Strategies to De-Stress Your Child’s Homework Time

If your child is old enough to be given homework, you’ve likely experienced how stressful it is for them. Many parents want their children to get their homework done as soon as they get home so it doesn’t get forgotten. This usually comes from a place of love because we want our children to get good grades in school. But the constant focus on getting work done can be stressful and make it even harder for your child to succeed academically. At No Limits Pediatric Therapies in Bentonville, AR, our mission is to help children achieve their developmental goals to improve their overall wellbeing. Today, we will explore strategies to de-stress your child’s homework time and make it a more enjoyable and productive experience. How to Help Your Child Transition from the Classroom to the Home Environment Children spend about eight hours a day sitting in classes at school, which can be physically and mentally exhausting. Often, if they don’t finish their work in class, it’s assigned as homework. This can feel like a punishment and add to the stress of completing homework. Creating a smooth transition from the classroom to the home environment is essential for reducing this stress and setting your child up for success. Let Your Kids Reset with Activity Before Starting Homework Many parents want their kids to finish their homework straight after school before they do anything fun. But think about how you feel after a long day at work—do you want to jump right into chores or other adult responsibilities? Probably not. Allowing children to have some rest time is valuable because it can put them in a better headspace to finish their homework faster and with less stress. Giving your child even an hour to relax and do something fun after they get home from school can do wonders for their overall wellbeing and make homework less of a hassle. Taking a Break Prepares a Child to Focus on Completing Homework Tasks Giving kids a break before homework shouldn’t mean plopping in front of the TV to watch shows or play video games. Why? Because they just spent all day sitting in a classroom. Everyone, children and adults, need time to move their bodies around. Some examples of good after school activities include taking a walk, getting a snack, spending time on a trampoline or swing, or engaging in any other physical activity your child enjoys. These activities allow kids to move their bodies and get their attention outward, which is great for their overall wellbeing and can make it easier for them to focus and complete their homework. Provide Opportunities for Movement While Your Kid Does Their Homework At school, kids are expected to sit still for extended periods, but at home, there’s no reason they can’t move around while doing their homework. Encourage your child to do their homework in a way that feels comfortable and enjoyable for them. This might mean standing at a counter, lying on their belly, working outside, or using a balance ball chair. Movement can help keep their minds engaged and reduce the monotony of sitting still. Reach Out to No Limits for an Evaluation If homework time is a constant struggle in your home, our experts at No Limits Pediatric Therapies may be able to help. Give us a call at (479) 250-9838 for a free 15-minute developmental consultation to see if your child can benefit from pediatric therapy to address attention, learning, focus, or other school-related skills. Together, we can make homework time less stressful and more productive for your family. About Terrica Terrica Weatherford, MSOT, founded No Limits Pediatric Therapies in 2016. She earned her Master of Science in Occupational Therapy from the Medical University of South Carolina in 2012. For over 13 years, Terrica has been committed to helping neurodiverse children (and those who need extra support) reach their full potential. She founded her practice to ensure she could provide exceptional care for children and their families.

Activity Level vs. Arousal Level? What does it All Mean?

If you have been around No Limits Pediatric Therapies long, you have probably heard the terms AROUSAL level and ACTIVITY level; but what do these terms really mean?  Let’s go to one of No Limit’s OT teams favorite sensory gurus named Dr. Julia Harper for some more information. Dr. Julie Harper, PhD, MS, OTR/L is a wife, mother, occupational therapist, business owner, psychologist, life coach & mentor, speaker and writer. She holds a BS in Occupational Therapy from SUNY Health Science Center (Downstate), Brooklyn, NY, a MS in Occupational Therapy from Boston University, Boston, MA and a PhD in Psychology from Capella University, Minneapolis, MN. She brings all of these roles together to serve her mission of helping people-all people to live their lives beyond limitations. For over 20 years, Julia has worked as a pediatric occupational therapist focusing on creating brain-based therapeutic programs that tap into neural-plasticity, the brain’s ability to adapt and change. Her world-renowned therapy center offers a W.A.Y. to H.O.P.E.™ which merges her two models: HOPE (Harper’s Optimal Protocols for Enrichment), which focuses on re-wiring the brain of those with physiological, learning and limitations in attention and W.A.Y.™ (What About You), which retrains the brain to move beyond emotional and thought limitations. Creating change is at the center of her work, as she knows that to best serve the world, she needs to be an agent of change. This begins with the work she has done to change her own life, from becoming a Certified Master Life Coach, a Master Clinician, a Certified Daring Way Facilitator and Master Practitioner of MER. She hopes that through her change, she can change her clients and have the ripple effect of changing the world. She is a firm believer that all change begins with her. Daily, she lives this change to be the change. (http://therapeeds.com/en/about-us/julia-s-story) Now you know a little background on one of our favorite resources when it comes to sensory processing, arousal level, and activity level, but what does it all mean? Activity level can be broken down into two categories: high activity and low activity.  When speaking about activity level, we are referring to physical activity.  The World Health Organization defines physical activity as any bodily movement produced by skeletal muscles that requires energy expenditure. Physical activity refers to all movement including during leisure time, for transport to get to and from places, or as part of a person’s work. Both moderate- and vigorous-intensity physical activity improve health (https://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/physical-activity).  This is leading to the idea that a child or adult who demonstrates a high activity level demonstrates significant physical activity and seeking of movement.  It then leads us to an idea of a child or adult who demonstrates a low activity level demonstrates minimal physical activity at any given time.   Activity level is visible, fluid and changing.  You can move from high to low activity level or low to high activity level at any point in the day and it usually changes multiple times during a day.  It can even change hour to hour or in shorter time spans.  Remember, activity level is seen and is changing; although you may have a child who typically demonstrates either a high or low activity level.  Now, let’s move on to arousal level.  This can easily be confused with activity level, but it is different and cannot be used interchangeably.  Your arousal level tends to remain unchanging and can be considered more as your state of being.  With that said, according to Julia Harper, a child or an adult can be considered high arousal or low arousal.  She describes the different neuro-chemicals and brain wave patterns within the body that determine arousal level, but that will be left for another day.  What we will discuss today is that depending on your child’s arousal level, the occupational therapy team can better serve your child’s sensory needs by meeting their specific sensory input needs.  This is based on neuro-chemical needs and we can then help create a protocol to meet those needs based off of Julia Harper’s research.  Moving forward, let’s discuss how we determine if your child is high arousal or low arousal.  We can typically describe a high arousal child as a child who thrives on routine, structure, and predictability.  A high arousal child is unable to start off their day with intense sensory input such as spinning and participating in inverted activities, because intense vestibular input is only going to dysregulate your child even more.  This would be working against the whole goal of working with your child to build a toolbox to help improve attention, participation and overall regulation based on their individual arousal level.  They tend to benefit from deep pressure touch and passive proprioceptive input which is calming and regulating.  Now on the other hand, you have a low arousal child.  A low arousal child is a child who tends to be unpredictable, constantly changing, and unrhythmical.  You can usually see this in everything they do.  A low arousal child may always be on the go because they are seeking input to help regulate, but they do not need to start the day off with calming activities.  Instead, they need to start off with intense vestibular input that is constantly changing, unrhythmical and unpredictable.  Starting with intense input followed by deep pressure and tactile input will help set your low arousal child up for success. Now, here is where it gets tricky!  Is my child high or low arousal?  Or are we just looking at if they have a high or low activity level?  This is where your OT comes in.  We at No Limits want to work with you as a family and complete a variety of clinical observations to help determine if your child is high or low arousal.   We can then work with you to see how their activity level usually runs at different points in the day. After determining your child’s arousal level and gaining a better idea of how their activity