As an occupational therapy student, I was sure I would know what to do with my own kids if they had learning disabilities, delays or a whole host of things. The thing parenting has taught me is that no amount of knowledge or skills will make your own children easy to deal with. You can know exactly what needs to be done but that doesn’t mean your child will do it for you. 

I have now sent multiple kids to do regular, weekly therapy sessions with an OT. Why? Let’s get into what I do and don’t see as reasons for OT with my kids. 

Pencil Grip

One of my kids was not able to hold a pencil any where near a mature, appropriate grasp at 4, or 5, and I didn’t worry. We were homeschooling, the muscles just were not there yet. However, when the child still held their crayons in a fist at 6, I knew it was definitely time to get some outside help. I knew all the games and activities you can do with a child to build those fine motor skills, but my child just wouldn’t do those things with me. They needed a new person to challenge them. 

That child attended OT for about a year to gain the ability to hold a pencil and be ready to write. In the mean time, I did not ask them to write at home. I didn’t want to establish bad habits we would need to break. Instead, I focused on reading great books, doing science experiments, learning math concepts and playing games of logic and reasoning.

Words: Reading and Writing

Another child started their therapy journey with speech therapy. She has dyslexia and was struggling with word finding. We agreed to try speech therapy to see if it would help. Interestingly, they found other areas she struggled due to the dyslexia and addressed several skills, including how to infer information when reading. 

After she had met her speech therapy goals, we discussed with the therapy practice that writing was also a struggle and she moved over to seeing an OT. On her first day she told the OT “You are seeing me because my mom is sick of my attitude.” It wasn’t a lie. 

All of us have struggled to deal with a teenager at some point, and the history of working so hard to teach a child with dyslexia to read meant we were both primed for a fight about writing. Wonderfully, our OT had lots of ideas to help get to the underlying issues that were making writing difficult. Improving working memory to remember how to spell words became a goal. Practicing writing with the OT was not the charged activity it had become at home. 

New Challenges

In a separate situation, one of my kids had some health issues and a head injury that made all kinds of things difficult. Seeing our OT through that allowed her to rebuild muscles and get help to figure out how to navigate things that they felt they should be able to do, but couldn’t. 

Occupational therapy actually has a special focus on life skills. If you have a teen or young adult who struggles with doing their hair or make-up, making their own schedule, or navigating the increased demands they have, OT can help. Sometimes working with a parent on your weaknesses at that age is emotionally charged. An outside person can bring perspective and make your child feel like they are problem solving together instead of “being yelled at” by a parent. 

Paying our OT co-pay is money well spent to save my relationship with my kids. I can let the OT do things with them that are difficult to do with me. One of the hardest things about seeking out therapy is knowing when you should find a therapist and when you should “wait and see.” In my experience, most of us wait longer than we should with the “wait and see” approach. Whether it is OT, PT ,or speech therapy, your new therapist will evaluate your child to see if they have reasons to see them. They will work with you on setting goals and assessing underlying issues you may not realize are the real stumbling blocks. 

P.S.

This is a small thing, but all the photos in this blog are stock photos from a website we often pull from that came up when I asked for pictures of occupational therapy. When I got my degree, quite a few years ago, it was difficult to find pictures or resources like this. Many people had never heard of OT. So, it brought me joy just to be able to type in my occupation and see pictures of what I was talking about, instead of something crazy or random.