Brant Kids Therapy, 33 Marshall Street, Brantford, ON (2025)

09/17/2025

Executive functions (EFs) are a set of cognitive skills that help us to be successful in completing every day tasks. EFs help us to set goals, plan and get things done! They develop throughout childhood and into adolescence/early adulthood.
Children who struggle with EFs may have difficulties with paying attention in class, keeping belongings organized, starting and finishing tasks, managing social relationships, and controlling emotions.

At Brant Kids, we help children and teens develop their EF skills in order to increase independence and confidence in daily life. Some examples of how this might look in therapy:
⭐️Playing a board games to work on impulse control
⭐️Problem solving how to keep belongings organized
⭐️Practice working memory through obstacle courses
⭐️Brainstorming different strategies such as setting reminders on phones, creating a visual schedule, chunking tasks into small more manageable steps.

Do you think your child might benefit from enhancing their EF skills? Contact us today at brantkids@catherapyservices.ca to book a free 15 min discovery call at the link in our bio!

09/08/2025

Happy International Literacy Day!
At Brant Kids Therapy we use books to help teach children concepts in a way that they can understand and relate to. Here are some of our favourite books! Comment below what your kids favourite book is lately.

09/04/2025

Does your child get a glowing report at school and then they melt down the minute they walk through the door at home? This is called after school restraint collapse and is very common! Your child worked hard holding it together all day long and home is a safe space for them to let everything out.

Here are two ways to help with this through the lens of an Occupational Therapist:

Sensory Reset - some kids need movement to reset their body such as going for a bike ride around the block, swinging at the playground, or having a dance party in the living room. Other children need a calming nervous system rest such as retreating to their room, dimming the lights, cuddling under a blanket, and listening to relaxing music. Put on your detective hat and think about what your child needs when they get home from school. Don’t be afraid to try a few different things before landing on the right options.

Emotion Check-In - Give your child an opportunity to check in with you after the school day. They may have been holding in a disappointment that happened at morning recess and finally get a chance to let it all out at home. Consider ways your child can communicate how they are feeling without words. For example, having an emoji chart where they can place their name next to how they are feeling when they get home or a lego station where they choose a certain colour for a certain feeling. Be creative!

At Brant Kids Therapy we work with families to better understand a child’s unique sensory needs and determine what tools work best to regulate their nervous system. We also teach various emotional regulation curriculums to help a child and parent be able to communicate their feelings with one another. Reach out if you think your family would benefit from 1:1 OT support!

08/28/2025

The transition back to school can be a stressful time for both parents and children. Here is one of our favourite mindfulness strategies to help a person feel calm and grounded to the present instead of focusing on anxious thoughts and big emotions.

Try this strategy on yourself when you are feeling overwhelmed and overstimulated. Or, walk through this fun sequence with your child to help them feel more grounded when they are experiencing big emotions.

Bring your attention to your senses and notice:
👀5 things you can see
👋4 things you can feel
👂3 things you are hear
👃2 things you are smell
👅1 thing you can taste

Try to notice things that you don’t typically pay attention to when you are rushing through life. For example, see the way the sunlight shines through the window and casts a shadow on the wall, feel the gentle pull of the hair elastic in your pony tail, or hear the hum of the air conditioner.

Follow along for more parenting tips from an occupational therapy perspective!

08/25/2025

Are you starting to worry about the chaotic mornings trying to get the kids out the door and to school come September? Here are some OT-approved tips to help make mornings run more smoothly.

🛌Re-establish a good bedtime routine and morning wake up time - if you’ve let the bedtime and wake up time loosen a bit over the summer try getting back into routine before school starts to reset your child’s internal clock and get used to waking up at the same time each morning.

📝Use a visual schedule - create a step by step schedule with pictures (and time stamps for older kids). This will help reduce verbal prompts and increase independence. Ex. Get dressed, eat breakfast, brush teeth, pack bag, go to car

🎒Prep the night before - make your mornings easier by doing some of the work the night before - pick out clothes, pack the backpacks, choose what’s on the menu for breakfast.

🙃Make it playful - try to make each activity and transition fun to decrease stress. Ex. try to get dressed before their favourite song finishes playing, race their siblings to put on their shoes, play follow the leader out to the car.

Do you have any hacks to make mornings easier with your kids? Share below!

08/20/2025

Do you have a child starting school this fall? You might be tempted to pull out the flashcards and try to teach them how to write their name before school starts. Instead focus on building independence with daily living skills so that your child can feel comfortable learning and let the teacher worry about the ABCs.

Ditch the worksheets and focus on these skills before starting school:
👚Dressing Skills - work in increasing independence with putting on shoes, zipping up coats, and fastening buttons or snaps. Don’t forget about practicing layers since the fall weather will be here before we know it!

