Educational Psychology First

09/12/2025

04/12/2025

Responses to stress may mimic serious medical conditions.

04/12/2025

04/12/2025

"💪Proprioception is our muscle and joint sense, it tells us where your body is in space. Proprioceptive input is any activity that provides deep pressure to your muscles and joints and/or provides resistance through pushing and pulling activities.

🌟Proprioceptive input is very calming and regulating, it gives a sense of control to recognize your body sensations. These activities are useful to implement throughout the day to encourage a regulated nervous system.

➡️Many of these activities are also referred to as “heavy work”.

🗣Every child will respond to these activities differently, try them out and see which ones work best for your child. Don’t forget to join in, these are great for you too!

Here they are:

1. 🌮Blanket Roll-So many variations can be made with this. Roll your child up tightly in a blanket pretend they are a taco, burrito, caterpillar, present, etc.

2. 🌉Pillow Crawls-Lay some pillows across the floor and have your child crawl across pretending you are crossing a bridge

3. 🦀Animal Walks-Pretend to be various animals (bear, crab, frog, rabbit, dog, alligator, etc.)

4. 🧺Laundry Basket Push-Push a laundry basket across the floor filled with clothes, stuffed animals, toys, or a sibling!

5. 👩🏼‍🍳Baking-Mix, roll, scoop, etc., when baking

6. 🧼Cleaning-Give your child a spray bottle with vinegar and clean the windows, surfaces, or appliances (for younger children just use water)

7. 🥖Kneading Dough-Play with play-doh, make bread, tortillas, or pizza doh

8. 🧹Mopping/Sweeping/Vacuuming-so much good heavy work here!

9. ✨Pillow Squishes-Have your child lie on the floor and give them pillow squishes on the body. Then see if they can crawl out.

10. 🦵Rolling Pin Body Rolls-Roll a rolling pin on each other's body. To make it softer you can duct tape a towel around it.

11. 🏃🏽‍♀️Pillow Crashing-Jump and crash into a pile of pillows

12. 🥨Smoothie & Crunchy/Chewy Snacks-Drink a smoothie with a straw or eat a crunchy or chewy snack."

~ on Instagram

Here are MORE proprioception activities and ideas:
💪https://www.theottoolbox.com/proprioception-sensory-activities/
💪https://www.theottoolbox.com/proprioception-activities-improves-body-awareness/
💪https://www.theottoolbox.com/heavy-work-activities/

24/11/2025

When we shout, it’s usually because we’re overwhelmed — not because our child is “too much”.

And the good news? Repair is powerful. It teaches your child that relationships can wobble and still feel safe.

If you’ve raised your voice today, you haven’t “failed”. You’ve had a human moment. What matters most is what comes next.

It’s also a brilliant way to model emotional regulation, showing your young person what it looks like to own mistakes with warmth and courage.

24/11/2025

😮 “They’re just being naughty.”
🤔 “They’re doing it for attention.”
🙅 “They should know better by now.”

When a child comes home from school and falls apart, it’s easy for these myths to creep in. But the reality? After-school restraint collapse is a release of everything they’ve been holding inside all day.

It’s not misbehaviour — it’s communication.

Introducing the After School Restraint Collapse Toolkit for Parents & Educators - link in comments/bio.

24/11/2025

Lots of options for supporting executive functioning skills through cooking tasks this next week. Here is the WHY you need to get kids into the kitchen to help: https://www.theottoolbox.com/you-can-help-kids-with-direction/

19/11/2025

When I feel myself correcting a lot, I try to think…

If you had someone at work that was always correcting you, you never felt like you could do right, would you like that person? Would you feel connected to them? Would you enjoy your job?

Why are we raising more mean people? Can we please start raising leaders by modelling leadership over management?

If we’re modelling constantly correcting, that’s what our children will pick up. Not so much the lessons within the correction, but the behaviour of always correcting others and looking for faults and mistakes, in themselves and in others. Or it leads to people pleasing, never feeling like enough.

Were you corrected a lot as a child?
Do you feel like you’ll just never be enough, now? Let’s not pass this on, let’s break this cycle, now, and not leave the work for our children and grandchildren to do.

Do you enjoy my posts about parenting? This post made the cut for my latest book. It’s a concept I’ve never seen before and I’m excited to be the first content creator to do this. I’ve taken my posts and created a book. The book is visually appealing and easy to read, just like when we scroll online or read a book to our child. You can read one post or a whole section. I know I’m bias but it is a must have for all parents who enjoy this page. It is also a way to pass on the knowledge you have gained from this account, to someone else.

Title: Love Grows: A Collection of Works By J. Milburn

Link: https://amzn.to/3Jo40u8

18/11/2025

17/11/2025

If after-school restraint collapse feels bigger right now, you’re not imagining it. The end of term and Christmas build-up place huge extra pressure on a child’s nervous system — here’s why it shows up so intensely at home, and what really helps.

Full After-School Restraint Collapse Toolkit available via the link in comments below ⬇️ or via Linktree Shop in Bio.

17/11/2025

𝗛𝗼𝘄 𝘁𝗼 𝗧𝗮𝗰𝗸𝗹𝗲 𝗮 𝗕𝗜𝗚 𝗧𝗮𝘀𝗸: 𝗣𝗿𝗶𝗼𝗿𝗶𝘁𝗶𝘇𝗲!
Thanks to The OT Toolbox for another excellent post!

Breaking down a task means looking at the underlying areas. The process of thinking through a multi-step task (like a bigger homework assignment) and mentally ordering the steps to completion can be the breakdown area for some kids.

(Get out the backpack. Find the right folder. Gather the papers, books, pencil. Find the page number. Organize thoughts. Filter out distractions. Create mental responses. Organize and problem solve. Recall what was mentioned in class. Put answers to paper.)

That ability to identify high priority tasks and rate them compared to low priority tasks can be quite difficult.

Prioritization is the process of figuring out what parts of a task or activity are the most important and what is the first thing that needs to be done and what is the most important part of the project that needs to be completed. Prioritization is the ability to identify tasks in an order that makes sense!

Prioritization is an executive functioning skill that requires several other executive functions.

🧠Initiation
🧠Planning
🧠Sustained Attention
🧠Working Memory
🧠Task Completion

Read more & find tips to support this area of EF:
https://www.theottoolbox.com/tips-to-improve-prioritization/

17/11/2025

Read the article: https://edut.to/48g5rnG