On my Facebook page, I asked adults to share something that their child had been doing that was frustrating or upsetting to them. I then invited people in the comments (myself included) to respond, from the perspective of the child…what the child might be thinking or learning or trying or not-trying and how it’s getting … Read more
Here’s a quick little thought/frustration of mine: Please, please, let kindergarteners (and first graders) (and I’d even say second graders!) use half-pencils instead of full pencils. I say “let” because I keep having to write it into IEPs as an accommodation. I wish it was just the normal! Children’s hands are 4-5 inches in circumference. … Read more
I have this great set of tents connected by a crawl-through tunnel, and the children who come to my therapy gym already love crawling through it. To add a bit of a game element to it, and also with a specific child in mind who loves numbers, I put a foam numbers puzzle in one … Read more
It is extremely common and normal for children to reverse or invert letters when they are learning to write, or confuse those letters when they are learning to read. It makes perfect sense when you think about it. Take any other image or object in the world, and flip it horizontally, or look at it … Read more
A few nights ago, one of my children had a complete and total meltdown. Screaming. Crying. Yelling for their dad, who was not available, working from home in the closed office. (Dad is the stay-at-home parent during the days, and the highly preferred parent in my family!) Wringing their hands, clenching them into fists, yelling … Read more
Before a child is ever able to write, and before they learn to control the small muscles of their hands, they need to have full-body strength. This comes mainly in the form of strength in their core and trunk — where you might call your abs, your back muscles, etc — and strength in their … Read more
I walk into the classroom and sit down beside the child who’s on my caseload. She has OT services “push-in”, meaning that I don’t pull her out to my therapy room, but just go see her in her classroom and work alongside her there. We’re only supposed to work on handwriting, but it’s really hard … Read more
Young children repeat the same thing over and over and over (like the same joke, the same observation, reading the same book, playing the same game…) because they are strengthening the connections in their brain that are learning from that repeated experience! In addition to whatever they’re learning from the experience they’re repeating, they also … Read more
Kids need room to play, unimpeded and unhelped, on materials that are at their level and above their level and below their level of ability to climb and interact with. They interact with things at their level and below their level to explore mastery. Their body learns what it has already learned, and reinforces and … Read more