Rhizome Movement

22/05/2026

!!! 💛

06/05/2026

A lot of my work with younger clients is playing games. Uno is a favourite, not many rules to remember, limited variables, fast paced enough to stay engaging, fun for all ages, the list goes on. It also allows me, as the support person and practitioner, to have some control over which way the game goes. I always start with the question “friendly mode, or hardcore mode?” (The wording here is deliberate). I’ve worked with kids who start with friendly mode, and build up confidence to try hardcore mode, others who move back and forth between the two depending on the day and how they’re feeling. It’s all practice in recognising their own fluctuating emotional needs and boundaries. I love, and also practice, this understanding that our clients already experience enough “hardcore mode” in their every day lives. We all deserve a space to experience a good dose of “friendly mode” too. 🏆

I had a child in a session recently who has a really challenging time with losing games, as many children do.

A lot of the games I play in session, I can—and do—intentionally lose, or let the child win. Most of my clients need to experience the safety of more “wins” under their belt. They have plenty of things they can’t do, and struggle with, and are hard, and are upsetting, in their everyday life. They need the feeling of more wins, not more losses.

But when we play a wholly luck-based game I can’t always throw it. Sometimes I can sneakily fudge a dice roll or spinner spin to make myself do worse, but not always.

This game involves rolling 3 dice. If you roll a button, you get to take a button from the center “pot”. If you roll an arrow, you steal one from another player. If you roll 1 monster, you do nothing, but if all 3 dice show monsters, you race to grab the monster stuffed animal.

So not only does the game have a win/lose condition at the end (who has the most buttons), but it has win/lose or prickly situations embedded throughout: it’s a bit prickly to steal someone else’s button, and it’s a bit of a loss to grab for the stuffed animal too slow and the other person gets it.

This child wanted to play this game so I said okay even though I thought it might be a bit hard for them to tolerate me stealing their buttons. But if only 2 people are playing there’s no way for me not to steal them if I rolled an arrow. Unluckily for them, I rolled 3 arrows in my first go. Then 2 in my second go. I wasn’t gloating or taunting, in fact I was apologetic as I took their buttons. They were the kind of simmering quiet that is a warning. But they were regulating it. They were doing hard, hard work.

Somehow we made it through the whole first game and I managed to finagle a dice roll at the last second to make sure that they ended up with 1 more button than me and won the overall game. This was a big relief for both of us. All the little losses throughout were truly plenty of practice without a big loss at the end.

Then, they wanted to play again.

I was very surprised and could also feel that I wasn’t sure that they could manage more losses without big upset. So, I offered an idea. What if another stuffed animal (in this case a beanbag beetle) played with us as the 3rd player? The child would roll for the beetle and manage the beetle’s buttons.

This meant I had a safe patsy to steal buttons from in lieu of the child. This also meant the child got twice as many “wins” against me — stealing my buttons as themself; stealing my buttons as beetle. This ALSO meant that we had a third party whose emotions we could talk about! The degree of removal from self really helped the child articulate how the beetle was feeling much more easily than they could about themself. It didn’t feel as vulnerable.

By the third game we had upped the ante. Now we each had a cone defending our buttons. Mine, of course, was entirely permeable and not at all defensive. The beetle’s was midway, and the child’s was a solid object, impenetrable (not that I was stealing their buttons anyway). I ended the game with a meager 1 button, to the beetle’s and child’s delight.

Wins and losses, by self and by proxy, and emotional regulation all around.

[image description: a picture of the game which is called “Fuggler dice game” after the brand of the little monster guy. The cones, buttons, and beanbag beetle are set up as described in the post. End description.]

12/03/2026

Another beautifully spot on piece by Annie Ridout 💕

01/03/2026

23/02/2026

27/10/2025

What is interoception?

>>> https://www.kelly-mahler.com/what-is-interoception/

21/10/2025

THIS! I’ve advocated for clients to their teachers on this exact thing and I wish I could say I’m always successful but sometimes it’s like talking to a brick wall 🙈 This sums up the feeling so well.
It’s not laziness, it’s not manipulative, our wiring just works in ways you might not expect it to.
Thank goodness for people like the Occuplaytipnal Therapist for putting it into words so effectively. ☺️

“I want you to build a tower,” I say.

You agree, and you stand up to go get the bucket of blocks off the shelf.

