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Parenting – You’re the expert; we are here to support the transition!

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PARENTING – YOU’RE THE EXPERT, WE ARE HERE TO SUPPORT THE TRANSITION!

As the sun rises on a new week, we hear the hum of school routines resuming, marking the return of familiar patterns.

During the past week or so, many of our families will have returned to school and the routines that it brings with it. For some of our families, February is a transition period where new routines and ways of balancing life are being forged as their child starts daycare or preschool, kindergarten or high school or even a child not being back at school because they have finished or commenced in a type of employment.

How do transitions feel for parents and children?

This transition period can be a daunting time – a rollercoaster of emotions not only for our children as they learn their new environment and the expectations that go along with it. But it is also a rollercoaster as a parent as we navigate a shift in our role; a moment of letting go but also sometimes the fear of the unknown. Our journey into parenthood commences with dreams, hopes, and a multitude of expectations, but from the moment we commence on our journey to become parents, the road ahead is filled with dips and hollows that we can genuinely not prepare ourselves for; however, acknowledging and recognising the transitions within our parenting journey allows us to adapt and grow.


What types of transitions are there?

Some of those significant transitions that we can anticipate during parenting might include:
● Bringing your newborn baby home for the first time
● Starting at daycare or preschool
● Starting kindergarten or high school
● Puberty
● Our child starting their first job and seeking more independence.
● Our child turning 16 and seeking to get a driver’s license.
● Finishing school
● Moving out of home.

But there are also many transitions that we do not anticipate happening during our journey as parents – a child becoming unwell, a diagnosis that wasn’t expected, a death, a separation. All of these heart-wrenching trials require us as parents and individuals to stop, pause, reassess and pivot in our roles and in our way of doing things. Explore & Soar stands as a beacon, acknowledging and respecting the unique narratives of every parenting journey. We recognise that transitions can be tough, change can be challenging, and the journey is as diverse as the individuals embarking on it, so no one’s story or journey is the same, and we respect that here at Explore & Soar.

How, then, can we, as OTs, stand beside you and support you as parents on this rollercoaster?

A Holistic Approach to Transitions

During our university studies, we learn in-depth about the interaction between how, where and why we do things and the positive and negative impact this can have on an individual’s overall health. When we work with a child and their family, we consider the whole person; we consider what strategies, interventions and approaches we are going to use. At Explore and Soar, we want to be able to support you just as much as your child in their journey towards their goals! Sometimes, therapy sessions can provide that space so that you can take a breath, sneak a quiet cuppa in the corner, and recharge while the therapist is working with your child.

It’s also important to ensure that, as parents, we are scheduling our own self-care time – it’s the flight safety briefing message – you need to put your oxygen mask on first before you can help those around you! Checking in with ourselves, noticing our own regulation patterns and adapting our responses also helps to show our children different strategies or ideas they can use when they feel overwhelmed, exhausted or touched out.

Empowering Parents with Self-Care

Next time your therapist recommends some home program exercises, consider them as not just a task for your child but as opportunities for you to connect – Try to do them with your child! See how they make you feel before and after completing them. Talk to your child about them and compare feelings.

At times, we do have those uncomfortable conversations around things we have noticed or ideas on what could make a difference in helping your child with their goal. Our therapists are noticing things from the outside and through our trained eyes. It is not from a place of
judgement but rather a place of working alongside you to build you up. As a parent, you are your child’s biggest advocate and teacher. You have the expertise in your child; it is our role as OTs to help refine this, adjusting and adapting to different transitions across your parenting journey.

Embracing Change Together

As we navigate the ebb and flow of February’s transitions, let’s remember that parenting is a continuous journey of learning and growth. Embrace your experiences, connect with others sharing similar paths, and let’s soar through these transitions together. Share your stories, seek support, and revel in the collective strength that arises when we navigate as a community.

May your journey through 2024 be filled with resilience, adaptability, and the unwavering support that Explore & Soar offers. Here’s to embracing the rollercoaster of parenting with open hearts and a community that understands that every twist and turn is a part of our unique and beautiful story.

If you’d like to chat more, please don’t hesitate to contact us today! Call us on 0477 708 217 or email admin@exploreandsoar.com.au

Until Next Time,
Lori

PUBLISHED FEBRUARY 2024

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Life Transitions and The New Year

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LIFE TRANSITIONS AND THE NEW YEAR

Happy New Year! We hope you have enjoyed the end-of-year celebrations with some yummy food, rest and spending time doing things that bring you joy. 

