I spoke to a parent recently whose child was getting in trouble at school for being too “touchy” with other children—wanting to hug, touch, wrestle, tickle, etc more than was school-appropriate or allowed. I know these types of kids, too, and my heart really goes out to them! Rough-and-tumble play is a powerful and important … Read more
[Though I don’t currently have the bandwidth to accept any new consultation requests by email, I am still working through the backlog of consults that I did with people a couple of months ago when I was able to accept those. Here’s another of those questions.] *** A parent wanted to know about ways to … Read more
Child’s favorite activity: searching for something hidden somewhere in the room My goal for child: that they would not feel completely threatened by the concept of writing/drawing/touching a pencil, but begin to see ways in which it could be meaningful My plan: hide a lot of things around the room, make a checklist for those … Read more
I did this activity with one of my older elementary school aged kids (in the 8-10 range): we went on a “sensory scavenger hunt” together. I had a lot of ideas in mind while I did this. -I wanted the child to be able to take a break from any classroom time, and get outside … Read more
Listen, the parental exhaustion is real. I know this. AND, simultaneously, the children need to be in constant motion, like, 22 hours out of the day. I also know this. Meeting opposing sensory needs is a whole thing. It can be really tricky and take a lot of creative work and a lot of forgetting … Read more
Compared to the other two apps I’ve named, Forest and Finch, this one is much more of a game and also much much simpler in function. I believe it was designed for children and young people, but I enjoy simple games, so I really liked it too. The entire “self-care” function of this game is … Read more
Continuing my series about the apps I use in my everyday life: FINCH This is my current app obsession. Finch is a little virtual bird. You set goals in the app for taking care of yourself, and as you complete the goals, your little bird goes on adventures and unlocks clothes, furniture for their house, … Read more
I sat in on a behavior plan meeting one time where the adults were somewhat baffled. All the “usual tricks” hadn’t worked for the child: reward charts, earning privileges, stickers, etc. Finally what they agreed as a team to put into the behavior plan was that this child would respond best if given “unconditional positive … Read more
Those who have followed this page for awhile know that sometimes I talk about my own journeys with becoming more self-aware of my own needs and what’s going on in my own body, since I didn’t start to really know that any of that would be helpful or necessary until a few years into adulthood. … 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. On a recent post, I mentioned that I wanted to see if a child could do a particular task—I think it was cutting … Read more