I shake my head sternly. “No. Did I tell you you could get up? Sit down. Build a tower.”

You look confused. You point over at the bucket of blocks. It’s five feet away and on a reachable shelf, but you don’t have it in front of you now.

I sigh at your limited comprehension abilities. I take out a piece of paper to help me make a visual, and I draw you a little stick figure chart. “Look. First, make a tower. Then, stand up and walk. See? You have to make the tower first.”

You gesture at me about the absurdity of the situation you’re in. Pointing your hands downward like, “make a tower out of what???”

I point at the visual chart again, slowing my voice down like you’re a baby. “First, tower. Then, get up.”

You sit there and stare at me, waiting for me to figure out that you literally can’t.

I take out some stickers. “Come on. Make a tower and I’ll put a smiley face on your chart for the day! Don’t you want a smiley face?”

You DO want a smiley face but you literally don’t have the tools for the job! You have nothing with which to make a tower. You start to get angry.

I point at all of the others in the room. They all have a bucket of blocks right in front of them, and they’re all making a tower. “All your friends expect you to make a tower. You are behaving in an unexpected way and it’s making us uncomfortable.”

Weighing your options, you finally decide to stand up anyway and make a mad dash for the shelf. Maybe you can grab the bucket of blocks before I catch you? Maybe you can cobble together a tower in the few seconds you’ll have? Maybe that will help me understand?

But once you’re on your feet I’m yelling at you. Then I’m holding you down. Then I’m fighting you, hurting you, punishing you, calling you pathological and aggressive and defiant. I write in my report that I did all the right things and you did all the wrong ones.

The next day, I ask you to make a tower.

You still don’t have any blocks.

***

Constantly, CONSTANTLY, adults in positions of power over children (school, home, extracurricular activities) demand that children do things that they’re told to do, and use as a bribe or take away as a punishment the very resource that the child would actually need in order to do the thing that they’re told to do.

This was written specifically about the fact that Autistic children’s special interests are often used as a bribe, or with a first/then system, like, “first do this work, then you can play with your cars for three minutes,” or, “first do what I’m telling you, then you can have a ‘sensory break’.” What this ignores is that those are LITERALLY the vehicle by which their brain BECOMES able to do the work. The special interest is joy, delight, interest — neurologically speaking, it’s dopamine. And dopamine is actually, physically required in order to be able to initiate a task, and in order to be able to access the higher thinking resources required to do the task. Or the sensory tool is LITERALLY meeting the sensory need and requirement in the human being’s body that needs to be met in order for them to be able to access the higher thinking skills required to focus and attend to what they’re trying to do. But these things get taken and used by therapists or “therapists” or teachers or parents as if they are a reward, a bribe, an afterthought.

The special interest or the sensory tool are the “standing up and walking” over to the blocks, in the analogy story above. But the adult keeps getting mad that the child is trying to stand up and walk.

The child is doing whatever it takes to move toward dopamine or toward having their sensory needs met. And the adult is getting mad about the thing they’re doing to move in that direction.

That’s what this post was written about, but the analogy carries over into lots of other realms, too. Teachers take away recess — physical body movement — to punish kids for moving their bodies too much. They police children’s ability to talk to one another, the human innate social need to bounce ideas around with peers.

People are naturally, instinctually, really good at meeting their sensory needs. If they have a little extra energy or need a little extra proprioception in their legs and feet, they’ll bounce while they’re walking. If they are trying to keep their brain awake and moving in a slow-moving environment when they can feel themselves fading, they’ll reach out and fidget with something that’s in front of them. But watch a group of kids try to wiggle a little while they walk down a hallway or reach out and brush fingertips against something they’re walking past and as likely as not you’ll see an adult “correct” them (incorrectly, since telling them “stop it” does nothing to teach them how to channel it, only to suppress it til it explodes somewhere else).

The brain can’t even do the thing you’re asking it to do, without the resources it needs to do the thing. But kids start seeking out the resources, and get in trouble, and get hurt, and get punished, and the adults think, “I have done all the right things, and you have done all the wrong ones.”

The next day, the adult asks the child to get up and do it again.

And they still don’t have any “blocks”.

***

[Image description:
A brightly coloured red, yellow, pink, blue, and green cartoony block tower, with words on it that read in bold all-caps font, “I want you to build a tower”. End description.]