Parenting is hard. There is no one right way to be a parent. Many parents come into OT sessions and state that they tried to implement a strategy at home but just didn’t have the time or energy and you know what? THAT’S OKAY! If we tell children to just try their best regardless of the outcome, it only makes sense to send the same message to parents. This image from @outcomes_therapy is such an important reminder that all we can do as humans, tiny or grown, is try our best! I

COPY AND ADD Such an easy language strategy to use to expand children's language skills. How to do it? Repeat what they said and add another word on - If they say one word, you say two - If they say two, you add a third etc I always focus on adding KEY WORDS (the words that add content), and do not count the grammatical words in this. So, why model grammatical phrases? - Research suggests that when modelling language utterances should be SIMPLIFIED but still grammatically

When you are creating the best self-care and mental wellbeing strategies for your kids - make sure you are role-modelling and using them yourself <3 #psychologist #selfcare #mentalwellbeing #kids #children #teen #parents

One of the senses that not many people are aware of! Interoception – one of the senses that provides our brain with feedback about how we’re feeling on the inside. Receptors for this sense are found in our organs to tell us when we feel hungry, too nervous or too hot. If your child has trouble with processing the information given by this sense, he/she would have difficulty knowing when they are full, learning toilet training. Overall, it is likely that they have trouble with

Vocabulary milestones: As we all know, every child is different when it comes to communicative development- but here are rough approximations for vocabulary development at different ages. Vocabulary development is a process by which people acquire words which shift from babbling to meaningful speech. - Mouroge #speech #speechtherapy #speechpathology #vocabulary #child #children #kids #development #communication

Found objects in art therapy One of the directives we have been exploring at Kids Inspired is asking the kids to bring a memento or object that is important to them to their art therapy sessions. ‘Found objects’ can be any everyday objects that we either find around the house or out in the world. We’ve had so many different items coming through our doors like rocks they found on family holidays, an artwork they’ve made in school or even a scrap piece of fabric from an old toy

Nature provides health benefits that are truly impossible to replicate in an indoor environment! There are endless sensory, motor and regulatory experiences to discover outdoors. 🌱 We can explore what it feels like to roll around in the grass or work out how to use our muscles to get over a big rock or log. 🌱 Breathing in the fresh air or listening to the waves crash can be very calming for many people. 🌱 Nature is also the perfect place to engage meaningfully with chi

Attention Parents: In this day and age, with both parents working full time, it may seem hard to find time to sit with your child and engage in meaningful language and learning - but is does not have to be! Here are some quick tips for enriching your child's literacy and language development, that you can incorporate into a busy schedule: - on the way to childcare/preschool, have a nursery rhyme sing-a-long - whilst in the car, play 'eye-spy', with a different sound focus ea

Postcard Art Therapy One of our latest art therapy directives has been generating some great results at Kids Inspired, and that’s creating an emotive postcard. These postcards are designed as a private space to communicate some feelings to someone that will never receive it. At the beginning of the activity, we ask participants to reflect on a person or experience that they have felt frustrated, sad or happy about. The child is encouraged to design a postcard, modelling it of

Time outs are a widely used tool in many parents’ toolkits, but that does not mean that every parent is implementing them ‘properly’ or that they are effective for every child. Some signs that time outs are not working effectively include needing to use them multiple times a day, if time outs fail to de-escalate the situation, and if the behaviour persists. Time outs are most effective when they are: - Boring (no toys, no technology) - Understood. Clearly state what behavio