Author: Mary Stoffel, MOT, OTR/L

Oh, The Pain…The Pain!

| Mary Stoffel, MOT, OTR/L

Cuts, scrapes, and bruises are part of childhood. That curiosity and “f*ck around and find out” mentality helps build resilience long-term. While it’s expected for kids to whimper when they get a booboo at two, it’s a quandary when they continue to do it at eight. After one too many “Toughen up, Buttercups”, we started to wonder about pain tolerance in children. If they can’t handle a minor bug bite or dodgeball hit, then how do we expect them to handle a dun-dun-dun… flu shot?

But the truth is that pain is a highly complex and individualized experience, influenced by a multitude of factors. For today’s post, we’re deep diving into the concept of pain and how to better help our kids manage it. 

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Patti’s New Year’s Resolution Check-In

| Mary Stoffel, MOT, OTR/L

I’d like to thank my previous self for the resolution mindset of “Life’s tough. Get a helmet.”, because there is some bad juju going on, on every level. I also got Norovirus over the weekend, so that’s fun and games.

Here’s my quick Resolution recap for the month of January.

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Low Tech Culture

| Mary Stoffel, MOT, OTR/L

“Learning about yourself and what you’re drawn to is one of the cool things about growing up.” – Rachel Childers, musician with the Boston Symphony Orchestra

To piggyback off our last post, we’re sharing the low-tech devices your kids can use to find their musical tastes.

The Old

Hey, there’s nothing wrong with going old school. If you still have these lying around, introduce your kid to the classics and low-tech tech.

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Coffee Chat: Will our kids be boring?

| Mary Stoffel, MOT, OTR/L

When Patti and I were brainstorming our holiday gift guides, we realized how different our own kids have it. Some of the things we loved growing up are literally analog. We’re talking physical media: cassettes and CDs, VHS and DVDs, gaming consoles with zero connectivity. Who even owns a CD player anymore?

Tech has allowed us to reduce our carbon footprint by eliminating physical items in lieu of streaming and downloading entertainment onto one device; but that leaves a big gap when kids aren’t supposed to have their own smart devices until 8th grade.

A Matter of Personal Taste

For me, I’ve become the gatekeeper to my kids’ entertainment. I control what they listen to, play, and watch. While that’s not necessarily a bad thing, especially when it comes to the metaverse, I’ve started to feel like it might limit their ability to explore in a pop cultural sense.

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