Back to School Time: Is Your Child Ready?

School begins soon. Is your child positioned to do their best?

• Are you and your child excited about the new school year or dreading it?
• Do you hope each year will be the year things click into place for your child to excel?
• Did you have a tough time with school, so you give your child a pass thinking they must be ‘just like you’?

This year can be different!

Each year we meet so many families who wonder why school behavior or academics are such a struggle. Your child is trying, but is inconsistent and gets exhausted by trying. Tutoring and accommodations can keep your student afloat, but your child’s real goal should be to catch-up.

Here are 3 relationships we find that make school a challenge

When we meet school age children who are struggling with school, we check because they are so vital. Having a well functioning core and head supports attention and sensory processing which enable higher level academics.

Postural relationships are so basic most people would never guess they are related to learning. Here are the three most basic:

1. Does the integrity of the core efficiently support seated posture and breathing?
2. Do the core, head, and eyes work together appropriately? (This is DIFFERENT than visual skills that are assessed by an optometrist.)
3. Do the eyes, head, arms, and hands work together? (Each may be fine independently but can be challenged when needed to work together.)

How can you tell if your child’s postural relationships are an issue?

You probably have a suspicion that something is not coming together for your child at school. They may be quite athletic so you might not think a postural relationship would be a concern. Sports skills are very different than those required for easily sitting still and attending to a teacher.

To help you get a basic sense of how your child’s body is supporting learning, we put together a series of short videos (below) to let you screen for these three skills at home.

1. Sitting Core Integrity: A quick check to see how stable your child’s core is when sitting. This video only screens for sitting because sitting still is expected in school. A core that is too wobbly or too rigid each make sitting still a challenge.
2. Head Eye Coordination: A quick check to see how well the body and head are supporting eye function. This is DIFFERENT from what your vision professional will check.
3. Arms and Eyes Working Together: A quick check to see if multiple parts can work and transition together. Poor transitions can result in behavioral challenges by refusals or acting out when visual-motor skills are not working well.

Next steps after screening

If you find your child has room for improvement, there are two ways to support them. Putting together accommodative strategies can help in the short term, and/or incorporating Bridging® to reset your child’s body so it works the way it is supposed to.

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Screen It Yourself: School readiness

	Seated Core Stability Does your child’s core properly support them for sitting and attending to school, while also supporting efficient breathing? Cara and Becki take you through a simple way to get a basic insight to this intrinsic ability of the body.
	Head and Eye Coordination Does your child’s head and body support their eyes so visual skills can work easily for reading and paying attention to the teacher? Cara and Becki take you through a simple way to observe how the head, body and eyes are working together.
	Hand, Arm, Head, Eye Coordination Do your child’s hands, arms, core, head and eyes know how to work together and transition together for all the fun things they should be able to do? Cara and Becki take you through a simple way to screen these transitions with your child.