Author: Tera Robinson

The Messy Magic and Choatic Splendor of Child-Directed Play in Our Home

Brittany Graham from Utah’s FOX 13’s The Place recently asked for my opinion on a blog post titled, “Get Out of the Play!”. I loved it and ended up writing my thoughts in this post about how our family allows child-directed play in our home.

VIDEO: See Tera talk about the magic of child-directed play on FOX 13 The Place here.

Stop by my house at anytime and you’ll not find the spotless, well-kept, Pottery Barn decorated images filled with littles dressed in clean, adorable outfits with perfectly done hair… These were the images of my dreams before my husband and I started into the magical journey of parenthood.

Instead, you may find a yarn ball explosion with children creating pulleys across railings, hallways and doorknobs or a make-believe laser beam obstacle course as they challenge each other to make it across the hallway without setting off the “deathly laser beams”. Maybe you’ll find a collection of bugs with leaves and dirt in containers sitting by the collection pile of very special sticks gathered over the months from our hikes on the trails and walks to the park. You might look in the back yard to see a princess in a sparkly gown and tiara digging for worms in the mud. Walk upstairs and it could be some “witch’s brew” of magical ingredients being stirred in the “witch’s cauldron” or more realistically described as hundreds of tiny scraps of different-colored construction paper being thrown across the floor. You might find the goofiness of inserting a balloon head on top of a brother’s head in his hoodie! If you peek in my freezer, don’t be alarmed by the dead baby snake in a plastic bag that my son was sure he needed to save for further exploration!

These scenes of mess and chaos may give you anxiety. They have almost given me a few panic attacks, but usually, after several deep breaths and reminders for more deep breaths, I’ve stopped myself enough to share the magic and splendor of childhood play through their perspective. As my children are growing, I now swoon over the long days of tired and exhausting bliss and wish they weren’t passing so quickly.

In my training as an occupational therapist student at Colorado State University, I was fortunate to have studied with Anita Bundy, ScD, OT, FAOTA, an internationally recognized expert on children’s play. In addition to my general pediatric OT studies, I also spent a semester with her studying play. I’ve been fascinated with children’s play ever since.

As a practicing pediatric occupational therapist for over 15 years, I’ve spent my career therapeutically using, studying and intervening to support children’s play to improve their everyday lives. Twelve years ago, I started my journey into motherhood, where play was an everyday event in my own home. My OT studies and career have made me a better mom and has had a definite and strong influential impact on my parenting style and philosophies.

What is true play? According to Anita Bundy, basing her theories on the work of previous play experts, play is characterized by three important aspects:

Play is intrinsically motivated. Play is done for the pure enjoyment, excitement and interest for the process itself, not for any end result, product or destination.
Play may extend the limits of reality. Play can always include purple unicorns in a magical kingdom, jet packs that shoot you to Mars, pixie dust to make you fly through the sky, magical staffs to cast spells, spoons becoming phones, empty paper towel rolls transforming into telescopes, pool noodles making excellent swords… True play is never limited by reality.
Play allows the player to maintain control. If another takes control of the direction of the play without consent or the rules of the environment are overly restrictive, true play is lost.

As adults, we feel a heavy responsibility to guide and raise our children to be happy, healthy and successful individuals. We see the end result and feel responsible to be sure they arrive at that destination. We tend to imagine the direct path they will travel to their final finish line of happy, healthy successful adult.

I’ve seen parents at the park telling children to keep their shoes on, not play in the dirt, don’t climb so you don’t fall, don’t throw grass, don’t get wet… with a constant barrage of direction and intervention to make sure the child doesn’t get hurt, doesn’t break adult rules of politeness, doesn’t get dirty, doesn’t make a mess, doesn’t mess up their hair, doesn’t make anyone wait too long… I do believe these parents’ intentions are good. But this constant adult direction doesn’t allow a child to fall into the process of true play defined by intrinsic motivation, suspension of reality and a sense of control.

