WEBVTT
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Welcome to the Sensory Code Podcast.
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I'm Laura Pettix, pediatric occupational therapist, creator of the OT Butterfly, author, neurodiversity advocate, and a neurodivergent mom raising a neurodivergent kid.
00:00:13.199 --> 00:00:22.000
Each episode, I'll teach you how to view behavior through a sensory and nervous system lens because what you see on the surface is never the whole story.
00:00:22.239 --> 00:00:26.160
So pull up a chair, grab your favorite fidget, and lock in.
00:00:36.719 --> 00:00:44.640
Today I want to tell you about the mistake that I realized I was making on her ninth birthday.
00:00:44.880 --> 00:00:51.359
Before I get into it, I want to remind you that my book is coming out in three weeks on October 6th.
00:00:51.520 --> 00:00:55.119
The sensory code is available wherever you get your books.
00:00:55.280 --> 00:01:06.159
But if you order before then, if you pre-order before then, you still have time to access my pre-order bonuses, which I spent a lot of time on, and you're gonna get a lot of value on.
00:01:06.239 --> 00:01:10.799
And you're not gonna be able to access these pre-order bonuses after October 5th.
00:01:10.959 --> 00:01:46.000
So if you know that you are just starting the journey to supporting your child or a student with sensory processing differences and you want to learn how to differentiate what kind of behavior means what kind of sensory input, if you want to even know what kinds of sensory strategies to try and you want some video examples of that, and if you want help putting all of this into a plan that flows throughout your family's day in a way that doesn't feel like it's overwhelming, I have those pre-made pre-order bonuses ready and available to you to access today for free when you pre-order my book.
00:01:46.159 --> 00:01:50.719
So just head to theotbutterfly.com/slash the sensory code to pre-order today.
00:01:50.879 --> 00:01:52.719
All right, so here's the mistake.
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I was starting to get pretty complacent with the routine accommodations that I was offering for my daughter throughout her day-to-day.
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Why is that a mistake?
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You know me, I always preach to accommodate your kids if you can and if they need it, go for the accommodations.
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But my mistake was that because I was complacent, I think I might have held her back a little bit by not making adjustments along the way.
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I kind of like set the accommodations and forget about it.
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Like I was doing the accommodations, but I never thought, like, is she able to do this by now?
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So let me tell you how it happened.
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It was her ninth birthday, the morning of her birthday, and I made her favorite waffles.
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And I put them on her plate like I usually do, and then I started to cut them into rectangles and then squares with the kitchen scissors.
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Right as I like cut the last piece of waffle, I caught a glimpse of like the big gigantic nine balloon that was like behind the table, and it literally stopped me in my tracks.
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I was like, what the hell am I doing?
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Like, why am I cutting her waffles?
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Why am I cutting my nine-year-old's waffles?
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Mind you, this is in the wake of like watching Master Chef Junior with her as our whole family like really likes that show.
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And I'm like, why am I cutting my nine-year-old's waffles?
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What happened here?
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It was that image that stuck with me and made me reflect on so many daily living skills, basically, that I was essentially either doing for her or doing most of it for her.
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Trust me, she wasn't really fighting me for it.
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She wasn't like, I can do this myself.
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She was also going along with the program.
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I think what happened was I started accommodating her in these routine tasks because she was always nearing meltdowns.
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She was always dysregulated easily, especially in the early days of school.
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And that just made parts of our home routine dreadful, to be honest.
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And I was just dreading every time, okay, it's dinner time soon.
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Oh God, I gotta tell her to get dressed.
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Oh, now I gotta tell her to go wash her hands.
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Now I gotta go tell her to get in the bath.
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Okay, now it's time for bed.
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And I was just constantly dreading it.
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And so I just made it easier for her, which in turn made it easier for myself.
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And I felt comfortable in that easiness, even though I technically was taking on more work and more tasks by continuing to do things for her.
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It just felt smoother and easier.
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I know some of you can relate to what I'm talking about, right?
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Like even though it was more physical work for me and my husband on a daily basis, it also felt just easier to just do it.
