At School
Stars and Rainbows
(From the archives of my own personal FB page, a story from when I was an early therapist. I would do some things differently now, but I still appreciated the story.) *** I have a […]
Other
Activities
“Touched-Out” Roughhousing
Here’s an unconventional tip for parents who are sensory-sensitive or get “touched out”. First of all — there’s nothing wrong with you if your preferred level of touching, snuggling, hugging, wrestling etc in a day […]
Activities
Painting with Brushes
When I introduced watercolors to my children for the first time (back when they were 3 and 2), I thought that the concept of dipping the paintbrush in the paint, wetting the paint, cleaning the […]
At Home
A Successful Meltdown
(At the time of my writing this, my son was 3 years old.) Yesterday evening was the best meltdown we’ve had in a long time. How’s that for a starter sentence? This is an incredibly […]
Personal
“Stop Crying”
“Stop crying” was one of the most repeated things I heard in my childhood — definitely the most repeated “correction” I ever heard. I was constantly crying too much. And constantly in trouble for it. […]
Personal
Positive Expectations
You may have heard the advice to tell your kids what they CAN do, and not what they CAN’T do. Or, to say your POSITIVE expectations, not your NEGATIVE expectations. An example of this might […]
Personal
Half Donut
When I was ten years old, my family was helping start a new church. This is something we did often when I was a kid. The church had a pastor and many of the other […]
Autism
Explaining Neurodivergence with Phones
One way that I sometimes explain the concept of neurodivergence — that autism, or ADHD* are different wirings of the brain, without being something “wrong” with the brain — to children (or sometimes to their […]
Personal
Self Awareness
I think there are most likely exactly zero of us who received explicit, overt, interoceptive (inner body sense) instruction growing up. Maybe there are a few of us who did actually receive good instruction, but […]
At Home