Occupational Therapy
In my post last week (read it HERE) I talked about my older sons’ recent sensory processing diagnosis. Now that we know the root cause of many of my sons’ behaviors we are working on how to change some of them for the better. To that end, my son is now receiving occupational therapy – and it is AMAZING!!!!!!
So what exactly IS occupational therapy? Great question. A month ago, I probably couldn’t have told you. I’m still not sure I can explain it 100% accurately in my own words. According to kidshealth.org “Occupational therapy (OT) is a branch of health care that helps people of all ages who have physical, sensory, or cognitive problems. OT can help them regain independence in all areas of their lives. Occupational therapists help with barriers that affect a person’s emotional, social, and physical needs. To do this, they use everyday activities, exercises, and other therapies…” To the outside observer, most of what my son does with his therapist looks like play but it’s so much more. I’ve been known to joke around that his therapist is performing some kind of magical voodoo because my son literally leaves his therapy session with a totally different mindset and in a much more cooperative state.
Now, some have asked why I can’t just learn the “special games” and play them with my son at home – but the therapy is more than that. Our therapist connects with my son on an emotional level too and really understands him and what motivates him. She is able to sort of “level” with him in a way that we can’t – at least not yet. That said we ARE learning to incorporate some of the “games” that she plays with my son into life at home too.
The need for physical activity might sound like a no brainer but when your child struggles with understanding where his body is in space but also craves physical touch it’s not as easy as it sounds. We actually refer to our therapists’ office as “the gym.” The office has rooms of all of sorts of fun equipment which make it similar in some ways to an indoor playground. There are various types of swings, a zip line, giant foam pillows and beanbags to crash on, a giant inflatable tire to bounce on, ropes, balls, and even a mechanical “horse” which simulates the motion of riding a real one – just to name a few.
An important part of my sons’ therapy is allowing him to “crash” in safe ways. Instead of launching himself off of our living room couch, our therapist has the facilities to allow him to jump from platforms and crash into pillows or jump off of a swing into a giant beanbag. My son craves the feeling that his body has when he hits the ground because it helps him to understand where his body is in space – something I didn’t understand until several sessions into his therapy. I just figured he was a boy who really liked to roughhouse. I didn’t understand that there was more it. We allow our son to “crash” safely at home using a pile of blankets and pillows but we also have a list of “heavy work” games and activities that we can play with our son at home to activate similar sensory responses for our son. Heavy work activities include playing with weighted stuffed animals, helping me to carry the heavy laundry basket, helping me to wash the car (or washing his own cozy coupe), and drawing with chalk and then scrubbing the chalk off the driveway with water and a sponge.
To be honest, when I first read through the list of suggested “heavy work” activities I brushed them off and thought OK so these are just meant to tire my kid out so he behaves better? But now that I understand more about what I’m dealing with I know that the point of these activities isn’t to tire my son out at all, rather they really do have a purpose. The “heavy” nature of the activities helps my son to regulate his body and to understand it better.
I was skeptical but after committing to trying to incorporate these activities into our everyday lives I really did notice a difference in my son’s behavior. But of course everything comes with a catch… the effects of the heavy work activities only last for 60 – 90 minutes. Trying to build these activities in that frequently feels close to impossible but it’s a work in progress.
I’m looking forward to sharing more about this journey with all of our readers. This is a world that I still feel like I know so little about and I hope that by sharing this it will help another family who might be dealing with something similar. It took over 2 years for someone to take me seriously and to finally get my son into occupational therapy. I know this is not going to be a quick fix but the changes we have already seen in just a month’s time give me so much hope for the future. The world is a hard place to live in right now with many circumstances out of our control but I’m doing my best to make positive changes where we can and I’m trying to hang onto hope. Brighter days are ahead if we can just be patient.
Image credit: https://www.iccdpartners.org/service/occupational-therapy/