In the Home

Repeat After Me: Kids and Modeling Language

| Mary Stoffel, MOT, OTR/L

Kids are like little sponges and they absorb knowledge through observation, exploration, and experience. Learning to communicate and socialize appropriately is no different. From quoting movie lines, repeating encouraging phrases, or even calling us “Bruh”, they soak in everything they hear and try to apply it in everyday conversation whether they fully understand it or not. While their process trial and error can be amusing, it raises the question of how their models (primarily us) can shape their lives, their friendships, attitudes, identities, and their self-esteem and confidence.

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Motivate Me: Kids and Motivation

| Mary Stoffel, MOT, OTR/L

Once upon a time, my son was THE BEST little helper I could ever have. When he saw me vacuum, he wanted to help. When he watched me do the dishes, he wanted to participate. If he had an assignment, he did it without a whimper. Fast forward to present day: OMG the patience I need to have to get him to do anything…

Interest drives motivation but so do rewards and punishments. When it comes to our kids, it seems like we’re pulling teeth to get them to do their chores, complete their homework, or even just to get up off the couch and DO ANYTHING. While we know that motivation plays an important role in directing our child’s behavior, the question is HOW to instill it in our kids and ensure that it sticks?

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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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Not in this Mini-Economy

| Patti Webb

Last summer, we did a refresher post on Chores and Teaching Money Management. In mine and Mary’s households, we wanted to build in some type of money management structure because how money is handled now is vastly different than it was 30 years ago.

First, we don’t carry cash. I’m not actually sure how my kids think paying by card works. Any cash they directly receive comes from gifts and goes into a piggybank.

Second, I rarely give my kids the opportunity to spend money. That means, they don’t come with me running errands or stopping at Target. Whenever we do go shopping, or if we’re on vacation and they have the option to get a souvenir, they want EVERYTHING!!!

Obviously, how kids learn about money is going to be different from family to family. Learning about money management in school is also generally reserved for older kids. I remember a field trip we took in 8th grade about picking a job with a set salary and you had to make it through the month watching your budget and balancing your checkbook.

Through my work email, I got a Substack invite from Dr. Stephen Day, a Professor at Virginia Commonwealth University and Director of the VCU Center for Economic Education. He was hosting a webinar on how to use Bluey to teach kids economics. I loved this approach and his writing topics, so signed up for another webinar on Mini-Economy at Home.

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