Nurturing emotional resilience: supporting children through sensory meltdowns
How you respond to your child will largely depend on their age, their cognitive and language abilities (keeping in mind that during a meltdown we lose the ability to communicate effectively), their sensory preferences and even their diagnosis, if they have one. With that in mind, here are some general tips to help lessen a meltdown.
Act Now: Seek Help Early for Feeding Challenges
Seeking help from a feeding specialist is not just about finding solutions — it's about reclaiming your power as a parent. It's about saying, "I refuse to let feeding challenges define my child's future." It's about standing up and fighting for your child's right to flourish.
SENSORY-FRIENDLY TRAVEL TIPS
Whether or not you have family members with sensory sensitivities, we all have unique sensory preferences. By acknowledging and honoring these preferences, we can turn what might have been a struggle-filled vacation into a luxurious, harmonious experience. By considering sensory needs before, during, and after your getaway, we can navigate any challenges with grace, ensuring that the memories we create are nothing short of extraordinary.
A lion’s pride: Embracing neurodiversity through a strengths-based play approach
Neurodiversity is a concept that acknowledges and celebrates the natural variation in the human brain. It emphasizes and celebrates the concept that neurological differences, such as autism and ADHD, are natural variations of the human experience. Embracing a neurodiverse perspective involves recognizing and valuing the unique strengths, abilities, and perspectives that each individual brings to life.
The world of neurodiversity has had radical advances within the last few years, and we embrace what autistic individuals have been telling us and showing us all along.
Sensory Accommodations:
When I’m problem-solving to find sensory regulation activities for a child within an educational environment, I like to start with the end goal in mind. As a pediatric occupational therapist, I always start with a simple goal: to help each child be as independent and functional as possible. How we get to that goal can look very different, depending on the unique sensory system each child brings to the table.
The overarching truth surrounding sensory regulation is: Sensory regulation needs to match the situation and the environment.
From Play to Plate
From play to plate:
How motor planning play is crucial to fostering better eating habits in kids
With bonus motor planning play activity suggestions
Why won’t my kid eat?
Why won’t my kid eat?
Making sense of picky eating and finding solutions
More than 50% of parents of young children report that they are concerned about their child’s eating habits. While some picky eating habits are a normal developmental stage, others have deep roots. When we invest time in figuring out root causes, it’s easier to find strategies that will work best for your child.
Cultivating Resilience in Your Children
We like to think about cultivating the environment to be supportive and sprinkling the seeds for curiosity. Kids are naturally curious when they feel safe and supported.
Why the “wait and see” approach is a bad idea for picky eaters
It’s not uncommon for you as parents to hear advice from others to “wait and see” when you’re wondering what to do about your child’s eating difficulties. While on the surface, the wait and see approach may give a glimmer of hope that your child will eventually grow out of it, it does nothing to quell your well-justified concerns in the moment. Here we’ll discuss reasons why “wait and see” isn’t the best course of action when your child faces feeding difficulties.
What’s the ONE THING picky eaters typically can’t resist?? FOOD PLAY!
The adventure of food play goes beyond expanding palates and developing essential skills in picky eaters. It's about building connections, trust, and a sense of safety within the feeding relationship.
Prepare for Lunchtime Success
At That Makes Sense OT, we know you strive to provide your children with a healthy and balanced diet, ensuring they receive the nutrients they need to grow and flourish. When faced with pediatric feeding disorders and picky eating tendencies, mealtimes can be challenging... and those lunchbox meals? Yikes! We’ve compiled a list of comprehensive and research-based strategies to avoid food jags.
Preventing restraint collapse (meltdowns)with after-school sensory-friendly routines
Restraint collapse is when a child has held themselves in check throughout their whole school day, navigating their sensory challenges, and then as soon as they are home in their safe space, they allow their dysregulation to show. Helping a child cope with this sensory overload after school is important to help them regroup and to give them strategies they can start to use during the school day, as well.
The Magic Ingredient for Peaceful Mealtimes with Picky Eaters, Revealed
Have you ever found yourself teetering on the brink of exhaustion, feeling as drained as a squeezed-out juice box, after yet another epic battle at the dinner table with your picky eater? Oh, the eye rolls, the sighs, the refusal to eat anything remotely green—it's enough to make any supermom question her culinary skills and sanity.
Sensory Overwhelm: How to Spot it and What to Do About It
Sensory overwhelm refers to a condition where a child's sensory system becomes overloaded by environmental stimuli, such as sounds, lights, textures, smells, or even social interactions. This overload can cause distress, anxiety, and even meltdowns in children, making it essential for parents to be aware of the signs and respond with sensitivity and support.
Do your kids seem to exist on air alone?
Do you ever wonder how you got to this point of cooking two separate meals? Every. Single. Meal. And if that’s not bad enough, if everything is not perfect (the right brand, the right shape, the right tenderness or crispiness, the right temperature, the right color, the right ____________ fill in the blank) with said food, the WORLD MAY END—meaning they aren’t going to eat it anyway.
Debunking the myth, “They’ll eat when they’re hungry.”
“They’ll eat when they’re hungry” oversimplifies the complex nature of a child’s eating habits. It suggests that hunger is an innate drive that guarantees children will eat when they feel hunger and when their bodies need food.
In this blog post, we’ll debunk this myth by exploring the interplay between motor skills, sensory experiences, and environmental influences that influence a child's eating habits.
Why Responsive Feeding Works... and Why It’s So Hard
In the simplest of terms, Responsive Feeding is a concept created by Ellyn Satter, a registered dietician and family therapist who is internationally recognized for her work on eating and feeding. Responsive Feeding can be described as “The Parent Provides and The Child Decides.” It emphasizes quality of life and meaningful occupations, both key components to the occupational therapy framework.
Building a trusting feeding relationship with your child using Therapeutic Use of Self
The main definition of Therapeutic Use of Self (TUS) was first used by Gary Kielhofner as part of the foundation of the occupational therapy profession as we know it today. TUS is what creates a meaningful relationship between the therapist and child to produce participation and progress in occupations that matter to the child and family. It includes the planned use of a therapist’s personality, insights, body language and emotions as part of the therapeutic process.
Pre-mealtime tips: Creating a safe space for your picky eater
Pre-mealtime tips: Creating a safe space for your picky eater. Attunement = to bring into harmony.
Unraveling the Mysteries of Pediatric Feeding Disorder
Mealtimes can be a real struggle, especially when your child is a picky eater. It can feel like a daily battle to get them to eat anything beyond their limited selection of foods. You might start to feel defeated and worry about your child's nutrition and health. “Will my child grow out of this phase on their own? Is this something that requires intervention?” These are the questions that many parents ask themselves as they navigate the challenging world of picky eating.