there’s nothing purer or better than how much kids enjoy being picked up and then hurled at soft surfaces
anyone who’s ever been around kids for ay meaningful amount of time should know exactly how much kids long to be hefted up and then just fuckin tossed! it’s so good! they’re so excited to get fucking tossed around like a sack of potatoes it’s so pure
Why do kids love it so much? Like I remember when I was a kid at diving practice during the summer, the best part was when one if the coaches would toss you into the deep end. And in gymnastics coaches would toss us into the foam pit. Do kids just have a evolutionary urge to die?
“Vestibular sense provides information about where the body is in relation to its surroundings. This is the sense that helps you understand balance, and it connects with all the other senses.
When the vestibular system does not develop properly all other senses will struggle to function properly. Without a strong vestibular sense, kids will have no choice but to fidget, get frustrated, experience more falls and aggression, get too close to people when talking, and struggle with focusing and listening. Because they literally cannot help it.”
“Here are a few ways to support your child’s vestibular sense:
Spinning in circles.
Using a Merry-Go-Round.
Rolling down a hill.
Spinning on a swing.
Going upside down.
Climbing trees.
Rocking.
Jumping rope.
Summersaults or cartwheels.
Using monkey bars.
Skating.
Going backwards.
Swimming.
Dancing.
Wheel-barrel walks.”
Yeeting kids, spinning them, flipping them upside down, tossing them in the air, and otherwise disrupting their balance temporarily, is Important For Their Development, specifically for their vestibular sense.
Kids love this because they NEED it.
In other words: Don’t forget to calibrate your child’s GPS!
YEET THE CHILD FOR THEIR HEALTH
Hi! Paediatric Occupational Therapist here who yeets children into pillows for a living. It’s actually more than the vestibular system! It’s also giving them proprioception, which is the feeling of your joints and muscles / where your body is in space!
We all seek proprioceptive input, leaning against walls, pushing against the steering wheel when driving, giving your body a squeeze to wake yourself up, the list goes on! When we ‘crash’ kids into soft things like pillows or beds, we’re waking their bodies up AND calming their bodies down! In other words, getting them into this super nice zone of “just right” regulation.
When I see a child who is bouncing off the walls and can’t seem to stand still for more than a few seconds? I start wrestling with them, crashing them into pillows, giving their body the right amount of input they need to feel good and organised. And suddenly, this kid is able to sit and play attentively or do their handwriting practice. It’s amazing! If you want to know more about why the vestibular and proprioceptive systems are awesome at making your body feel good, google those two words (and sensory processing) and read through some occupational therapy websites!
Side note: As adults, does your body ever feel jittering/jiggly/wiggly/like it needs to move or calm down but you just can’t figure out why? That’s your sensory system saying Hey! I need to feel differently in order to function better! Here’s what you can do:
Jump up and down (vestibular and proprioception)
Give yourself big squeezes (proprioception)
Place your hands on a wall and do push ups (proprioception)
Do cartwheels (vestibular and proprioception)
Get someone to give you the biggest bear hug for at least 10 seconds (proprioception and social connection, also proven to help regulate your sensory system into just right zone!)
Get a drink of water and drink it through a straw OR blow bubbles into the water (way more fun!) (oral motor input and respiration)
Have a shower or a bath (tactile)
Stretch and do exercise (vestibular and proprioception)
Eat something crunchy or chewy (like chips or gum) (oral motor input)
Listen to some music that suits your mood (auditory)
etc etc etc! I’m sure you already have a strategy that your body has figured out works for you. I personally like to chew gum when I feel like i need to eat something but I’m not actually hungry and just need that chewing sensation in my jaw.
Long story short, everyone has a sensory system and we all use regulation strategies like the ones listed above to help make our body feel better. So if you ever see someone (especially kids!) fidgeting and having a hard time focusing, maybe suggest something from the list above!
okay this reminded me of the strongest human being (I use that label with some reservation) I have ever met and I still think about him like once a week because about 4 years ago on Thanksgiving night my sister, cousin, and I were going to pick up a friend about a 40 minute drive from home, and I got lost and tried to turn around on a little gravel pull-off on the side of the road, but my front tires got stuck in the snow.
we were in the middle of nowhere with no cell reception, and the only sign of life was a single, completely dark house across the road from us.
We all did our best to push the car out, and we’re strong people, but we couldn’t make it budge. Cold and stuck, we climbed back and wondered what to do. A car full of men pulled over beside us and asked if we needed help, but getting out of our locked car on a backroad at night with strange men felt like a bad idea, so we said a tow was coming and waved them along. We did that twice before finally deciding our only option was to accept the next offer for help and just risk it,
when a man came out of the house across the street.
He’d clearly been watching us and figured out why we’d been lying to people, which really surprised me & he said “it’s okay, you can stay in your car and keep the doors locked. Just start backing up when I say so.”
I had the window cracked and told him “it’s too stuck. There’s no way we’re getting out. Could you call a tow?”
And he said “just back up when I say so.”
So he walked around the front of the car, squatted, and said “okay back up,”
and I did, and
he lifted
the front of the car Into The Air. Off its front wheels, and we backed up while he essentially wheel-barrowed us back onto the road.
And we were honest to god yelling. We couldn’t help it. We just yelled until all four wheels were back on the ground and he was waving us off while we thanked him.
And then I looked at my sister and cousin & said “he REALLY told us we can KEEP our doors locked as if THAT WOULD’VE FUCKING STOPPED HIM!!!! As if he couldn’t have just RIPPED EM OFF THE HINGES.”
I later looked up the weight of my car, and it’s 3200 pounds without anything or anyone in it.
I’ve invented a new system of government where before you pass any bill it has to be read by a philosopher, community leader, and a historian who are all entitled to reject the bill and/or beat the shit out of you for anything they feel is blatantly evil
I’d like to start implementing this in Florida
I’d throw in a scientist as well TBH
A philosopher, a community organizer, a historian, a scientist, and a politician walk into a bar.
The politician slides the rest of them several stacks of paper.
They all go out to the parking lot.
A philosopher, a community organizer, a historian, and a scientist walk into a bar.
when I was little, I would go on Nickelodeon.com all the time and they had this game similar to club penguin except it was called Nicktropolis. and if you forgot your password, a security question you could choose was “what is your eye color?” and if you got it right it’d tell you your password. so I would go to popular locations in Nicktropolis and write down random usernames who were also in those areas, and then i would log out and type in the username as if it were my own and see which of these usernames had a security question set to “what is your eye color?” (which was most of them, since it was easy and we were all kids). i would then try either brown, blue, or green, and always get in, then I would go to their house and send all of their furniture and decorations to my own account’s. and if it I didn’t want it, i could sell it for money
HOLY SHIT this woman at the gym was watching this dude do bicep curls at the gym, and he smiled and flexed and said “don’t worry I have a license for these” and she said “a learners permit doesn’t count as a license, are you about finished with that bench?”I ABOUT SCREAMED
Sincerely have no idea why people get pet macaws and other parrots that can’t thrive in captivity unless you dedicate your entire existence to bird care when chickens come in miniature size and not only are cheap to feed, friendly, lay nutritious eggs, dispose of kitchen scraps, and poop out valuable plant fertilizer, but also if you forget the garbage and are face to face with a maggot swarm they will happily devour the evidence of your incompetence.
