My post on clothing choice when toilet training a child with low muscle tone Low Tone and Toilet Training: Teaching Toddlers to Wipe covered a lot, but it did not include a very important garment: underwear. I am putting pull-ups and their generic equivalents in the underwear category. Many would not, as they are as absorbent…… Continue reading Low Tone And Toilet Training: Pull-Ups or Cloth Training Pants?
Category: parenting
Lakeshore Paper Strips Make Summer Writing Practice Easy and Fun!
These paper strips, both the short (shown) and the long versions, are great for summer writing practice. Here are a few handwriting tips to make writing on these strips really fun: They have two different sides; use both of them. There is a single baseline side which can be much less confusing for the…… Continue reading Lakeshore Paper Strips Make Summer Writing Practice Easy and Fun!
How Young Can You Teach The Skills That Develop Grit?
I love the concept of “grit”, probably because I see it in so many of the special needs kids that I treat. Meeting major challenges of living either crushes you or makes you stronger. Researcher and author Angela Duckworth has championed the study of grit, and schools are even adjusting their teaching curricula to try to…… Continue reading How Young Can You Teach The Skills That Develop Grit?
Transition to Kindergarten By Beginning With a “C”
This isn’t about the grade “C”. It is about the benefit of writing a circle by starting with the letter “C”. I just taught a dad how to build his son’s handwriting skills without teaching him any letters or numbers. His son will be starting kindergarten in the fall, and although there were few worksheets…… Continue reading Transition to Kindergarten By Beginning With a “C”
The Two Important Handwriting Teaching Strategies For Lefties That Everyone Forgets
Teaching left-handed children to write in a right-handed world (estimates for right dominance varies, but always hovers over 80%) isn’t really all that different. However, there are two specific actions that parents and teachers need to make while teaching that rarely make it to the blogs and articles on the web. Read on.…… Continue reading The Two Important Handwriting Teaching Strategies For Lefties That Everyone Forgets
First Father’s Day? You Might Be the Best Baby Calmer In The House
Fathers are often the partners that jump right into practicing the Happiest Baby on the Block techniques. They “shush” loud and long, they do the quick jiggle (for swinging) with enthusiasm, and they can usually use just one arm to support a newborn on it’s side to calm them. Moms are in awe of their…… Continue reading First Father’s Day? You Might Be the Best Baby Calmer In The House
Will White Noise Harm a Newborn’s Hearing?
This question doesn’t come up as often as it should when I do Happiest Baby on the Block consultations. The short answer is that common sense goes a long way to protecting a newborn’s hearing. The longer answer is that understanding sound conduction and newborn development will help parents use white noise confidently. Here we…… Continue reading Will White Noise Harm a Newborn’s Hearing?
Why The Switch to Single-Line Paper Creates Handwriting Problems
It seems so simple: if a child can write all of her uppercase and lowercase letters independently, she should be able to use paper with only a baseline as an anchor. I see too many kids in kindergarten and first grade go from proud writers to discouraged writers when the “training wheels” of extra…… Continue reading Why The Switch to Single-Line Paper Creates Handwriting Problems
When Sensory Seeking Becomes Attention Seeking
As an occupational therapist, I see sensory-seeking kids every week who crash, jump, wiggle and hug their way through their days. If a couch is available, it is either a launching pad or a landing pad. Adults are for hanging on, landing on, or giving full-body hugs. Seeking unsafe or inappropriate movement and touch for…… Continue reading When Sensory Seeking Becomes Attention Seeking
Low Tone and Toilet Training: Transition to Using The Adult Toilet
Once the potty seat has been mastered, the question soon becomes: How is she going to use a regular toilet? Most younger children use a step stool and an insert to sit securely on an adult toilet. Kids with low tone often need a little more assistance to get up there and stay stable. Here…… Continue reading Low Tone and Toilet Training: Transition to Using The Adult Toilet
Out Of The Swaddle And Into The Frying Pan
