Carolyne OT LTD

15/07/2024

So my clinic has gone through lots of changes, and I have given up a large clinic space after 20 years. Sadly the overhead costs were just too much resulting in the end of an era for Carolyne Oates and Associates Ltd.

But this is a new season. I am working for a lovely school 3 days a week and run my own small company, Carolyne OT Ltd the rest of the time.

So for you, the customer, what does this mean?
I still have limited availability but can offer school visits and parent consultations to help to problem solve and put strategies in place to support your children. Often the most helpful sessions for you as the parent or carer is a space to unpack how your child is responding to life and how and why you can support them through their daily challenges. And of course, to help to skill the school in understanding how they can support throughout the day and get the best out of your child.

I remain in awe of all the children I have worked with over the years, how much they have overcome, and how much you as their families have worked to see them though it all.

Here's to the next season

05/08/2023

To all our parents who live this as a daily routine...we see you!

https://m.facebook.com/story.php?story_fbid=244775005150100&id=100088528062608

No one sees the careful prep beforehand, making sure everyone knows what is going to happen, when and where. No one else hears the questions answered several hundred times, Yes we're going there, Yes we might see them, No, you don't have to join in if you don't want to. Yes, you can take your tablet. Yes, if you need to go home we'll leave.

No one sees the bag with snacks, a complete change of clothes, several different types of entertainment and a charging lead. No one notices the way that you are constantly assessing the situation - can we manage another five minutes, or do I need to find an attractive reason to leave right now?

No one realises that it didn't just happen that one child is settled at a table. playing their spaceship game, whilst the other child plays on the climbing frame. They don't notice the multi-tasking skills it takes to respond to the cries of 'Did you see me?' and the questions about fuselage and fuel without getting them muddled up. You develop a default 'interested and attentive' looking face, which works fine until you answer the rocket question with 'Well done!'.

In fact, if another adult does notice the effort they are likely to be dismissive. 'They're fine!' they'll say. 'Relax'. Or there might be a comment about 'helicopter parenting' or how their approach is 'benign neglect'. Or even something about boredom, and how it's good for them not to expect you to play with them all the time. You think to yourself, well yes, it would be nice to have that option. But you don't say it, because how can you?

Now you have to manage another set of needs, as you pretend to the other parents that you aren't paddling desperately below the surface to keep this all going. That this isn't all balanced on a knife edge. You pretend that you're just sipping a cup of coffee and chatting. You wonder if you're the only one who feels like this, if everyone else really is as relaxed as they seem. But you don't ask, because what if they are?

Then there's a quick end when it becomes apparent it's time to leave NOW and you negotiate with the child who doesn't want to go whilst packing up the snacks and the bucket and spade and the drawing tablets and the crisps. You try to postpone the meltdown for long enough to get to away from the others or head it off with promises of ice cream on the way home.

At the end of it all you are exhausted, and what did you do today?
'We just went to the park. Nothing happened'.

Image: Jonny Cohen,

07/02/2023

We work hard to help schools to understand why behaviour charts can be so damaging....they might encourage conformity, but at what cost to our children's mental health??

https://www.facebook.com/100088528062608/posts/134460179514917/

Make Better Choices (with Missing The Mark)

It’s a common feature of the primary school classroom. The behaviour chart on the wall, with children’s names on pegs. Children are moved from the sun to the clouds, or from green to red if their behaviour isn’t what is required by their teacher. The language usually goes from celebratory ‘Star Student!’ to condemnatory ‘Poor Choices’ or ‘No Playtime’.

It's in public. The whole class can see who is doing well and who is struggling. The internet is full of versions of these charts to buy, and the advertising copy is all perky positivity. ‘Keep Your Students on Track!’ or ‘Help Your Class Make Good Choices!’. They look so cheerful in their bright colours, so harmless. Who could object? And they work! Children want to stay on the green zone because it feels so bad when they are moved.

Until you talk to the parent of a child who struggles. They’ll tell you about the way in which everyone in their class knows who is on the raincloud, and that no matter how hard their child tries, they just can’t keep still all day. They’ll tell you how their child is known as the ‘bad’ one, and the other children don’t want to play with them. They’ll tell you of developmentally inappropriate expectations, and of the way in which these charts put all the blame on the children.

They’ll tell you of the way in which the chart takes no account of the way that their child is dealing with friendship difficulties and family illness, and instead frame their actions as a ‘poor choice’. The behaviour charts stop us asking whether perhaps the way in which we require children to sit and listen at school isn’t a natural way for young humans to learn. They stop us seeing their behaviour as communication or feedback. It’s reduced to something to control.

These charts use public shaming to foster compliance. They use fear and anxiety – even the children who are always on the Sun lie awake at night, scared that one day they will fall from grace, and everyone will know. That’s how they work. Children ‘behave’ because they are scared of the consequences if they don’t.

It’s Children’s Mental Health week. Perhaps as a psychologist you might expect me to be using it to call for better funding for CAMHS, for a counsellor in every school. Perhaps you think I might be calling for more therapists to be trained and more wellbeing hubs. Instead, I’m calling for a mass take down of behaviour charts.

Psychologists will never have the same impact on mental health as changing the way we treat our children. We could have a psychologist on every street corner, but their job is to intervene when things have gone wrong. Far more efficient is to change the environment which is making children distressed. Think of it like lung cancer. We could have the best oncologists in the world, but all they can do is treat people who are already ill. To reduce levels of lung cancer, we needed a smoking ban.

We’re using shame and anxiety to control children’s behaviour, thinly disguised in bright colours and ‘Ready to Learn!’. It should be no surprise that many of them are unhappy and anxious. In fact, perhaps we should be more surprised if they weren’t. It’s in the very air that they breathe and we, the adults, are putting it there.

They’re breathing it in like smoke.

20/01/2023

This understanding really helps our perspective when faced with our children's difficult 'behaviour'....

https://www.facebook.com/136308290422/posts/10159364944110423/

"Thinking of your child as behaving badly disposes you to think of punishment.

Thinking of your child as struggling to handle something difficult encourages you to help them through their distress."

Source: Unknown

11/01/2023

This is always a good reminder....our children can only develop when we meet them where they are at!

https://m.facebook.com/story.php?story_fbid=182624687706626&id=100078772875709

Yes!! 👏👏👏

14/12/2022

The wonder of child development and self discovery!

https://fb.watch/hpdKWaInam/

02/12/2022

Hopefully this makes you smile as much as it did us in the clinic today 🎄

08/11/2022

A real treat to be able to attend this course today .... learning is never done!