Old School Skills/New School Tech

| Mary Stoffel, MOT, OTR/L

Growing up, it seemed like we had a lot to accomplish. It wasn’t just about manners or good grades, but mastering day-to-day skills by a certain age or we were doomed. Can you hear it now? “If you don’t learn this, you won’t make it as a grown up.”

In fairness, these skills were necessary to participate in daily activities at the time. We needed to know how to tie our shoes by the age of 5 or we ran the risk of tripping over ourselves. We had to know how to read an analog clock or we would miss the bus. 

Now, we have a good amount of tech that has replaced a lot of those hard line demands that we had as kids.

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Handwriting Q&A

| Mary Stoffel, MOT, OTR/L

Handwriting is a complex skill. It requires our sensory and motor mechanics to work harmoniously together to make our writing remotely legible. And when we start working with our kids on how to write letters, numbers, and eventually words and sentences, we notice that their writing is never going to look like our own. That’s when we question what is “normal”?

From their pencil grasp to writing upside-down, we wonder if these strange tendencies are just a quirk of little kids or something to be really concerned about.

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Joyride: Riding a Bike

| Mary Stoffel, MOT, OTR/L

After learning how to walk, run, jump, and skip, the next milestone on your kid’s docket is riding a bike. Although this skill is not necessary for their overall development, it does provide a wide range of benefits to your child’s physical, emotional, and mental well-being (like building lower body strength and endurance, boosting mood, releasing excess energy, adjusting arousal level necessary to focus, etc). I think it’s also one of those quintessential kid activities that parents actually look forward to teaching.

But bike riding, like all the other skills before it, doesn’t happen overnight (Maneuver this steerable machine throughout the neighborhood without falling? And you call this fun!?). Kids eventually grasp their first mode of independent transportation with practice and patience, but why do some rise to the challenge easily while others struggle? Let’s find out from an OT perspective.

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Things We Loved: Spring Break

| Patti Webb

We’ve been talking neuroscience and brain stuff for the last month, so now it’s time for a little brain break. For our last post before Spring Break, here is our latest Things We Loved.

Mary’s Loves

For me, March has been checking in with the goals I set at the start of the year. A lot of household purging has reduced the clutter to a manageable level. I’ve been drinking a ton of water and staying active, but I haven’t quite gotten into the rhythm of getting a consistent night’s rest (it’s still a work in progress). Aside from that, here’s what I’ve been up to:

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Child(ish) Reads: Marigold and Rose

| Patti Webb

Next week is our spring break, and we are taking two weeks off and heading to the beach to enjoy our time with family. But before we go, we have a cute little Child(ish) Read to add to your TBR.

I was gifted a copy of Marigold and Rose by one of my colleagues. It is a short novella about two infant twin sisters in their first year of life. There isn’t an overarching plot or storyline. In fact, you could probably read this book in an hour. The author, Louise Glück, is a Nobel Prize-winning poet, so expect prose and getting into your feels.

The story switches narratives back-and-forth between the sisters, Marigold and Rose. They can’t walk or talk or read, but they are completely conscious of everything around them. The girls are quick to notice the differences between each other, and they have an internal awareness of their parents, grandparents, and the role they play in their lives.

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