School

There’s No “I” in Team: The Parent-Teacher Relationship

| Mary Stoffel, MOT, OTR/L

When my son was three years old, his teachers expressed concerns about his behavior in class. He wasn’t following directions, had a tough time staying seated during circle time, and was distracting his classmates. With all of the other kids in the class, they were having a difficult time dealing with my son and unsure how to handle him. End story.
What? That’s it? That’s all you have to say?

With this news, a rush of anxiety came flooding in.
OMG, they think he’s a bad kid.
Does he have ADHD?
Am I a bad parent?

I know that other parents have these kinds of talks with their kid’s teachers, doctors, counselors; and more times than not, that is the end of the conversation. But it doesn’t have to be.

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Coffee Chat: Week 2 Check In

| Patti Webb

So many First Day of School pics….

Our kids have been in school almost two full weeks now. For context, both Mary’s son and my twins are in their second year of elementary school. And even though we got most of the first-time student anxieties out last year, there is still plenty to go around for year two.

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Breaking Down So Badly: After-School Restraint Collapse

| Mary Stoffel, MOT, OTR/L

The first few weeks of school can be a bit of a Jekyll and Hyde situation. Your kid’s teacher tells you they’re doing great at school, making friends, paying attention, all that good stuff. But that’s not what you see when you get home. In fact, you get quite the opposite (screaming, crying, perfect storms). So, what in the T. Swift is going on?

Turns out that these fits and meltdowns are typical, so typical that it even gets its own special name: After-school restraint collapse. Originally coined by counselor and parenting expert Andrea Loewen Nair, it refers to a child’s emotional, mental, and physical release once their school day is over. School is regimented with rules to follow and lessons to learn, plus picking up all the social cues and expectations from classmates and teachers; all requiring mental stamina and self-control. So once our kids hop in the car or get off the bus, they start to decompress in whatever form they see fit.

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The Gifted Parent

| Patti Webb

Last week, I did a Google and podcast search to see what resources or articles covered “gifted” parents. To be clear, this is about parents who were in the Gifted and Talented programs growing up in the 90s. Not parents of currently gifted children.

Both Mary and I grew up in gifted program in it’s various forms. In the spirit of Millennial Parenting, which has a sturdy base in self-reflection and re-parenting, we wanted to see how growing up as gifted students could have an impact on how we now raise our own kids.

My search ended up with not that many hits. Mary and I have five kids between us and for the most part, they are too young to be considered for gifted right now. So in this liminal time where our kids and their relationship with school is in development, how can we see what this academically-accelerated program has done for/to us when it comes to parenting?

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Like Clockwork: Circadian Rhythm

| Mary Stoffel, MOT, OTR/L

Things to do before the school year starts:

  • Buy school supplies
  • Buy school clothes
  • Meet new teacher(s)
  • Getting kiddo back to a regular bedtime (Yeah, about that…)

It’s not easy getting your kid back into routine after summer vacation, especially when sunset is well past 8pm. There’s a reason for that. It’s the same reason we feel energized, tired, or hungry throughout the day. It’s our circadian rhythm.

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