Those first 2 weeks of life are pretty simple: feed, sleep, diaper. Lather, rinse and repeat. From about 2 weeks until 12-14 weeks, the Happiest Baby strategies for getting a baby calm and sleeping soundly really do work to keep newborns (and parents) happy. I am a certified Happiest Baby educator, and it is relatively…… Continue reading Out Of The Swaddle And Into The Frying Pan
Teach ASD and Sensory Kids How to Manage Aggression
Little boys as young as 2 use play fighting, crashing, and even pretend killing in their play, without anger or intentional destruction or injury. Is this a very bad thing? I was challenged this week three separate times to explain why I would initiate physical play that can look aggressive (think crashing cars or our…… Continue reading Teach ASD and Sensory Kids How to Manage Aggression
How To Pick The Best Potty Seat For Toilet Training A Child With Low Tone
Kids with low tone benefit significantly from supportive seating for eating, playing, and yes, toileting. Picking the right training potty can make all the difference for them, and their parents. My new favorites for smaller children (smaller than the average 3-4 year-old) are the Little Colorado Potty Chair and the Fisher Price Custom Comfort Potty… Continue reading How To Pick The Best Potty Seat For Toilet Training A Child With Low Tone
Great Mechanical Pencils Can Improve Your Child’s Handwriting Skills
These pencils help students with the following handwriting issues: They use too much force while writing, and the pencil tips break frequently. They need more tactile information to achieve and keep a mature pencil grasp. They rarely notice that they need to sharpen their pencil to improve legibility. Getting up to sharpen a pencil distracts…… Continue reading Great Mechanical Pencils Can Improve Your Child’s Handwriting Skills
Easy Ways To Build Bilateral Hand Coordination for Writing
Why do we need to use two hands for writing? After all, you only need one hand to hold a pencil. Well, did you ever injure your non-dominant shoulder or wrist? Without a hand to steady the paper and move it accurately as you write across a page, an adult will write like a preschooler…… Continue reading Easy Ways To Build Bilateral Hand Coordination for Writing
Build Pre-Writing Skills With A Focus on Scribbling
The greatest criticism an older sibling can level at a young child’s drawing is to call it “scribble scrabble”. But wait! If you want to develop finger control for future handwriting success, then you want more scribbling and coloring! Random strokes aren’t going to move the needle forward for a child older than 3 years…… Continue reading Build Pre-Writing Skills With A Focus on Scribbling
Best Preemie Toy? Try An O-Ball Toy For Easy Grasping And Playing
Preemies often wait a long time to start playing. NICU life isn’t about fun, it is about survival. Once your preemie is home, you will want to get the party started. If she has a weak grasp or isn’t coordinated enough to easily hold every rattle and toy that you got for your shower,…… Continue reading Best Preemie Toy? Try An O-Ball Toy For Easy Grasping And Playing
Working Parents, Weekends, and Toddlers: Have a Better Weekend With These Strategies
I have been asking my colleagues about why so many working couples seem to be struggling with toddler behavior issues. Initially, I was thinking that the shift between nanny/daycare routines and parent routines was creating inconsistencies. But I found too many situations where that wasn’t the case. There is a common speed bump for dual-career…… Continue reading Working Parents, Weekends, and Toddlers: Have a Better Weekend With These Strategies
Sleep Training at 2 Months? Beyond Cry-It-Out
The Wall Street Journal’s writers are known for great reporting, but they clearly didn’t do a lot of research when they wrote today’s article Can You Sleep Train Your Baby at 2 Months? Lots of agonizing parent reports of the cry-it-out method, and professional agreement that babies 8 weeks old don’t sleep through the night…… Continue reading Sleep Training at 2 Months? Beyond Cry-It-Out
10 Easy Ways to Prepare Preschoolers to Write
Standardized testing has pushed the demand for handwriting down, down, down into preschool. The great majority of preschool children by the end of the 4’s will not have the physical control of a pencil to write lowercase letters correctly, but some teachers tell me that their administrations require them to teach kids to write their…… Continue reading 10 Easy Ways to Prepare Preschoolers to Write