Blog

As a pediatric physical therapist I am constantly asked what footwear I recommend for the summertime. There is a plethora of shoes to choose from for your little ones and with such variety, it can be easy to get confused. Happy footwear leads to happy feet.

It is important to let your baby’s feet develop naturally to ensure that he develops a proper arch. In an ideal world, barefoot is best. In reality, we are barefoot through the first year of life, and early walking shoes provide little support in order to allow for natural development.

A shoeless world is not realistic because we have to protect our feet from the environment. A great many of our children have low muscle tone and loos...

As a mother of two lovely children (ages 1 and 4), I find myself multi-tasking more than I have ever done in my life. From the moment I wake up in the morning until I go to sleep late at night, I am organizing the tasks in my head. I plan, plan, plan….that is how I survive working full time and being a mom. I have always been good at planning and have always been able to manage many things at one time both physically (carrying groceries, pushing a stroller, holding my coffee, and feeding a snack to my child) and mentally (thinking of the sequence of steps). My husband… not so much. While I think he is an amazing father, he CANNOT multi task.

As an Occupational Therapist, one of...

“W” sitting is a terrible position for your toddler and even extends through adolescence. This position is when he sits on the floor on his bottom with his legs out to the sides in the letter “W”.

This position places undue stress on not only his leg muscles but also excessive stress on hips and knees in internal/medial rotation. This sustained position can cause shortening of leg muscles and loosening of joints. It can lead to abnormalities in bony alignment and gait. Significant issues can arise in balance, coordination, strength, and big gross motor skills. These are skills that require use of our big muscles.

“W” sitting is a preferred position for your...

Our children are bombarded on a daily basis with sensory information. When they walk out the door in the morning to go to school, to a class, to the park, or to the store, they must take in information from the five senses. They hear fire engines go by, cars honking, or people talking. They smell pleasant and not so pleasant odors. They see cars and buses whizzing past them. They feel the sun or the rain on their skin and carefully maneuver around objects and people on the street. They taste different foods and textures during snack or meal time. Once exposed to all these stimuli, a child must work to make sense of what he is being exposed to and put it all together in order to, for example...

It is amazing to see how children progress from being completely dependent to self-sufficient little people. Becoming independent in self-care is a very important occupation of a child. Oftentimes I see parents and caregivers rushing to put on their little one’s shoes and socks, putting on their jackets, washing their hands for them, and feeding them lunch quickly. In the rush to get to camp, school, a class, an appointment or a play date, it is easy to just do all self-care tasks for our children.

Developmentally our children show signs of independence at a young age. By the time your child is about 6-9 months (sitting upright independently); they are beginning to finger feed and can ...

As an occupational therapist I often get phone calls from parents asking about their child who is struggling with handwriting. Most of the time, it is the preschool teacher who first calls attention to the child’s fine motor skills. This is logical as preschool is the time children begin to use a pencil to form shapes and write letters. My advice is always to find a way to work fine motor activities into everyday life. This task may seem daunting, so let me explain to you how easy it can be.

I have an almost 4 year old son, Max, who has been unknowingly working on these “fine motor skills” since he was a baby. In order to be able to hold a pencil or a crayon and move it to...