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And then accommodations just started to become part of the habit and I never questioned it.
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I just kept going for it.
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And I'm talking like some accommodations I started when she was four.
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I hadn't even like reassessed or looked at until like now that she's nine.
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And it was only because I noticed that balloon.
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It was on her birthday.
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Like I just had that epiphany.
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So some of the tasks, if you want to know, some of the tasks that I was still doing mostly for her at age nine was tying her shoes, turning on the shower and helping her out of it, getting utensils and condiments in the middle of a meal.
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Like if we were sitting down and she's like, Oh, I need a napkin, or I ran out of water, or can I have a spoon?
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Like immediately I would just go up and get it.
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I would always put headphones on her at loud events.
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Like I would just plop them on her head without even asking her.
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And she went along with it, right?
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Again, this was the process.
00:05:23.759 --> 00:05:30.879
And I would always buy her the sensory-friendly socks and avoid buying her anything else outside of the ordinary.
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I just kind of was like, she doesn't like this, I'm not doing it.
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The same could be said about certain food.
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She doesn't like this food, I'm not serving it to her.
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And I kind of just got into this rhythm.
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Like it happens.
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What I want to say before I say the next part is that yes, accommodations can be lifelong.
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There's nothing wrong with relying on accommodations as an adult.
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But I think that as they become adults, they and we, I, because I also have these issues, we should constantly be taking an inventory or assessing how we feel a certain day if we need a certain accommodation.
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And we should be more independent in how we ask and advocate for accommodations rather than always assuming someone is going to provide it to us.
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And that's really now my focus from this realization on for my daughter is that she is more independent in asking for the accommodations she needs or getting them herself and knowing that it might change from day to day.
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So I'm gonna talk specifically here a little bit so that you know what I'm talking about.
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So let's go back to let's go to the headphones examples.
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We would go to Disneyland, we'd go to movies, baseball games, and I would just constantly go there and be with her in line and put the headphones on her.
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She would adjust them so they were comfortable, but like she wasn't fighting it.
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But I just wasn't even asking, do you need headphones?
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I was just putting them on her.
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And then eventually I realized I haven't even been asking her if she needs headphones.
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And then more and more I started shifting and saying, Do you want me to bring the headphones?
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Do you need them on?
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Do you want to wear them now?
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And really more asking if she needed them.
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And she surprised me more often than not, she would actually say, Nope, I don't think I need it.
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And then now it was to the point of, okay, I have your headphones, let me know if you need them.
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And I would carry them in my purse.
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Now, today, we're at the point where before we go somewhere, I'm asking her, Do you want to bring your headphones?
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Yes or no?
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And she'll say, I'll bring them in the car or I'll hold on to them.
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So now we're more transitioning in that sense rather than me just saying, you need these, is saying, like, think about it.
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We're going to this place.
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Do you need them?
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And she hasn't worn them really in many places that I thought she would.
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Like, she has gone without them at baseball games, at like these like community festivals with loud music and like on the dance floor and things like that.
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So again, she's still very much an auditory-sensitive kid in most spaces, but I think she has a better sense of her own tolerance level.
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And I haven't been able to let her lean into that enough.
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So now she can't.
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Tying her shoes.
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This one surprised me because she started asking for shoes that have shoelaces.
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And I was like, oh duh, like I'm an OT.
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How have I not taught you how to tie your shoe?
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Like, what a failure.
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What a failure.
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So I had her practice on like her drawstring pants that had laces on them to like pull.
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I taught her like once and she was able to tie it.
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So development had been doing its thing under the surface.
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She's been doing everything you do as kids, bilateral coordination games, just handwriting, everything.
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And just teaching her the steps of showing her how to tie something, she was able to catch on to it.
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And I was like, man, you could have been tying shoes for a long time.
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But I've only been buying you slip-on shoes and velcro shoes because that's what I was used to.
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So now she has shoelace shoes.
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And it did not take me much to teach her because she has typical fine motor skills, but I wouldn't have known.
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Starting the shower and helping her out of it.
