Jessica Hoffarth MS OTR/L, occupational therapist at the Midtown office of Child and Family Development, likes this free download from Understood,  an organization dedicated to supporting parents of the one in five children with learning and attention issues. The author, Amanda Morin, recently posted a series of worksheets that focus on one’s abilities.  

Ms. Morin shares that when your child has learning and attention issues, you may sometimes be so focused on what your child needs to improve that it can be hard to see strengths.  This activity is a cool and and crafty way to identify your child‚Äôs many strengths and connect them in a paper chain.

Jessica loves the worksheet that identifies strengths.  She shares:

I talk with parents here a lot about how it‚Äôs just hard as a parent to step back and look at your child and instead of thinking ‚ÄúI know you are capable of this, why are you just not doing it?‚Äù (adult is focused on the task) we need to think ‚ÄúOkay, you are capable, so why isn‚Äôt this working for you right now?‚Äù (seeing that the child is focused on something besides the task). 

These days, we are so busy in our day to day lives that it‚Äôs very easy to get caught up in getting everything done, accomplished, and learned; and it‚Äôs easy to miss really seeing the little people we are raising.  This activity helps us as parents be able to focus on our little people and celebrate them for who they are, not just what they have achieved that we can measure.  It helps us see them how they see themselves, that‚Äôs extremely important; it‚Äôs where you find the answer to ‚Äúyou‚Äôre capable, why isn‚Äôt this working for you today?‚Äù (it helps us know what they‚Äôre actually focused on and feeling and thinking about).  It‚Äôs about how they feel and how they see things.  So any activity that helps us to see that in our kids is great.

Click here for the download and more information. 

An occupational therapy evaluation will provide standardized and normed data that highlight a child’s strengths and weaknesses.  Call us to get started with a free phone intake.