In PHQP_0026 Avoiding Pediatric Occupational Therapy, Jeff unpacks why more preschool play could help avoid school-age pediatric occupational therapy.

Watch Now: PHQP_0026 Avoiding Pediatric Occupational Therapy

Welcome to the Playvolution HQ Podcast. I’m Jeff Johnson. Thanks for pushing play on with the show.

So, update on something I saw. So, episodes and episodes ago I reported on seeing something called the, I called the water punch game, the water bottle punch game. So, kids were, they had a partially full bottle of water and they were just holding it up and dropping it and punching it.

And that went on, I saw a bunch of kids playing it and there were only a couple kids playing it. And then over the last couple months, I guess it’s been, there’s this one kid I see and this seems to be his go-to hanging out when his friends aren’t really able to play, thing to do outside. And he’s, he’s really evolved as a player of this game or evolved the game, I guess.

Now it’s, it’s multiple, multiple strikes on the bottle before it hits the ground. So, he’ll, he’ll toss it up the air, up in the air and then he’ll bat it up and then it’ll be coming down and he’ll bat it with an elbow and then maybe get it with a knee and then maybe his heel and then he’ll punch it farther away from him. So, it’ll be four or five strikes before the bottle hits the gun.

It’s kind of like, like, like dribbling a soccer ball. And, and it’s, it’s really great. And this kind of relates back to the proprioception episode we did a little bit ago.

This kid has a wonderful awareness of where his body parts are in space in relation to his other body parts, as well of, as well as where other things in the environment are in space. So, it’s kind of neat to see that, that game evolve and change over, over time. On with the podcast, topic one, only topic for, for this episode is avoiding pediatric occupational therapy.

So, what I’m talking about here is not avoiding it for those who need it. I’m talking about preventing the need for it, I guess is what I’m talking about. And maybe I could have worded the title different, but you know, it is what it is.

So, occupation, pediatric occupational therapy is a wonderful thing and very valuable for kids who need it. And it would be nice if we lived in a world where fewer kids needed it. And over the, over the last couple of decades, there’s been a huge uptick in the number of kids that are needing, needing this kind of, kind of therapy, this kind of assistance.

Human children have never been more sedentary than they are now in 2025, something I say just about every episode. And that has, has made this uptick in pediatric occupational therapy necessary. When kids don’t move, they don’t build the physical skills that they need, the sensory systems they need don’t get wired with their brains, and they have a hard time living in their bodies in the world.

And that’s basically what pediatric occupational therapy does, is it helps kids who are having a hard time navigating their bodies, navigate their bodies and the world a little bit better. But that’s also what, what play does. Play is the evolutionary strategy for giving us all of those skills.

And then we end up with kids who lack those skills, and then we have these therapeutic settings to, to help them catch up. But again, it’d be nice if we could avoid, avoid the therapeutic settings altogether. One of the reasons for this uptick is also more screen times, because we are usually sedentary when we are in front of our screens.

And so shoving young children in front of screens has really done them a developmental disservice. And look, I’m, I’m pro screen. I, there are a lot of valuable things that can come from screens, but I think in the early years, less is probably, is probably better.

Speaking of less, another, another reason for this uptick in the need for pediatric occupational therapy is that there’s less play going on. Just across the board, kids are playing less. There’s less time for it at home.

There’s less time for it in early learning settings. And so it’s not happening. And again, play is an evolutionary strategy for developing a lot of human skills.

And so when it doesn’t take place, that learning doesn’t take place. That development doesn’t take place. This play crisis we’re living in hinders child development.

And make no doubt about it. We are, we are experiencing a play crisis in this world, and it, it seems to continue to get worse instead of better. Young human children and human adults and middle-aged, middle-aged children.

Look, all of us should probably be playing more. And, and that’s not, not happening. And that, that hinders children’s development.

It’s not good for us old people not to play, but it’s really a problem for young children. Pediatric OT remedies developmental delays through playful interventions. That’s one of its jobs.

A lot of play therapists will actually have kids do the things in their therapy sessions that they weren’t doing when they were younger in their early learning settings. And so it may be sensory play. It may be big body active play, rolling, climbing, jumping, flipping, spinning.

And the problem with, well, it’s not a problem that it happens. It’s good that it happens because then the kids get that, the, the benefit of it. But it preemptively, we could be allowing those activities in our early learning settings and in children’s home lives.