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Again, this was an accommodation that I used early on because it was just part of the transition.
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Like I wasn't gonna have her turn on the shower or the bath when she was four.
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So it was something that I just did and just it would make it easier for me to have her transition to bath if I was just like, hey, your bath's running, time to get ready, rather than telling her, go to the bath, turn it on, go get in the bath.
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So up until now, I've been just starting her shower for her.
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And I was like, wait a minute, you can definitely be doing this for yourself.
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But she wasn't asking to do it either.
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So now I can say, time to go take a shower.
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And I showed her how to turn it on, how to find the warm spot, how to adjust the spout, all of the things.
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And now she can do that independently.
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Same thing with helping her get out of the shower.
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I was helping her dry her body and helping her dry her hair.
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Not because she couldn't do it, but it's because it was such a sensory experience, I think, from the beginning.
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The transition of getting out of a shower had this dread for her with going from warm to cold and then try to manage like your hair dripping, all of the things.
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So I just didn't want her to be dysregulated or complain about it so close to bed that I would do that for her.
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And in this age of me trying to figure out how she could be more independent, I started adapting and scaffolding it for her so that she could learn to do it herself.
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So we started with me verbally talking it through as I was wrapping around her towel.
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I also bought her a hair wrap that made it really easy to tie up her hair.
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And I broke that down into steps.
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And then eventually we graduated to me stepping back and like talking her through doing it herself, like all the motor steps.
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And then we graduated to like me stepping further out of the bathroom and just watching her from afar.
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And now she does it independently.
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But I would not have even thought to make this her own like independent task if it weren't for me cutting those waffles on her ninth birthday.
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So I hope that this episode reached you at a time where it's either you might be at the phase where you're like, huh, I have not checked in with my kid and assessed where they're at developmentally from a fine motor perspective, from a sensory perspective, to take inventory of what accommodations they still need, or maybe even thinking of new accommodations to help them bridge the gap to, you know, their next level of development.
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Wherever you are in your journey, even if you're just starting it now, I hope that this episode helped you remember that the goal is not to wean them completely off accommodations.
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There might be some accommodations that your child depends on lifelong, and that's okay.
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The goal is that you continuously check in with them and you teach your child how to check in with their body and what they need, and that they should know what accommodations help them, why it helps them, and how they can ask for those accommodations or put them into place themselves.
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Okay, I'll see you next week.
00:12:00.720 --> 00:12:01.919
Thanks for listening.
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Wait, before you go, I wanted to remind you that you can find more from me on my website at theotbutterfly.com, including all of my PDF offerings, courses, workshops, one on one coaching, and of course, my books.
00:12:15.600 --> 00:12:20.639
If you want to do me a solid, please leave a podcast review on whatever platform you're listening on.
00:12:20.720 --> 00:12:23.600
It just helps people find my content easier.
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Thank you so much, and I'll see you next time.
00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:02.319
Welcome to the Sensory Code Podcast.
00:00:02.479 --> 00:00:13.039
I'm Laura Pettix, pediatric occupational therapist, creator of the OT Butterfly, author, neurodiversity advocate, and a neurodivergent mom raising a neurodivergent kid.
00:00:13.199 --> 00:00:22.000
Each episode, I'll teach you how to view behavior through a sensory and nervous system lens because what you see on the surface is never the whole story.
00:00:22.239 --> 00:00:26.160
So pull up a chair, grab your favorite fidget, and lock in.
00:00:36.719 --> 00:00:44.640
Today I want to tell you about the mistake that I realized I was making on her ninth birthday.
00:00:44.880 --> 00:00:51.359
Before I get into it, I want to remind you that my book is coming out in three weeks on October 6th.
00:00:51.520 --> 00:00:55.119
The sensory code is available wherever you get your books.
00:00:55.280 --> 00:01:06.159
But if you order before then, if you pre-order before then, you still have time to access my pre-order bonuses, which I spent a lot of time on, and you're gonna get a lot of value on.
00:01:06.239 --> 00:01:10.799
And you're not gonna be able to access these pre-order bonuses after October 5th.
