At Home
You Don’t Have Any Blocks
“I want you to build a tower,” I say. You agree, and you stand up to go get the bucket of blocks off the shelf. I shake my head sternly. “No. Did I tell you […]
Social/Emotional
Autism
New Space in Your Brain
I want you to imagine for a moment that…everything is really good right now. Imagine that all the things on your to-do list that feel like “have to”s (instead of “get to”s) are taken care […]
Personal
Galaxy Thoughts
When I think to myself I do not think with an inner dialogue. My thoughts don’t sound like words until I translate them. When I think to myself, it’s in a big empty void (I […]
At Home
Sensory Mismatch Key: Need Isn’t Behavior
In my last post, I shared the first tool for dealing with sensory mismatch. Today I’ll share another tool. Just like in the last post, some of the things I say in this post may […]
Babies
What is Behavior Communicating?
The phrase “behavior is communication” was invented in response to a set of ideas, a counter to them. One of these ideas is that children’s inconvenient or strange or annoying behavior is a sign of […]
At School
Packaged Regulation
A lot of public schools in the US, and at least some in the UK near where I live, have begun figuring out how they can teach social-emotional skills and things like self-regulation and coping […]
Child Development
“Why Did You…?”
It’s really understandable why adults ask children “Why did you do that?” After all, children are constantly doing things that seem honestly incomprehensible if not outright bonkers. An interesting side note is that in my […]
At School
Clumsy Self-Advocacy
Recently I had an OT session with a child who I’ve known for many years. They were unusually irritable and on-edge, and at one point they were so frustrated with what they were trying to […]
At School
Feeling Left Out is the Point
I spoke to my child’s school to tell them that I wanted to opt my child out of their new behavioural manipulation system to the greatest extent possible without singling my child out. They were […]
Babies
Redirecting…(the kids, not the website)
People use the word “redirect” to mean a lot of things. Sometimes people are using it to talk about actions. Sometimes they are using it to talk about emotions. Sometimes they are using it to […]