Personal
Doing It Imperfectly
Remember when I brought you such stunning insights of my own mind as “Hey, when socks feel bad on my feet, I give myself permission to take them off”? š Well, I’m back with another […]
Personal
At School
Strengths-Based Evaluation
āStrengths-basedā evaluation, goals, or treatment is something of a brand-new buzzword in the field of occupational therapy. And sometimes OT professionals feel threatened by this phrase, or feel like it leads to euphemistic evaluations where […]
Activities
“Touched-Out” Roughhousing
Hereās an unconventional tip for parents who are sensory-sensitive or get ātouched outā. First of all ā thereās nothing wrong with you if your preferred level of touching, snuggling, hugging, wrestling etc in a day […]
At Home
A Successful Meltdown
(At the time of my writing this, my son was 3 years old.) Yesterday evening was the best meltdown weāve had in a long time. Howās 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 ā definitely the most repeated ācorrectionā 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 CANāT 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 […]
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 […]
Personal
Offering Grace
My friend Jessica, who runs the page Once Upon an Upset, once wrote: “So many of us are afraid of getting taken advantage of that we forget the option of offering grace.” It’s strange that […]
Personal
Maladaptive Coping
I had a kid recently who is not on my caseload. Their teacher asked me offhandedly about something they do, what I would call a stim. In their case, they pick at the skin on […]