In the Home

Course Notes: Diagnosis and Reframing Perspective

| Mary Stoffel, MOT, OTR/L

I’m not gonna lie, completing this ADHD certification and writing these posts has driven me down a rabbit hole. “Do I have ADHD? Does my son have ADHD?”

While he is a 7-year-old, his past teachers have mentioned focus issues and recently, he’s been forgetting items to either take to school or bring back home. Is this something I need to be concerned about or is this just an age-appropriate phase?

For Patti, ADHD runs in her family. So even though she does not have a diagnosis, she has been on the lookout for flags since the beginning. You can imagine how these coffee chats have gone between us…

If you suspect your child’s inattention or impulsivity may be more than the norm, or you notice that it’s affecting parts of their daily routine, here’s what you can do.

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Course Notes: Meds and Management

| Mary Stoffel, MOT, OTR/L

This is a good time to reiterate that our Course Notes series is just that. Occupational therapists need to take a certain number of continuing ed classes each year. These classes are geared toward therapists, counselors, practitioners, etc. But from these classes, there is a ton of really great information that I think can be helpful for parents as well. I am in no way diagnosing, prescribing or treating a specific person. Now that that is covered, let’s get to ADHD, Part 3.

ADHD affects how information is taken in and processed due to its alterations in brain structure, neural connectivity, and neurotransmitter levels. These changes impair the executive functions, resulting in difficulties with attention, recall, and self-control. While there is no “cure”, it is considered one of the most treatable conditions out there. So, what are the most effective management treatments out there for child ADHD these days?

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Ugh, Read a Book…

| Patti Webb

The way kids get their literary fix these days looks different from when we were growing up. PBS was life then, exposing youth to books from Reading Rainbow to Wishbone. Reading was incentivized and celebrated with the Pizza Hut Book It! Program and D.E.A.R. (Drop Everything and Read). Scholastic Book Fair day was the BEST!!! It was a great time to read.

Then it kinda changed. This may be purely anecdotal, but reading for fun stopped being a thing. Outside of Harry Potter and Twilight, academic and athletic achievement took precedence. Then loud TV shows from Disney Channel and Nickelodeon, then smartphones and social media entered the chat. I have five younger Gen Z cousins and all of them pretty much bemoan reading.

As Millennial Moms, the thought of our kids not loving to read actually hurts. So how do we cultivate the love of reading outside the classroom?

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Tone of Voice and Parenting

| Mary Stoffel, MOT, OTR/L

You know when you tell your kids to do something repeatedly and it falls on deaf ears. And then you end up yelling at them because you’re at your wits end? Then how about when your spouse says the exact same thing and they do it right away? Okay, great. I’m not the only one.

While my children appreciate my animated vocals during play or a soothing one when they need a cuddle, they definitely don’t hear my tone as one of authority unless I’m screaming to the top of my lungs. This got me thinking about how kids interpret tone of voice.

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Money-Driven: Kids and Money Management

| Mary Stoffel, MOT, OTR/L

Welcome back to #throwbackmonth! For those not familiar, to get us back into the blog-writing groove for the month of July, we pick a past post each week to spotlight. Then we do a deeper dive on that topic to revisit the content and talk about some other things that may be related. On Tuesday, we picked our double post on Introducing Chores and Chores by Age.

When my son first started showing interest in helping around the house, I was ecstatic. Awesome, he wants to do chores. That means he’ll ALWAYS want to do chores. Haha, silly me.

Now that he’s 7, he groans when he’s reminded of his duties. Although he understands that chores are a part of his daily contribution to the household, he’d obviously much prefer to be doing something (anything) else. While research shows that chores provide positive outcomes for kids (like autonomy, self-control, empathy, and overall success), it can be difficult to get them to participate and WANT to do it. Jennifer Aniston wants you to WANT to do the dishes….

One motivator that we are all familiar with is paying our children for their hard work (aka an allowance). I’m sure we’ve all received payment for doing good deeds around the house, from doing dishes to maintaining a tidy bedroom. In fact, a survey conducted by the American Institute of CPAs found that 4 out of 5 adults say receiving an allowance taught them financial responsibility. But are money incentives really teaching responsibility? Yes, but not in the way you’d think.

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