00:01:10.959 --> 00:01:46.000
So if you know that you are just starting the journey to supporting your child or a student with sensory processing differences and you want to learn how to differentiate what kind of behavior means what kind of sensory input, if you want to even know what kinds of sensory strategies to try and you want some video examples of that, and if you want help putting all of this into a plan that flows throughout your family's day in a way that doesn't feel like it's overwhelming, I have those pre-made pre-order bonuses ready and available to you to access today for free when you pre-order my book.
00:01:46.159 --> 00:01:50.719
So just head to theotbutterfly.com/slash the sensory code to pre-order today.
00:01:50.879 --> 00:01:52.719
All right, so here's the mistake.
00:01:52.959 --> 00:02:01.519
I was starting to get pretty complacent with the routine accommodations that I was offering for my daughter throughout her day-to-day.
00:02:01.680 --> 00:02:02.719
Why is that a mistake?
00:02:02.879 --> 00:02:09.680
You know me, I always preach to accommodate your kids if you can and if they need it, go for the accommodations.
00:02:10.400 --> 00:02:20.479
But my mistake was that because I was complacent, I think I might have held her back a little bit by not making adjustments along the way.
00:02:20.639 --> 00:02:23.280
I kind of like set the accommodations and forget about it.
00:02:23.439 --> 00:02:29.520
Like I was doing the accommodations, but I never thought, like, is she able to do this by now?
00:02:29.759 --> 00:02:31.039
So let me tell you how it happened.
00:02:31.199 --> 00:02:35.680
It was her ninth birthday, the morning of her birthday, and I made her favorite waffles.
00:02:35.919 --> 00:02:44.800
And I put them on her plate like I usually do, and then I started to cut them into rectangles and then squares with the kitchen scissors.
00:02:45.120 --> 00:02:56.960
Right as I like cut the last piece of waffle, I caught a glimpse of like the big gigantic nine balloon that was like behind the table, and it literally stopped me in my tracks.
00:02:57.039 --> 00:02:58.639
I was like, what the hell am I doing?
00:02:58.719 --> 00:03:01.360
Like, why am I cutting her waffles?
00:03:01.520 --> 00:03:04.080
Why am I cutting my nine-year-old's waffles?
00:03:04.400 --> 00:03:11.439
Mind you, this is in the wake of like watching Master Chef Junior with her as our whole family like really likes that show.
00:03:11.520 --> 00:03:14.159
And I'm like, why am I cutting my nine-year-old's waffles?
00:03:14.240 --> 00:03:14.960
What happened here?
00:03:15.199 --> 00:03:28.879
It was that image that stuck with me and made me reflect on so many daily living skills, basically, that I was essentially either doing for her or doing most of it for her.
00:03:29.039 --> 00:03:31.759
Trust me, she wasn't really fighting me for it.
00:03:31.919 --> 00:03:33.680
She wasn't like, I can do this myself.
00:03:33.919 --> 00:03:35.680
She was also going along with the program.
00:03:35.840 --> 00:03:43.280
I think what happened was I started accommodating her in these routine tasks because she was always nearing meltdowns.
00:03:43.680 --> 00:03:49.120
She was always dysregulated easily, especially in the early days of school.
00:03:49.360 --> 00:03:53.520
And that just made parts of our home routine dreadful, to be honest.
00:03:53.680 --> 00:03:57.199
And I was just dreading every time, okay, it's dinner time soon.
00:03:57.280 --> 00:03:58.639
Oh God, I gotta tell her to get dressed.
00:03:58.719 --> 00:04:00.319
Oh, now I gotta tell her to go wash her hands.
00:04:00.400 --> 00:04:01.840
Now I gotta go tell her to get in the bath.
00:04:02.000 --> 00:04:03.120
Okay, now it's time for bed.
00:04:03.280 --> 00:04:04.960
And I was just constantly dreading it.
00:04:05.039 --> 00:04:10.560
And so I just made it easier for her, which in turn made it easier for myself.
