… growing up, as we did, in a world without pediatric occupational therapists around every corner. 

From the New York Times… 

These days, many little fingers are being drilled. Twenty-five years ago, pediatric occupational therapists primarily served children with severe disabilities likespina bifida,autismorcerebral palsy. Nowadays, these therapists are just as focused on helping children without obvious disabilities to hold a pencil.

In affluent neighborhoods in and around New York, occupational therapists have taken their place next to academic tutors,psychologists, private coaches and personal trainers — the army that often stands behind academically successful students.

Tim Nanof, legislative manager for the American Occupational Therapy Association, which has 38,000 members, said it’s hard to know exactly how many children are receiving these services. But parents, pediatricians, educators and early childhood experts agree that plenty of able-bodied children are receiving occupational therapy.

This is a situation we know well, burdened as we are by a little one who’s handrwriting was deemed not up to snuff. Kiddo was caught by a screener on a bad day and was deemed all but unable to walk. And so it was that your brain begins to believe that the child you have seen do ballet and soccer and climb trees and ride a bike and etc. etc. might need serious and costly medical help to one day function in society. Because therapy, of course, is always the answer. For when your only tool is a hammer…

Part of this is parents’ fault. The last generation has demanded so much from our kindergartens that the schools are fighting back by demanding more of the kids. It used to be that kindergarten was where you go to learn how to learn, and if the only thing you got out of it was an understanding of what is expected of you a year later that was fine. No more. So kids are required to grow up faster, have better handwriting sooner, etc., etc. And for that we parents have ourselves to blame.

It is also certainly a product of the environment. Kids schedules are more tightly planned these days, and we have lots of planned activities. Gone for too many are the childhood days of self play and exploring the world, which naturally motivates you to use more muscles and become more coordinated than planned play can hope to do. (Nothing like walking creek-side to learn balance.) 

But the therapy also betrays a simple truth that most of us, even the parents paying thousands for OT on otherwise healthy kids, know deep inside: Child development is rocky, and 99.9% of the kids who are behind according to an assessment at any given moment will be caught up in a year or two’s time. Some of them will end up clumsy, some of them will end up star athletes, but they will be fine. We know that because even in a world without OT most of us managed to mature into functional adults. 

Kids mature at different speeds, but as they do they make up for lost time and erase any perceived previous disadvantage. Don’t believe me? I dare you to walk into an eighth grade classroom and pick out, based on their behavior as 8th graders, who were the last five to potty train as toddlers. Good luck. 

But in the ultra-competitive world of parenting, attempting to mold our little loved ones into uber-kids, OT seems more a mandate than a luxury as the parents push the schools and the schools push the parents in a vicious cycle. And the only real loser, I guess, is the pocketbook.

Just don’t give up faith in your kid. You may be able to tell by the age of 5 that junior is not bound to be an Olympian. But chances are very strong that, OT or not, they will be just fine.

Buffett:

we will favor towns and cities with a strong sense of community, comparable to the 26 in which we will soon operate.

Sounds like Nawlins to me.