Play is the work of children and if you observe children deep in play, they are intent, focused and in an absolute sense of enjoyment. Children learn insurmountable amounts of essential physical, emotional, cognitive and social skills necessary to become happy, healthy and successful individuals through years and years of true play. They take risks to stretch their abilities. Yes, risks that will often cause adults to feel uncomfortable. When we get in the way of their play process, we impede their development of these essential skills and opportunity to build confidence in their own abilities.

So, how can adults allow and protect child-directed play?

Create and protect time for child-directed play. Allow downtime each day without scheduled activities or screen-time where they are passively entertained. For me, I have to be patient and slow myself down and remind myself that during this time, we are on the child’s time table. I’m constantly monitoring my rushed thoughts so we can spend our time together enjoying the journey, not focusing on the destination. So, when my son spends so much time collecting and intensely inspecting hundreds of rocks on our hike that we never make it to the final waterfall destination with everyone else, that’s ok. We shared in the splendor of collecting and over-filling our pockets with all the special rocks we could find.
Create and allow physical space for child-directed activities. Where can your children build an obstacle course, paint pictures, dress up, make-up their own dance, perform in a marching band, explore bugs, jump, run, wrestle…? For over 10 years, we had a huge bean bag instead of a couch downstairs to allow jumping, crashing and wrestling. That was the main attraction of our house for friends coming to our house to play for many years. Our children have spent endless hours climbing up a table, jumping, flipping and crashing into the bean bag over and over.
Allow messes in the space you’ve created. Let them play with their food, play in the mud, jump in the puddles, play with play dough, paint… My children wear old play clothes to the park. Hair gets messy and dirty feet are common. Set some boundaries for the mess, but allow the mess to happen. My daughter had so much creativity oozing onto walls, scratching into car doors… So, we painted chalkboard walls in the playroom, bought an easel for painting and allowed her to draw anything she wanted on both sides of her bedroom door since the door had a hole and eventually needed to be replaced. We still have the door after many years and we’re keeping it for more creativity. Don’t stress during the process and leave clean-up until the end. Messes give many great opportunities to teach cleaning up.
Allow risk-taking behavior within physically and emotionally safe environments. Will your child get bumps, bruises, feelings hurt? Yes, again and again and again. We all learn best from mistakes rather than being protected from ever making one. Let children do this also. Keep children safe from life-altering injuries, but falls, bumps, bruises, cuts, even broken bones will heal. Kids learn their own vigilance to keep themselves and others safe in their risk-taking behavior. Allow time for children to try to negotiate and solve social disagreements on their own. They will began to recognize how others react to their own behaviors and how to work together. Be available to help, but not too close to interfere (reading a book, folding laundry, talking to friend). If needed, use problem-solving questions such as, “What might happen if you jump from the top of the slide?” Or, “How can you all solve this problem together so you all can have fun?” Stay away from adding more and more defined restrictions like, “No running. No climbing….” My sons love to climb. I remember the day my oldest son decided to climb a huge tree and shimmy his way to the edge of a very high branch at our local park. While I was watching closely from a short distance, several other moms rushed to the tree and suggested he should get down so he didn’t fall. I knew he was taking some risks, but I knew my son and his abilities and allowed him to stretch that day. If he fell, I was watching and could immediately run to help him. He didn’t fall and fully enjoyed the journey to the edge of the high branch and back.
Leave your own plan behind, take your children’s direction and follow them into the magic of childhood. Let your children amaze and delight you! Enjoy it as much as they do! One Christmas was extremely busy for us as we were remodeling another house and planning a move. I only had time to set up the Christmas tree, not decorate it. One day as I was working on a project downstairs, my children, ages 2-6, took responsibility to decorate the tree themselves. My 4-year-old daughter organized her brothers and they searched out tree decorations together… stuffed animals, hair accessories, loose parts of school art projects, socks, ribbons, bracelets, watches, baby blankets, old wrapping paper, an old plastic hose to a small ball pump, superhero figures… Never would I have allowed this to happen with my idea of an ideally decorated Christmas tree… until they pulled me by my hand up the stairs to excitedly present their decorated Christmas tree with such pride in their work! This will always be one of my favorite Christmas memories!