Annual Theme – Life Transitions

Progressing from a year of developing Safety for Vulnerability for ourselves, our team, clients, and their families and communities has shaped us into this next phase of ‘Life Transitions’. For myself, our team, and many of our families, they are all going through new life transitions. Life transitions are powerful and have the potential to shape who you were, who you are and who you are becoming.

What are life transitions?

Life Transitions can also be described as ‘Transitional stages of life’.

It is defined by significant changes in roles, responsibilities, and routines requiring you to adapt to new circumstances. It can also involve a constant flow from one temporary state to another, resulting in each of these changes being a transition or a “passage from one state, stage, subject, or place to another” (Transition, 2018).

Transitions in everyday life can be meaningful or a part of everyday life. Different types of transitions, for example;

Smaller everyday life transitions:

  • Engaging in an everyday conversation – transitioning in and out of a conversation with someone.
  • Commuting to school or work – leaving home, travelling, then entering the office or school grounds.
  • Transitioning from different classrooms or from the classroom to recess and back again.

Significant Life Stage Transition:

  • Transition to preschool, Kindergarten, Year 7 and transitioning out of school.
  • Experiencing puberty. 
  • Beginning a relationship. 
  • Moving home: moving from one home to another.
  • Moving Communities: moving from one town to another.
  • Changing sporting clubs or sports.
  • Changing careers, jobs or being promoted with different responsibilities.
  • Entering the workforce.
  • Commencement of University and a significant life transition for us adults is
  • Parenthood. 

Do you have any new life transitions happening this year? Or What life transition are you experiencing or in at the moment?

This year, we have a few of our clients coming to the end of their schooling years, some making the big transition into Year 7 and others who are transitioning into Kindergarten. 

Personally, this year, I am making the new life transition into parenthood alongside my husband. A new life transition for us that you all are already on, and I am thrilled to be joining you. 

For the team, many of us are going through our own life transitions as well and have shaped many of our conversations together by sharing our experiences and different strategies that have helped us along the way.

Explore and Soar’s Life Transition

As Explore and Soar approach our sixth year with you all, we are thrilled to be growing alongside our clients and families! We are excited to be sharing with you an extension of our services and an ability to continue to support you as you continue to grow. 

For Explore and Soar, we, too, are in a new life transition; we have decided to share with you an extension of our service to continue to support our clients as they make the new step and life transition into adulthood. That transition from school to work. That transition to independence, living alone, being self-sufficient and living a meaningful and best life! We are so excited to continue to work with our clients now to the age of 24! This is an exciting opportunity for us to continue to build our occupational therapy team with therapists who are experienced in supporting our teenagers and young adults in these big life transitions!

To mark these life transitions for all of us, you will see our new Explore and Soar logos, socials and website updates, and a uniform change this coming month. We are loving these changes and are excited to share them with you. So keep an eye out, as they are coming soon!!

How Explore and Soar can help you?

Please know you are not alone; each person at different ages and stages in their lives go through different transitions based on their personal life experiences. Each of our clinicians is trained in providing strategies, interventions and support through any life transition, meaningful activity or everyday task. We love to problem solve and help no matter the question or concern. 

Each month this year, you will also have access to a different blog that will go through different life transitions, big or small and have a range of different strategies or ways to support you through those moments. 

We are always here to help in a range of different ways. If you’d like to chat more, please don’t hesitate to contact us today! 

0477 708 217 or admin@exploreandsoar.com.au

Articles:

Adler, A. B & Castro, C. A. (2019). Transitions: a Theoretical Model for Occupational Health & Wellbeing. Occupational Health Science. 3:105-123.

Until next time, 
Jess

PUBLISHED JANUARY 2024

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Merry Christmas from Our Family to Yours

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MERRY CHRISTMAS FROM OUR FAMILY TO YOURS

It’s December! Bring on all the end-of-year celebrations after another great year. How are you celebrating and acknowledging the last 12 months? 

End of Year Celebrations

For us, our team have been all together again in November and have had our Christmas Party. We celebrated the last year by being creative with making Christmas wreaths, eating delicious foods and spending some quality time together. Check out some of our Christmas celebratory pictures. Lots of laughs were had! 

We have continued our time together to participate in a team day, where we have spent time together reflecting on just how much we have achieved together for ourselves, clients, their families and our communities. We have been beyond grateful to continue sharing our knowledge and providing ongoing support, therapy and guidance in achieving your goals this year.  So, thank you for being vulnerable and safe in allowing us to come into your home and work so closely to gain these achievements! Without your ongoing commitment, we wouldn’t be able to work so effortlessly alongside you!! 

