Neuroscience

Course Notes: Challenging Behaviors, pt. 2

| Mary Stoffel, MOT, OTR/L

For the record, not all behaviors are bad. Our kids are figuring out how to navigate their world while simultaneously learning who they are and advocating for themselves. What constitutes challenging behavior is when their actions hinder their ability to learn, complete daily tasks, or engage appropriately with others. While some behaviors occur once in a blue moon, like that total meltdown at grandma’s house, it becomes a problem when it’s consistent (aggression/defiance at grandma’s house, at the store, at school, at a party, you get the idea).

In this post, we’re getting down to the bottom of these behaviors: why they’re happening, why they continue, and how we can help our children manage and reduce them. So grab your magnifying glass Watson, because we got some investigating to do.

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Course Notes: Challenging Behavior, Pt. 1

| Mary Stoffel, MOT, OTR/L

The shrieks! The screams! The calamity of it all!

No, this isn’t a trailer to the newest horror flick. It’s just another day in my house with the kids. *sigh*

Children are not easy obviously, but especially so when their behaviors are on another level. But behind every bit of challenging behavior lies a need that your child can’t quite articulate.

Last fall, I took a CEU course called “Identifying the Root of Challenging Behaviors.” So this week, we are giving you the parent takeaways. This first part on the developing child brain is a lot of what we’ve previously written about, but it sets the stage for how all of these parenting/OT approaches and strategies come together effectively.

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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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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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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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