Occupational Therapy Can Help Your Child Develop Self Care Skills
Melissa Gehret
As an adult parent, we perform self-care skills almost all day, every day. We can bathe ourselves, brush our teeth, get dressed, comb our hair, and use the available tools we need to live our life. Our parents probably taught us how to do many of these tasks or we learned by watching others. Some children are not able to perform these self-care skills on their own or develop the independence they need to succeed. If your child is having difficulty, occupational therapy can help your child develop self-care skills.
How Parents Can Help Children Develop Self Care Skills
There are several markers or behaviors we want our children to attain. They are the starting line for a child to gain independence. Occupational therapy (OT) can help some children who are finding it difficult to learn these self care skills.
You want your children to be engaged in age-appropriate independence.
You want to help them differentiate between positive improvements and regression and not reinforce bad habits.
You are determined to prevent a skill gap between your child and his peers.
In order to achieve these three goals, look for a pediatric therapy practice like TLC Pediatric Therapy in Orlando, FL.
The Goal Of Occupational Therapy for Kids
The goal of an occupational therapist is to equip the child and the family with tools and resources necessary to attain success, independence, and participation in all areas of life. They strive to make all skills fun and engaging while helping your child to succeed.
They focus on the common self-care skills including eating, brushing teeth, dressing (including zippers, belts, tying their shoes), going to the toilet, bathing, and grooming like brushing hair.
Children with developmental delays or those on the autism spectrum will be most challenged.
More specifically:
- Therapists work on bilateral coordination like holding the toothbrush in one hand and squeezing the toothpaste in the other, or like stabilizing a bowl with one hand and stirring with the other.
- They also work on gross motor skills needed for balance when inserting one leg into a pant hole.
- Fine motor skills using the small muscles of the fingers and hand are especially challenging for children like tying shoes, unbuttoning, and holding a utensil to eat.
Don’t wait to seek occupational therapy from TLC Pediatric Therapy, a part of the family of companies here at Kids SPOT if you think your child is having trouble with self-care skills. Request an appointment today so that your child can get started learning about self-care tasks from occupational therapy.