🚽Toileting Skills - practice managing clothing, getting on and off the toilet, wiping properly and washing hands. Practice going in public washrooms so they get used to things like stalls, the sound of flushing, and hand dryers.

🍱Eating Skills - make sure that your child knows how to open their lunch box, snack containers and water bottle on their own. Practice at home with a picture where they use their school lunch box.

🙋🏻Group skills - get them used to expectations for being in a large group such as following a schedule, taking turns, and transitions. Try using a visual schedule at home and a timer for transitions. Play games to practice turn taking or attend a local library or playgroup that has circle time.

What skills are you working on this month? Comment below!

08/18/2025

We receive many referrals for self-regulation at Brant Kids. Something that we are often teaching parents is that self-regulation begins with co-regulation - the way a child learns to manage their emotions through the support and presence of a calm, trusted adult.

This quote beautifully defines co-regulation. Young children do not know how to calm themselves and they learn through having many experiences with a calm adult.

What does co-regulation look like?
😌Staying calm when your child is upset
😌Validating their emotions (ex. “I know you are sad to leave the park”)
😌Offering ideas to help them regulate/problem solve together (ex. Let’s both take a deep breath and build the tower again)

How do we teach co-regulation through OT at Brant Kids?
😌Involving parents in session to observe therapist demonstrating co-regulation
😌Involving parents in session to practice strategies with their child
😌1:1 Parent coaching sessions

Contact us today to learn more about how we can support your family! See link in bio

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08/15/2025

That’s a wrap on our sensational summer series!
We would love to hear from you. Comment below one thing you learned or one activity you tried at home.

Think your child might benefit from working with an occupational therapist on sensory processing? Contact us today at brantkids@catherapyservices.ca.

08/11/2025

The Interoception system is our awareness of our own internal sensations, often called the “hidden sense”. It allows us to recognize that our heart is pounding, our hands are cold, we are hungry or we have a full bladder. It is also important for understanding our emotional state.

Interoception processing differences can look like:
🥱Bowel and bladder incontinence
🥱Not in-tune with bodies needs such as being hungry, thirsty, hot or cold
🥱Difficulties with regulating emotions
🥱A high or low pain tolerance

How we support interoception in OT:
😰Increase awareness to body sensations such as checking their heart rate after jumping on the trampoline
😰Labelling and discussing body signs for various emotional states (I.e. when I am nervous my hands get sweaty, when I am mad my heart beats fast)
😰Just Right challenges to help practice self regulation skills in a safe environment

Activities to try at home:
🥰Trace your child’s body outline with sidewalk chalk and fill in the internal body parts (I.e. heart, lungs, stomach) and talk about what they each do
🥰Go to the library and check out some books about the body and body parts
🥰When reading a story or watching a TV show talk about the emotional state of the characters and how you know (I.e. “I think Bluey is mad at his mom here because he screamed really loud”)
🥰Experiment with measuring your child’s heart rate and breaths per minute before or after different activities (I.e, 10 jumping jacks, running around the park, sitting on the couch for 2 mins)

08/05/2025

The proprioceptive system is our “body awareness” sense. It helps us know where our muscles and joints are relative to each other and how much force to use. It’s the sensory system that helps us take a sip of coffee without splashing it all over our face.

Proprioception processing differences can look like:
💪Motor coordination difficulties such as: clumsiness, decreased endurance and difficulties learning a new motor task
💪Poor attention due to increased brain energy being used for body awareness
💪Challenges with force modulation such as slamming doors, pushing too hard in tag, or pushing too light with a pencil
💪Seeking additional body information through crashing into things, getting too close to or touching others, or constant fidgeting

How we support proprioception in OT:
🙆🏾‍♀️Purposeful, goal directed activities through play to create an adaptive response in the brain which improve sensory processing (i.e. throwing bean bags at a target, climbing a ladder, copying a clapping pattern)
🙆🏾‍♀️Obstacle courses using a variety of purposeful motor activities such as: balance in a swing, walking across a balance beam, jumping on a trampoline
🙆🏾‍♀️Exploring how to utilize the proprioceptive system as a self regulation tool through heavy work (i.e. massage, a weighted lap pad, pulling something heavy)

Activities to try at home:
🕺🏾Crawling games (even for older kiddos) - crawling races, crawling through a tunnel, crawl around obstacles
🕺🏾Play follow the leader
🕺🏾Let your child help with chores that involve heavy work to the muscles (i.e. wiping the table, emptying groceries, vacuuming, gardening)
🕺🏾Tug-a-war
🕺🏾Wheelbarrow walk races

Bonus fact:
The proprioceptive, tactile, and vestibular systems are the building blocks for emotional regulation.

Brant Kids Therapy

09/17/2025

09/08/2025

09/04/2025

08/28/2025

08/25/2025

08/20/2025

08/18/2025

08/15/2025

08/11/2025

08/05/2025

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