulties (i.e. — no formal diagnosis of any medical/social/emotional condition) wakes up in the morning. He struggles to get himself dressed, because the clothes that he wants to wear have small buttons on them that he doesn’t know how to do. The last time he tried, … Read more
We came back from the usual 2-week holiday break, and then had school cancelled for an entire week due to snow and road conditions. So, when my kids went back to school yesterday (with a 2 hour delayed start, on top of everything) for the first time in 23 days, I knew it was going … Read more
(All I’m doing in this post is describing adult/child interactions that I observed, but I want to give you a heads up that it’s kind of infuriating. I think that’s important to share and to talk about, but I wanted to put this heads-up here because I know that some readers have been more intensely … Read more
We have been through some wild things as a family in our lives, but none of them have strained us as thoroughly as these past few weeks. They’ve been the hardest for our family’s well-being, the most difficult to parent, and the worst my mental health has been in a long time. I’ve been struggling … Read more
(Content warning: This post contains discussion of physical child abuse.) *** When I was nine or so, my family went on a road trip. I read all the books I’d brought with me. Bored, I picked up some parenting books someone else had brought, and read them too. I read about the best way to … Read more