It’s all about balance. There’s a time for adult directions, structure and reality. There’s also a time for the child to have control, give direction and lead. In my professional and personal experience, the cost of mess and chaos is worth the benefits of the journey through the magic and splendor of child-directed play!

How a Simple Teal Pumpkin on Your Porch Can Make a Difference for a Child on Halloween

Halloween celebrations always include dressing up in a costume and candy! I have so many little friends who excitedly anticipate Halloween night and trick-or-treating, including my little friends who have severe food allergies, are on special diets for medical reasons or are unable to eat food by mouth and are supported by tube feedings. The parents of these children work tirelessly to provide and support typical childhood experiences as much as possible. As children get older, they learn about childhood cultural traditions that siblings, cousins and friends do and they want to join in the excitement also.

A fun-filled Halloween night of trick-or-treating can turn into pure disappointment when candy buckets are dumped and sorted upon returning home… Only to realize that from the large loot gathered, you can only safely eat or keep a few of the treats or none at all! Everything else must be thrown away or worse, given to your siblings to eat!

You can help with some very simple things to make some of these children have an enjoyable Halloween and minimize the disappointment. Join the Teal Pumpkin Project!

Set a teal pumpkin on your porch! A teal pumpkin is a sign to families of children with food allergies and feeding difficulties that your house will be handing out non-food treats… stickers, pencils, small toys, glow sticks, temporary tattoos, etc. Many of you are already doing this, but let those families know with your teal pumpkin so they can add another house to their route of safe houses they plan to visit with their children.

My friend, Ryder, loves to dress up in theme with his parents every Halloween. Last year, he dressed up as Toothless from How to Train Your Dragon. His mom and dad dressed up as Vikings. He loves walking the neighborhood and joining in the Halloween fun. Ryder has an extensive list of food allergies and sensitivities that prohibit him from eating all but a very short list of foods. So, it comes to the point that he cannot safely eat ANY Halloween candy.

His mom, Kim, loves the Teal Pumpkin Project and puts a teal pumpkin on their porch every year. She makes sure she has non-food treats to hand out to trick-or-treaters. When they went trick-or-treating last year in Morgan, Utah, they didn’t see any teal pumpkins in the neighborhoods they were in. Kim wishes more people handed out non-food treats. Ryder loves stickers, little toys and bubbles. Fortunately, Ryder has a sweet grandma that prepares a special non-food treat package for him every Halloween.

Confession: Several years ago I decided to plan ahead for Halloween and buy bulk bags of candy (mostly chocolate since that’s my favorite), but I ate almost all of the candy before Halloween came! Now I buy my non-food treats early and and candy last-minute to avoid my chocolate addictive behaviors! Win-win for any candy addicts like me!

My daughter loves painting a teal pumpkin and insists on adding her own artistic flair. She is excited to paint another this year to set out on the porch to signal anyone who prefers non-food treats. My sons make sure we still hand out candy for anyone else (or eat it themselves before any trick-or-treaters arrive).

A few tips to keep in mind:

Set your teal pumpkin out before Halloween night so families can plan to make it to your house.
Keep food and non-food items in separate containers to avoid allergens touching the non-food items.
Avoid non-food items with latex or wheat. Some clays contain wheat.
If you don’t have time to paint a teal pumpkin, click on this link to download and print out a free sign at foodallergy.org.
You can also add your house address to the Crowd Sourced Fever Map on food allergy.org to let others in your area know you will be participating in the Teal Pumpkin Project.

For more information on the Teal Pumpkin Project, visit foodallergy.org.

Teal and orange compliment each other well, so use both colors for front-porch pumpkin decorating! You can make such a difference for a child who struggles with feeding difficulties with this simple change in your Halloween decorations and treats handed out on Halloween night!

