Playtime

Under Pressure: Child Burnout

| Mary Stoffel, MOT, OTR/L

Our kids can only handle so much.

As parents, we want to give as many opportunities as possible to succeed. We place them in structured activities, enroll them in after school classes and extracurriculars, and take them to new places to gain new experiences. Despite our good intentions, we can go overboard and it’s only a matter of time until our kids finally reach a breaking point.

Similar to adults having burnout, child burnout is the product of continuous, unmanaged stress. They may be overscheduled with too many activities and not enough rest in between. Or they just might be overloaded from people, directions, and physical exertion. Burnout affects their ability to process and reflect on their day, that then snowballs into anxiety and overwhelm. Their motivation and interest in even their favorite things can drop.

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This is Your Kid’s Brain on Tech

| Mary Stoffel, MOT, OTR/L

Truth: Raising kids today is infinitely harder than in years past. And even though our parents want to give us tips on how to parent, they really have no idea what it’s like with this level of tech immersion. In fact, our kids (known as gen Alpha) will be the first generation to only know a world dominated by digital.

The result: Tech now leaves a completely different footprint on the developing kids’ brain, making focus, learning, and self-regulation harder to achieve.

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1000 Hours Outside Revisited

| Patti Webb

Our first summer blogging, we did a post about getting kids outside for the summer. We mentioned a project called 1,000 Hours Outside, a movement that challenges families to match their kids’ screen time with time outside. 

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Coffee Chat: Encanto

| Patti Webb
Image: Disney

Encanto was released on Disney+ on December 24th.
My girls watched it for the first time in mid-January.
By February, it had reached Threat Level Frozen.

They request the soundtrack every day in the car, and ask to watch it as soon as they get back from school. And according to Instagram, my house isn’t the only one deep in the Encanto phase.

Since all the songs were written by Lin-Manuel Miranda, Troy may or may not be in deep as well. So, we’re leaning into it.

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Things We Loved: November

| Patti Webb

Hey Everyone,
We hope you’re enjoying the beginning of the holiday season. All of our OT-friendly gift guides are out and we have one more week of posts before taking a much-needed end-of-year blogging break. For this month’s Things We Loved, we’re recapping our busy November, prepping for a crazy December, and sharing the things that are getting us through both.

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