And then we wouldn’t need the therapy. That’s the takeaway I’m going to keep repeating, I guess, for this episode. Pediatric occupational therapy is also expensive because you’ve got to be able to pay the therapist.

You’ve got to be able to have probably a, a, a room set up with the proper equipment, the proper setting, or being often transportation is going on back and forth. There’s a time expense for not only the therapist, but for other adults in, in getting the kid back and forth between, between the rest of their life and the therapy session. And so even if this is taking place in a school session, maybe, maybe a, a, a session or two a week with a OT, that’s thousands and thousands and thousands of dollars per child per school year that that’s costing that, that most of those kids could have, could have avoided if they would have had more opportunity to play in the early years.

And I say, I say most, and maybe it’s not, it’s many. If it’s not most, it’s absolutely surely many. Kids could have avoided this.

And, and look, play isn’t the answer for all kids all of the time when it comes to preventing or avoiding occupational therapy. But for, for many kids, it would be the right answer. And again, we mentioned, I mentioned it pulls kids from other activities.

It can carry a social stigma as well because they, they, they get looked at as, as an other, because they’re getting pulled away. Maybe, maybe not as much now in 2025 as it would have been back when I was a kid in the seventies when, when kids were really not being pulled out of classrooms for much, maybe because it’s happening more often. It’s less of a stigma now, but that still carries a little bit of that with us.

And, and so the takeaway is more preschool play reduces the need for school age occupational therapy. And all we need to do is create environments where kids have that opportunity, that opportunity to play, to move their bodies the way they’re, they’re naturally inclined to want to move their bodies for most kids. Now, some kids for, for whatever reason, they, they, they don’t, they don’t develop, they don’t have an interest in these things.

And so they end up having, having the need for the OT, but most, like I said, most kids, most of the time, or many kids, much of the time are going to benefit or be able to avoid it if we give them more play. OT is a vital tool, but best prevented through play when possible. I think that’s the takeaway.

Check out the book, Bounce and Barefoot, by the way, author Angela Hanscom is a pediatric occupational therapist. And this is baby, basically one of the premises of the book is children are lacking in play. And so they’re needing more therapy.

And, and her, her book takes, it’s a wonderful, wonderful read and very valuable book that digs into this topic. And the, the environments, many early learning settings create for kids that are, that are so actively pushing school readiness are actually preventing school readiness because they’re not allowing kids to develop these sensory systems and, and body skills that are so necessary for navigating life. And that’s not, that’s not intentional, but our system has evolved to the point where, where we’re thinking about, we’re, we’re, we’re pushing kids towards academic things when we should be focusing more on the physiological things.

And, and that causes this, this need for, for this additional therapy later on in life. And again, best to be avoided, right? Let’s wrap this up. Takeaway for this week is more play.

Takeaway for this one episode, every episode of this show is, is more play for the kids and adults, more play in early childhood, more, more time for big blocks of uninterrupted self-directed play and exploration is probably going to lead to less time in expensive and time-consuming pediatric occupational therapy for, for many kids. So play more. Amazon idea for this week is the, I look and cook breakfast book.

There’s, I guess there’s a series of these and they’re step-by-step visual instructions for, for different recipes. And I think this is a great, if you want to get kids interested in cooking, lots of STEM learning and cooking, lots of, lots of life skill learning, lots of good nutrition learning going on there. These look like, like great books.

If I had a little, a little human in my, in my life at the moment, I would, I would get the series of these books. Maybe I should get them for myself for, for improving my, my cooking skills as well. That’s one of the things you can get through the Amazon link I provide on the Playvolution HQ website.

And in every episode of this podcast, it, it gets used that portal to get onto the site and it, a little, all, all sales made through that portal go to, a little bit of every one of them goes to support the website and the podcast. And it’s much appreciated. Something else that’s appreciated, sharing.

Share the show, share the podcast with somebody who might like it, if you like it. Nothing wrong with a little bit of sharing. Don’t share it with somebody who’s not going to like it.

Don’t, don’t annoy people with it. But if you run across something you like, it’s worth sharing if you, if you, if you want to. I appreciate it.

Next week, next week we’re going to dig into coordination, which is a lot like proprioception, but there’s a, it’s, it’s, we’re gonna have a different take on it. Anyway, that’ll be next Monday. Dad joke of the week to wrap this one up.

I really like this one. Why don’t some couples go to the gym? Not all relationships work out. I like that one.

This has been the Playvolution HQ podcast. Thanks for listening. Back soon.

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