Sensory Processing 101 Book Review

The odds are that you know someone with Sensory Processing Disorder, also known as Sensory Integration Dysfunction. You may not yet understand, but some of their strange, annoying and aggravating behaviors may have a basis in Sensory Processing Disorder or SPD. I´ve been treating children with Sensory Processing Disorder for 15 years and I recognize that when parents have finally sought out a diagnosis or answers to questions about their child, it’s been after years of confusion and frustration. When they are at this point, they are exhausted and need some desperate help.

The reason I love Sensory Processing 101 is because it is full of quick and helpful explanations, ideas and resources to get you started, even before you finish the book. The appealing and playful visual layout of the book makes it easy to skim through, find what you need most, then come back and read more thoroughly later. There are many great books about Sensory Processing Disorder or Sensory Integration Dysfunction that are thorough with detailed explanation of the neurology and theories of sensory integration. I highly recommend many of these books to parents and other professionals. But many parents don´t usually have the time or energy to read through detailed neurology before they understand how to help their children. Sensory Processing 101 is a great resource for overwhelmed parents who need some ideas quickly.

The authors of the book are 2 occupational therapists, a physical therapist and an early childhood educator who has a child with Sensory Processing Disorder whom she home schools. Almost every chapter is focused on a different sensory system with a therapist perspective, a parent perspective and teacher perspective.

I highly recommend this book for teachers wanting to understand students with sensory processing difficulties in their classroom. The research incidence indicates every teacher has a student with these challenges in their classroom. I understand that teachers are busy and are in need of constant learning to be better teachers, so their time is limited. Sensory Processing 101 is such an easy resource for teachers to use to understand some of their students, as well as gain helpful ideas to start trying immediately.

The book has great suggestions of sensory activities that are easy to implement with all children in a family or in a classroom setting. They have even created supply lists to easily start these activities in your own home or school. All children will enjoy and be excited about participating. No fancy or expensive equipment is needed for these activities!

The end of the book is full of accessible resources for Sensory Processing Disorder, including books, websites and online support groups. It also includes screening checklists for SPD if you are concerned about a certain child.

You can order Sensory Processing 101 in paperback from Amazon. Or at sensoryprocessing101.com, you can buy it in print or digital formats.

Start with Sensory Processing 101 for a quick jump start to understanding, screening and helping children with sensory processing difficulties! If you ever need help in your home with sensory processing concerns, I’d love to help you in Weber, Davis, Morgan counties in Utah!

*I am part of the Amazon Associates Program. If you choose to buy this book from Amazon, I’d love for you to purchase it through the link on my website to help support the work I do with Yums Theraplay! Thank you!

My Life is a Gift. My Life has a Plan.

I have a vivid picture in my mind of the biggest toothy smile I’ve ever seen on the face of 10-year-old girl with thick black hair. The thought of her grin brings tears to my eyes every time I hear her favorite song that she’d sing every time I’d see her for her occupational therapy visits with me. I’ll call her Sara for this article.

Sara and her siblings had been removed from their home with accusations of sexual abuse and other child abuse from her parents. She had been referred to me to address her sensory processing difficulties and helping her to learn to calm herself appropriately. She had been placed in a wonderful, nurturing home with a foster mom who happened to have a background with disabilities and was determined to help Sara and her siblings find the help they needed.

Sara loved intense swinging on a flat platform swing. She swung as high and as hard as she could, occasionally hitting the wall of the therapy room that no other child had hit with the swing before from swinging so high. Sara had one volume of voice that I’d describe “as loud as you can”. Her foster mom and I had finally problem solved that she could quiet her volume while chewing on Slim Jim beef sticks and swinging.

Sara had been going to church with her foster family and attended the children’s class. She had memorized one of the songs she’d learned and would sing it for me while she swung as high as she could on the swing in her loudest voice.

