Guest Post: 3 Simple Ways to Prepare Your Kindergartner for Handwriting Success

Tera Robinson, OTR/L is a Utah wife, mom and pediatric occupational therapist who loves working as hard as she plays with all the kids in her life! You can visit her blog, yumstheraplay.com, or follow Yums Theraplay on Facebook or Instagram to learn more!


Summer break is just beginning and it always flies by too fast! It pains me to say it, but school will be starting again before we know it. Take advantage of summer time to brush up and prepare your child for the next school year!
As an occupational therapist, I often work with children to develop fine motor skills for activities such as handwriting and cutting. Even in our digital age, paper, pencils, crayons, scissors and glue will be used daily in your student's school day. Current research indicates that good, old-fashioned handwriting improves learning of letters, reading and helps retain information better than typing. Parents can implement some very simple, yet very effective strategies at home to prepare their child for handwriting success in kindergarten and beyond!

When Will My Child Learn Colors?

I often get questions from parents wondering if their child is colorblind. This concern arises when their child cannot seem to identify a correct color. 

Why the concern? Often our only benchmark of knowing when children should be able to do something is by comparing her to the neighbor child! It is natural to be concerned when the neighbor kid can consistently identify his colors, count to 10, and know his shapes before your child can. 

Summer Activity Guide

Summer is right around the corner! Do you need more ideas to keep the kids busy all summer long? Luckily Care About Childcare has you covered with their Summer Activity Guide.

Guest Post: Understanding Your Child’s Problem Behavior

Samantha Corralejo is a doctoral student in the Department of Psychology at Utah State University.  Her research topics include parent training, time-out, and parenting interventions for Latinx families.  She has applied experience as a behavioral therapist and parent trainer in a variety of settings.

Why do they do that?

Ever wonder why your child is acting up?  Most parents have seen a range of undesired behaviors from their children like whining, tantrums, hitting, and… more tantrums.  Often your child’s motivation is clear, like the infamous grocery store meltdown because you said “no” to the cookies.  What if I told you that understanding why your child is misbehaving is the key to helping to change it?  I’ll review a few of the common reasons children act out and the tried-and-true ways to help change your child’s behavior for the better.  These methods have been used by families all over the world and are backed by research.

Guest Post: 10 Tips for Having Difficult Conversations, Part 2

We're excited to bring you part two of Amy Lund's 10 tips for having difficult conversations with your children!

Use their words
Of all the things you do, this is probably the one that will make the biggest difference. Using our child’s words shows them that we are listening and that makes them feel validated. A great way to do this is to say, “What I understood you to say was ____” and then use as many of their words as you can remember. Take this one step further by then asking if what you understood was what they meant. When we use their words to clarify, we are sending a powerful message that we not only care what they are talking about, but we want to understand their view and concerns, and that speaks volume to them.