00:04:10.719 --> 00:04:21.279
And I felt comfortable in that easiness, even though I technically was taking on more work and more tasks by continuing to do things for her.
00:04:21.439 --> 00:04:23.600
It just felt smoother and easier.
00:04:23.839 --> 00:04:25.839
I know some of you can relate to what I'm talking about, right?
00:04:25.920 --> 00:04:32.800
Like even though it was more physical work for me and my husband on a daily basis, it also felt just easier to just do it.
00:04:32.959 --> 00:04:37.040
And then accommodations just started to become part of the habit and I never questioned it.
00:04:37.199 --> 00:04:38.240
I just kept going for it.
00:04:38.480 --> 00:04:42.319
And I'm talking like some accommodations I started when she was four.
00:04:42.480 --> 00:04:46.560
I hadn't even like reassessed or looked at until like now that she's nine.
00:04:46.720 --> 00:04:48.720
And it was only because I noticed that balloon.
00:04:48.800 --> 00:04:49.600
It was on her birthday.
00:04:49.680 --> 00:04:51.279
Like I just had that epiphany.
00:04:51.439 --> 00:05:06.399
So some of the tasks, if you want to know, some of the tasks that I was still doing mostly for her at age nine was tying her shoes, turning on the shower and helping her out of it, getting utensils and condiments in the middle of a meal.
00:05:06.480 --> 00:05:11.600
Like if we were sitting down and she's like, Oh, I need a napkin, or I ran out of water, or can I have a spoon?
00:05:11.759 --> 00:05:13.839
Like immediately I would just go up and get it.
00:05:14.000 --> 00:05:17.279
I would always put headphones on her at loud events.
00:05:17.439 --> 00:05:20.240
Like I would just plop them on her head without even asking her.
00:05:20.399 --> 00:05:21.920
And she went along with it, right?
00:05:22.079 --> 00:05:23.600
Again, this was the process.
00:05:23.759 --> 00:05:30.879
And I would always buy her the sensory-friendly socks and avoid buying her anything else outside of the ordinary.
00:05:30.959 --> 00:05:33.360
I just kind of was like, she doesn't like this, I'm not doing it.
00:05:33.519 --> 00:05:35.199
The same could be said about certain food.
00:05:35.519 --> 00:05:37.439
She doesn't like this food, I'm not serving it to her.
00:05:37.519 --> 00:05:39.759
And I kind of just got into this rhythm.
00:05:39.920 --> 00:05:40.879
Like it happens.
00:05:41.040 --> 00:05:47.120
What I want to say before I say the next part is that yes, accommodations can be lifelong.
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There's nothing wrong with relying on accommodations as an adult.
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But I think that as they become adults, they and we, I, because I also have these issues, we should constantly be taking an inventory or assessing how we feel a certain day if we need a certain accommodation.
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And we should be more independent in how we ask and advocate for accommodations rather than always assuming someone is going to provide it to us.
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And that's really now my focus from this realization on for my daughter is that she is more independent in asking for the accommodations she needs or getting them herself and knowing that it might change from day to day.
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So I'm gonna talk specifically here a little bit so that you know what I'm talking about.
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So let's go back to let's go to the headphones examples.
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We would go to Disneyland, we'd go to movies, baseball games, and I would just constantly go there and be with her in line and put the headphones on her.
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She would adjust them so they were comfortable, but like she wasn't fighting it.
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But I just wasn't even asking, do you need headphones?
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I was just putting them on her.
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And then eventually I realized I haven't even been asking her if she needs headphones.
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And then more and more I started shifting and saying, Do you want me to bring the headphones?
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Do you need them on?
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Do you want to wear them now?
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And really more asking if she needed them.
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And she surprised me more often than not, she would actually say, Nope, I don't think I need it.
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And then now it was to the point of, okay, I have your headphones, let me know if you need them.
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And I would carry them in my purse.
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Now, today, we're at the point where before we go somewhere, I'm asking her, Do you want to bring your headphones?
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Yes or no?
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And she'll say, I'll bring them in the car or I'll hold on to them.
