Parenting

Oh, The Pain…The Pain!

| Mary Stoffel, MOT, OTR/L

Cuts, scrapes, and bruises are part of childhood. That curiosity and “f*ck around and find out” mentality helps build resilience long-term. While it’s expected for kids to whimper when they get a booboo at two, it’s a quandary when they continue to do it at eight. After one too many “Toughen up, Buttercups”, we started to wonder about pain tolerance in children. If they can’t handle a minor bug bite or dodgeball hit, then how do we expect them to handle a dun-dun-dun… flu shot?

But the truth is that pain is a highly complex and individualized experience, influenced by a multitude of factors. For today’s post, we’re deep diving into the concept of pain and how to better help our kids manage it. 

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Low Tech Culture

| Mary Stoffel, MOT, OTR/L

“Learning about yourself and what you’re drawn to is one of the cool things about growing up.” – Rachel Childers, musician with the Boston Symphony Orchestra

To piggyback off our last post, we’re sharing the low-tech devices your kids can use to find their musical tastes.

The Old

Hey, there’s nothing wrong with going old school. If you still have these lying around, introduce your kid to the classics and low-tech tech.

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Not in this Mini-Economy

| Patti Webb

Last summer, we did a refresher post on Chores and Teaching Money Management. In mine and Mary’s households, we wanted to build in some type of money management structure because how money is handled now is vastly different than it was 30 years ago.

First, we don’t carry cash. I’m not actually sure how my kids think paying by card works. Any cash they directly receive comes from gifts and goes into a piggybank.

Second, I rarely give my kids the opportunity to spend money. That means, they don’t come with me running errands or stopping at Target. Whenever we do go shopping, or if we’re on vacation and they have the option to get a souvenir, they want EVERYTHING!!!

Obviously, how kids learn about money is going to be different from family to family. Learning about money management in school is also generally reserved for older kids. I remember a field trip we took in 8th grade about picking a job with a set salary and you had to make it through the month watching your budget and balancing your checkbook.

Through my work email, I got a Substack invite from Dr. Stephen Day, a Professor at Virginia Commonwealth University and Director of the VCU Center for Economic Education. He was hosting a webinar on how to use Bluey to teach kids economics. I loved this approach and his writing topics, so signed up for another webinar on Mini-Economy at Home.

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Patti’s 2025 New Years Resolutions

| Mary Stoffel, MOT, OTR/L

I think we all start the year with the best intentions. In 2024, I wanted to continue along my path, just keeping things steady and predictable. I’d had enough upheaval and just wanted to get through my life.

Around November however, I had a regrettable crash out and I know now something big needs to change. I don’t think I’ve ever been this stressed or frustrated with a particular component of my life. This went beyond just setting boundaries or just getting things done.

I turn 40 at the end of the summer. In order to get where I want to be by then, I want to go big. Whether that means finding a new job or diving into a new field, we’ll be doing some hardcore recalibrating.

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