Author: Mary Stoffel, MOT, OTR/L

Holiday Gift Guide 2023: Newborns & Infants

| Mary Stoffel, MOT, OTR/L

It’s November and that means you are either shifting to the holiday season, or you are in denial. Gift guides and catalogs will be coming out ad nauseam from your fave influencers to big box stores (if they haven’t hit your inboxes already). But to be honest, a lot of those gift recommendations tend to overlap. Enough with the Stanley cups and sneaker erasers already….

So what then is included in a Child(ish) Advice Gift Guide?
Here’s what we use:

  • Is it cool and new?
  • Does it support child development?
  • What makes it stand out from all the rest?
  • What do the reviews say, specifically about durability and longevity?

For babies, their first year is all about firsts. They are learning about their environment, their bodies, and how to interact with everyone and everything, one cry and crawl at a time.

So, here’s our top toys for babies 0-12 months:

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Fear Street: Irrational Fears in Kids

| Mary Stoffel, MOT, OTR/L

Everyone gets scared. Fear is a primary emotion signaling that we are in danger, essentially ensuring our survival from a hostile situation. Although it can be overridden by our executive functions, some fears can’t be shaken, no matter how irrational they are. This is especially true for kids. Despite how trigger-happy their fear response is to the most random things, it’s all part of their growth and development.

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Freaky Funday: Why We Enjoy a Good Scare

| Mary Stoffel, MOT, OTR/L

October is the season for all things scary. It’s the one time of year where skeletons, ghosts, and ghouls are commonplace, scary stories and movies are celebrated, and jump scares are permitted. Although Halloween can be a terrifying experience for some, others embrace the satisfying horror of it all. Why would your child would want to go the most decked-out, creepy house or want to hear a torturous tale before bed? It’s fun.

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The Pumpkin Slayer: Pumpkin OT

| Mary Stoffel, MOT, OTR/L

Every October, people flock to the pumpkin patch to find the perfect gourd to slice into to become a Halloween jack-o’-lantern. What kind of sick tradition is this? I mean, what did a pumpkin ever do to deserve this? Turns out this Halloween tradition was brought to us by European immigrants, dating back to a centuries-old Irish tale of a man named Stingy Jack.

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Nightmare on Elm Street

| Mary Stoffel, MOT, OTR/L

“Whatever you do, don’t fall asleep.” – Nightmare on Elm Street (1984)

Remember when you were a kid, you watched a horror film you probably shouldn’t have and from then on, your dreams were nothing but nightmares? Yeah, that happened to me, and that movie was Child’s Play.

The truth is kids will experience their version of a Freddy Krueger dreamscape regardless of whether they see a scary movie or not. In fact, nightmares are part of typical child development as they process what they have observed and experienced in their world thus far. But does it have to be in the form of bad dreams?

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