This opportunity has also allowed us to identify where we will focus on for 2024. As you know, we love a good theme, and this coming year, we have another coming your way. Keep an eye out for our New Year January blog, where we will share the 2024 Annual Theme and all the new exciting things coming!

School Holiday Groups & Intensives!

The last 12 months, we have been focused on developing new group programs for our clients based on feedback we have received. We have been working behind the scenes to be able to offer these options for January 2024. It gave us such joy to announce and share them with you all. If you have missed out on seeing these groups, make sure you check out our website for all the information or contact us today! 

These new group programs, “Game Changers” and “Transition to High School”, will commence in the January 2024 school holidays alongside our popular group programs “Big School STARS (transition to Kindergarten)”, “Shake n Bake” and “Teenage Dirtbags”.

Based on our group numbers, we will also offer limited spots for our School Holiday Intensives Programs. If you would like the opportunity to commence the year strong, discuss it with your treating clinician or call our office today. 

Merry Christmas & Happy New Year! 

With great love and well wishes, the Explore and Soar team wishes you a great end of year with lots of celebrations, rest and family time. We look forward to going on a well-deserved break with you all from Friday, 15th December 2023 and returning on Monday, 8th January 2024. 

We can’t wait to see you all in 2024.

Until next time, 
Jess

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Navigating the Transition to High School: A Parent’s Guide

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NAVIGATING THE TRANSITION TO HIGH SCHOOL: A PARENT’S GUIDE

Over the past few weeks, we have visited many of our local schools to talk to parents and families of children starting kindergarten in 2024. During these talks, we provide lots of information about how you can support your little person for a successful transition to big school. You can click here to read more about the transition to kindergarten.

We understand that your child’s journey through the educational system is filled with milestones and transitions from the very beginning; however, the preschool to kindergarten transition isn’t the only transition in our schooling lives. One of the next big milestones is transitioning from primary school to high school. 

This move can be filled with just as many emotions and feelings – excitement for finishing primary school, growing up and what lies ahead. It can also be anxiety-provoking at the thought of changing schools, changing routines and the challenge of friendship groups changing and needing to make new friendships. All of which are valid feelings and thoughts!

In this blog, we’ll explore the various challenges your child may encounter during this transition and provide practical strategies to support them as they step into high school life.

Some of the challenges your child may face could include:

  • New Friendships – Making new friends or friendship groups changing; having to be vulnerable in talking to other people we don’t know or feel comfortable around just yet.
  • New Routines – High school bell times may be slightly earlier or later; how will this impact upon the daily routines of your child?
  • New Environment – Navigating their way around a new school can be overwhelming, knowing where the toilets are, where to go for help, or where their next class is. Or even navigating their way to and from school.
  • New Rules and Expectations – Having multiple subjects with different teachers in a new school can be daunting, being unsure of what the expectations are in and out of the classroom.

So, how can we best support our children in this transition to high school?

  • Get to know the school: Talk about it; arrange additional transition days to allow your child to feel more comfortable in this new space if needed.
  • Practice any new routines:  Practice ways to get to and from high school; make sure your child knows which bus to catch or where they will be dropped off or picked up from.
  • Visual Aids: Create a visual schedule or simple checklist to determine what they must take each day. Timetables can be tricky to work out! Break it down into what they need each day and then for each subject.
  • Map out the school: Get a copy of the school map if possible and colour code important areas such as the library, toilets, canteen, office etc.
  • Prepare for Social Interaction: Create “cheat cards” for conversation starters and role-play how to introduce themself to others. Remind them that it is highly likely that other children in the group are just as nervous about making new friends as they are.
  • Time Management and Assignments: Help them schedule, plan and prioritise how to complete assignments. Keep in communication with their teachers to know when things are due and how you can support your child.
  • Advocacy: Advocate and encourage your child to advocate also for their needs! A new school means new teachers who don’t know your child’s cues or needs. Provide as much information as possible to support consistency for your child across their teachers.

As your child embarks on this exciting journey to high school, remember that you are not alone. We are here to support you. If you would like more information about our group program, click here to check out the flyer. You can also reach out to us on 0477 708 217  or admin@exploreandsoar.com.au. 

We would love to see you in our groups!

Until next time, 
Lori

ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED OCTOBER 31, 2023

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Sensory Defensiveness: What is this Oversensitive and Overwhelming feeling?

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SENSORY DEFENSIVENESS: WHAT IS THIS OVERSENSITIVE AND OVERWHELMING FEELING?

