pediatric occupational therapy

Motor Planning: Animal Dice

| Patti Webb

To find this week’s Motor Planning activity, in addition to the activities in Growing an In-Sync Child, I also browsed activities on Pinterest.

Lots of themed yoga, obstacle courses; things designed to get your kid’s body into different shapes. But what to pick when it seems like your kid’s attention span is particularly short?

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Move with Intention: Motor Planning

| Mary Stoffel, MOT, OTR/L

Remember playing Twister? Contorting your body to keep your hands and feet on specific colors without falling. This classic game utilizes a skill called motor planning – the ability to ideate, sequence, and execute movements to complete a task. Sounds easy, but this skill develops over time with body awareness, observation, and trial-and-error.

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Child(ish) Reads for Kids: Emotional Regulation

| Patti Webb

For the last two weeks, we’ve been talking about emotional regulation and how we can model and assist our kids to be more mindful in tough situations. In this episode of Childish Reads, we wanted to flip the script and pick books for kids to help with this type of regulation at early ages.

Last week, Mary and I hopped down to Barnes and Noble to find some new and classic kids books to help lay the foundation for emotional recognition and processing.

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Namaste All Day: Kids Yoga

| Mary Stoffel, MOT, OTR/L

By now, we’re all pretty familiar about the perks of yoga. It promotes our overall health and well-being, reduces stress, and helps us “find our center.” The practice has been trending in the past decade and schools have even implemented it to help guide children’s focus and self-regulation.

Research has shown positive outcomes from regular yoga practice, including:

  • Increased attention, decreased hyperactivity, and faster task completion in 5-year-olds who completed yoga 2x/week
  • Mental and emotional benefits in children ages 5-18 years, including decreased anxiety, boosted concentration and memory, improved confidence and self-esteem, and improved academic performance
  • Brain scans revealing reduced activation of the amygdala (the part of the brain responsible for emotions and arousal levels) in 6th graders
  • Improvements in attention as well as decreased oppositional behaviors, restlessness, and impulsivity following 20 sessions of yoga with boys diagnosed with ADHD
  • Improvements in imitation and play with peers in children with ASD following 10 months of yoga 5 days/week

Sounds good on paper, but yoga with kids can be intimidating. “Am I doing this right? Can kids even do these poses?”

It’s not just a bunch of poses and breathing. Although that notion is partially true, there’s more to it. The goal of yoga is to grow self-awareness, connecting the mind and the body to the present moment. It’s because of this broadness that makes participation in its practice easy.

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