Occupational Therapy

Quit Fidgeting: What’s the Deal with Fidget Toys?

| Mary Stoffel, MOT, OTR/L

What do stress balls, spinners, and Pop-Its have in common? They are fidgets and you can find them anywhere and everywhere.

Fidgets are self-regulation tools designed to help children (and adults) focus and attend to tasks by helping maintain an appropriate arousal level. Their genesis stems from our automatic need to move during times of stress or restlessness, releasing excess energy or soothing our nerves. The idea is to feed our sensory system the movement/touch/deep pressure its seeking when we aren’t able to just get up and move, like when kids are supposed to sit in their seats during class.

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Don’t Hold Your Breath: Deep Breathing to Regulate

| Mary Stoffel, MOT, OTR/L

We know it’s important to breathe. Aside from a beating heart, it lets us know that we’re still alive. But it’s also an indicator of how we are doing internally.

From our last yoga post, breathing serves as a reflection of our emotional state, stress level, and state of mind. In our rhythm and timing post, we talked about how the brain structures that are responsible for timing are also linked to the regulation of our emotions, behavior, and arousal. By controlling our breath, we not only alter our mood, but also our rhythm and timing. But how do we teach our kids how to breathe? Don’t they just do it?

For this post, we’re focusing on breathing techniques to calm kids down in moments of stress or high arousal.

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Perfect Timing: Rhythm, Timing, and the Brain

| Mary Stoffel, MOT, OTR/L

Timing is everything. For the most part, that statement is true.

Everything we do requires rhythm and timing. EVERYTHING. Think about it: walking, talking, reading this sentence, etc. It all relies on a pace and a pattern to complete them.

We’ve talked in previous posts about body awareness and how it affects bilateral coordination and motor planning, but rhythm and timing ensures that those movements are fluid when interacting with objects and people around us. Most of the time, you hardly notice it until you have a clumsy moment walking or stuttering over your words when in conversation.

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Tight-Lipped: Sensory Considerations for Toothbrushing

| Mary Stoffel, MOT, OTR/L

For the last couple months, we’ve been chatting with pediatric dentist Dr. M, (aka @themamadentist) about kids dental hygiene and oral care. She says that one of the main questions she receives from parents is what to do when their child won’t let them brush their teeth or they cry/scream during the process. Here’s our OT-take for when toothbrushing is an uphill battle.

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