Spring is upon us, but that also means we are now heading full steam ahead into some of the busiest months of the year. Term 3 is almost over; Term 4 is just around the corner, which means so is Christmas! Just the thought of that alone is overwhelming to me.

The feeling of overwhelm is sometimes linked to being a negative feeling – of being stressed or frustrated that we can not do all that we want to do. But really, we should reframe that feeling of overwhelm into a positive: What can we do to lessen our load? How can we slow down or ask for help? Maybe take a moment of mindfulness.

In our day-to-day lives, we encounter multiple sensory experiences each and every second of every minute. Sit for one minute and notice the world around you:

  • What can you hear? 
  • What can you feel?
  • What can you smell? 
  • What can you taste?
  • What can you see?

Our brain’s job is to take in all of this information and automatically sort, filter and organise that information to produce a meaningful and purposeful response in the way we move, feel or react. This is Sensory Integration. When we see difficulty in the processing of sensory information, we start to look at why this may be happening – is it difficulty with modulation or discrimination of the senses?

When we have difficulty with modulating sensory information, we may only need a small amount of information before our system becomes overwhelmed. Or we may need a large amount of information before our system even notices what is going on. Our own tolerance levels at that point in time will also impact upon our responses. We have expectations of what our response to certain sensory experiences will be – like a hug from a loved one; we expect it to feel good, not painful, or the smell of a BBQ cooking makes us hungry and excited to eat, not fearful.

But sometimes, our body links different sensations to negative experiences. And when these experiences occur, our brain goes into survival mode – fight, fright, flee or freeze. When we react to sensory input in such a way, it is called Sensory Defensiveness.

What is Sensory Defensiveness?

Sensory Defensiveness is an extreme response to sensory input from the world around you when the sensory stimuli are generally considered not threatening or harmful. This could be an aversion to touch, dislike of certain textures or foods, or poor tolerance of bright lights, loud noises or certain smells. Such defensiveness creates a roadblock to being able to do the things that you or your child want to do. It can lead to big emotions, stress and anxiety, as well as behaviour patterns such as avoiding situations or an increased need for control.

So how can OT help with Sensory Defensiveness?

OT can help by creating an individualised sensory diet to work on providing the right sensory information, in the right amount, at the right time, to allow your child to do the things they want and need to do.

Activities may include things such as:

  • DPPT – brushing protocol
  • Auditory interventions 
  • Heavy work ideas 
  • Roughhousing 
  • Oral motor strategies

Please get in touch with us if you want to know more or have any questions. We highly recommend talking with an OT about this, as everyone experiences their sensory world differently. We are here to help and work with you in supporting your child and family.

Looking forward to hearing from you soon. Contact us on 0477 708 217 or admin@exploreandsoar.com.au

Until next time,
Lori

Related Blog Posts –

Discover a treasure trove of valuable information in our diverse collection of blogs on our website. Take action now and explore the insights you’ve been seeking. Dive in!

  • Mindfulness for Parents and Carers – Discover practical tips and insights to enhance your well-being. Take a mindful journey with us – read the full article now!
  • Unpacking Sensory Processing Disorder – Unlock a deeper understanding of Sensory Processing Disorder (SPD). Explore valuable insights and strategies to support individuals with SPD – start reading now for knowledge and empowerment!
  • Auditory intervention – Delve into the world of Auditory Intervention. Explore the significance of sound in sensory development and discover innovative strategies for positive outcomes. Start your auditory exploration today.
  • Roughhousing – Explore how playful physical interaction can nurture growth and connections. Join the fun and learn more here.

References

Ayres, A. J., Robbins, J. (2005). Sensory Integration and the Child: Understanding Hidden Sensory Challenges. United States: Western Psychological Services.

Bhopti, Anoo & Brown, Ted. (2013). Examining the Wilbargers’ Deep Pressure and Proprioceptive Technique for Treating Children with Sensory Defensiveness Using a Multiple-Single- Case Study Approach. Journal of Occupational Therapy Schools & Early Intervention. 6. pg 108-130. 

Kinnealey, M., Oliver, B. & Wilbarger, P. (1995). A Phenomenological study of Sensory Defensiveness in adults. American Journal of Occupational Therapy. 49(5). pg 444-451

 Stagnitti, K., Raison, P. & Ryan, P. (1999). Sensory defensiveness syndrome: A paediatric perspective and case study. Australian Occupational Therapy Journal. 46. pg 175-187. 

ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED SEPTEMBER 8, 2023

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