As I watched her, I often thought of the awful, terrifying experiences of abuse she’d experienced in her short life. Then I’d watch her up in the air singing at the top of her lungs, “My life is a gift. My life has a plan. My life has a purpose in heaven it began…”

In those moments, I felt at peace that this young girl was being nurtured and loved out of her past horrors. She had already begun to show the effects of that nurturing, developmentally and emotionally. But those words sung with such fierceness, were the perfect soundtrack to accompany her on her new path. Her life WAS a gift. Her life COULD have a plan. Her life DID have a divine purpose that was not lost through the crimes committed against her.

I’ve been fortunate to be the pianist in the children’s class at my own church for the past 2 years, where the children sing this exact song. Tears run down my face every time I listen to them sing this song and memories of Sara rush back to me, swinging up high, singing as loud as she can, “My life is a gift. My life has a plan. My life has a purpose in heaven it began…”

How important are these words for a young girl whose purpose for almost 10 years seemed to be nothing but an object to be acted upon to satisfy the desires of self-serving adults who could not see or understand a child’s worth? And how blessed was Sara that within a few months of love, nurture and the right treatment could start to feel the healing effects and the new path of hope she was on? I hope and pray that Sara engraves those words into her mind and heart as she travels through life with love and nurturing and she begins to truly understand her true value and worth.

CAPES! (Children’s Adaptive Physical Education Society) at Weber State University

If I’d happened to have a bad day, I still wouldn’t have been able to stop smiling the night I attended the CAPES! Luau Celebration this spring at Weber State University. Children, families and Weber State student volunteers were spending their last night together before the summer break. Families and friends cheered on children, some wearing purple capes, resembling young superheroes, as they knocked down bowling pins, attempted the limbo, threw beanbags at targets and colored pictures.

I talked with families and volunteers about the program and only heard fabulous things about the CAPES! program for children ages 5-12 with developmental disabilities. As a pediatric occupational therapist in Ogden, Utah I’ve seen so many families of children with developmental disabilities struggle to find activities in the community for their children to fit into. But the night of the CAPES! celebration, these little superheroes, with their friends by their side, were fearless with nothing standing in their way of care-free childhood play.

One mom told me that her daughter often stays home while her siblings play with friends or participate in extracurricular activities. But CAPES! is all about her, and she and her parents love the fun, safe place that this program has created without any fear of feeling left out at anytime.

CAPES! is supported by Weber State University students who are enrolled in or have taken either Adaptive Physical Education or Introduction to Special Education classes with the facilitators of the program, Dr. James Zagrodnik and Dr. Natalie Williams. Each child is assigned to a student volunteer throughout the semester. They’ve created a program that builds important experiences and skills for children with developmental disabilities and students who are studying to work with this population in the future.

Drs. Williams and Zagrodnik shared students’ written experiences with me and the stories seemed to follow a similar trend. At the beginning of the semester, students were nervous, unsure of their abilities and chance of enjoying the experience, many having had very little experience with children with disabilities. Quickly, after the first or second time, students were attached to their new, younger friends and celebrating small successes with them. By the end, most students were sad their time was coming to an end, having learned valuable lessons and thoroughly enjoyed their time working with the children.

I watched the children find their student volunteers with excitement to try a new activity, which was followed by beaming faces as the student volunteers gave their full attention and enthusiastic praise. The relationships between the students and children become beneficial to both sides, with a sense of satisfaction and growth for each.

The program has spots for about 35 children each semester. If the program is a good fit, children can continue to participate for 5-6 semesters (spring and fall semesters) or until they age out of the program. They meet for an hour and 15 minutes on Tuesday nights for 10 weeks each semester, where half the time is spent in the pool and half the time doing land-based activities. Each student volunteer plans fun activities for their child to work on any skill they feel is beneficial for the child. The cost is only $25 per child for each semester to help cover costs for the use of the Weber State University facilities.

If you are interested in having your child with a developmental disability apply to CAPES!, you can do so at weber.edu/capes/registration. You may be placed on the CAPES! waiting list if the program is full, but I believe it’s worth the wait! Take advantage of this one-of-a-kind program in our Ogden, Utah area!