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So now we're more transitioning in that sense rather than me just saying, you need these, is saying, like, think about it.
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We're going to this place.
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Do you need them?
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And she hasn't worn them really in many places that I thought she would.
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Like, she has gone without them at baseball games, at like these like community festivals with loud music and like on the dance floor and things like that.
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So again, she's still very much an auditory-sensitive kid in most spaces, but I think she has a better sense of her own tolerance level.
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And I haven't been able to let her lean into that enough.
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So now she can't.
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Tying her shoes.
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This one surprised me because she started asking for shoes that have shoelaces.
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And I was like, oh duh, like I'm an OT.
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How have I not taught you how to tie your shoe?
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Like, what a failure.
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What a failure.
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So I had her practice on like her drawstring pants that had laces on them to like pull.
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I taught her like once and she was able to tie it.
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So development had been doing its thing under the surface.
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She's been doing everything you do as kids, bilateral coordination games, just handwriting, everything.
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And just teaching her the steps of showing her how to tie something, she was able to catch on to it.
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And I was like, man, you could have been tying shoes for a long time.
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But I've only been buying you slip-on shoes and velcro shoes because that's what I was used to.
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So now she has shoelace shoes.
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And it did not take me much to teach her because she has typical fine motor skills, but I wouldn't have known.
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Starting the shower and helping her out of it.
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Again, this was an accommodation that I used early on because it was just part of the transition.
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Like I wasn't gonna have her turn on the shower or the bath when she was four.
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So it was something that I just did and just it would make it easier for me to have her transition to bath if I was just like, hey, your bath's running, time to get ready, rather than telling her, go to the bath, turn it on, go get in the bath.
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So up until now, I've been just starting her shower for her.
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And I was like, wait a minute, you can definitely be doing this for yourself.
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But she wasn't asking to do it either.
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So now I can say, time to go take a shower.
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And I showed her how to turn it on, how to find the warm spot, how to adjust the spout, all of the things.
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And now she can do that independently.
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Same thing with helping her get out of the shower.
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I was helping her dry her body and helping her dry her hair.
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Not because she couldn't do it, but it's because it was such a sensory experience, I think, from the beginning.
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The transition of getting out of a shower had this dread for her with going from warm to cold and then try to manage like your hair dripping, all of the things.
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So I just didn't want her to be dysregulated or complain about it so close to bed that I would do that for her.
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And in this age of me trying to figure out how she could be more independent, I started adapting and scaffolding it for her so that she could learn to do it herself.
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So we started with me verbally talking it through as I was wrapping around her towel.
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I also bought her a hair wrap that made it really easy to tie up her hair.
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And I broke that down into steps.
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And then eventually we graduated to me stepping back and like talking her through doing it herself, like all the motor steps.
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And then we graduated to like me stepping further out of the bathroom and just watching her from afar.
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And now she does it independently.
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But I would not have even thought to make this her own like independent task if it weren't for me cutting those waffles on her ninth birthday.
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So I hope that this episode reached you at a time where it's either you might be at the phase where you're like, huh, I have not checked in with my kid and assessed where they're at developmentally from a fine motor perspective, from a sensory perspective, to take inventory of what accommodations they still need, or maybe even thinking of new accommodations to help them bridge the gap to, you know, their next level of development.
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Wherever you are in your journey, even if you're just starting it now, I hope that this episode helped you remember that the goal is not to wean them completely off accommodations.
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There might be some accommodations that your child depends on lifelong, and that's okay.
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The goal is that you continuously check in with them and you teach your child how to check in with their body and what they need, and that they should know what accommodations help them, why it helps them, and how they can ask for those accommodations or put them into place themselves.
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Okay, I'll see you next week.
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Thanks for listening.
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Wait, before you go, I wanted to remind you that you can find more from me on my website at theotbutterfly.com, including all of my PDF offerings, courses, workshops, one on one coaching, and of course, my books.
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If you want to do me a solid, please leave a podcast review on whatever platform you're listening on.
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It just helps people find my content easier.
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Thank you so much, and I'll see you next time.
