Beyond Function,LLC

10/27/2025

Parents sometimes wonder why so much of pediatric OT looks like play.
The reason is simple, play is how children learn best.

Through play, we target sensory regulation, motor planning, coordination, and social-emotional growth all at once.
It’s how we help kids feel calm enough to try new things and confident enough to keep going.

So when therapy looks joyful, it’s because joy is the foundation for progress.

💬 If your child struggles with transitions, regulation, or confidence in daily routines, reach out. Our OT team in Olathe and the Kansas City area uses play with purpose, and every session is built around your child’s needs.

10/26/2025

We are hiring pediatric and adolescent occupational therapists at Beyond Function. Take control of your career and work with a team who truly cares about you and appreciates your strengths and passions. Inquire now!

10/24/2025

Many families we meet at Beyond Function have newborns who need a bit of extra support after birth, whether it’s feeding challenges, tension, or discomfort that’s hard to explain.

That’s why we created Baby Calm, a place focused entirely on helping babies and parents feel more at ease in those first months.

Through gentle Craniosacral Therapy (CST), we help release body tension, support feeding, and promote regulation, always with safety, skill, and care.

If you have a baby under one year and want to learn more, visit @‌babycalmtherapy to see how we support the earliest stages of development.

10/22/2025

In speech therapy, we look at where a child is in the GLP stages and meet them there. That means:
💬 Respecting the child’s natural communication patterns
🎯 Supporting comprehension and emotional connection
🗣️ Modeling language at the next developmental stage, not forcing isolated words

Understanding GLP helps parents recognize progress that might look different, but is still meaningful.

💬 If your child uses repeated phrases or scripts, our speech therapy team in Olathe and Kansas City can help you understand what stage they’re in and how to support real communication growth.

10/20/2025

When words don’t come easily, it can be hard to know what to do next.
AAC (Augmentative and Alternative Communication) gives children reliable ways to communicate, through gestures, symbols, or devices, while speech is still developing.

In our latest blog, we’re sharing early signs your child may benefit from AAC and how modeling simple communication at home can help.

💡 Whether your child is just beginning to use gestures or you’ve been curious about communication tools, this is a great place to start.

📖 Read the full post: “When Words Don’t Come Easily: Understanding AAC and Early Communication Support” — now live on our blog.

https://www.beyondfunctionllc.com/october-is-aac-awareness-month-rethinking-how-we-support-early-communication-521371

10/16/2025

💬 We’re so grateful for families who take the time to share their experiences with our team.

Hearing stories like this reminds us why we do what we do, building trust, celebrating progress, and helping each child feel safe and supported every step of the way.

Thank you for letting us be part of your child’s journey. ❤️

10/15/2025

You’ve given the reminder. You’ve walked through the steps.
And your child still can’t seem to start the task, whether it’s brushing teeth, packing their bag, or beginning homework.

That pause between “I know what to do” and “I can do it” often has to do with executive function, the brain’s ability to plan, organize, remember steps, and shift between tasks.

When these skills are still developing, kids might:
🧩 Get stuck when routines change
⏰ Forget what comes next in multi-step directions
💭 Seem distracted or unmotivated, even when they want to do well

In occupational therapy, we break these big skills down into small, concrete steps, using visual cues, movement, and structure to help kids follow through more easily and feel successful in their day-to-day routines.

💬 If your child struggles to get started or stay on task, send us a message. Our OT team in Olathe and the greater Kansas City area can help bridge that gap with strategies that truly work.

10/13/2025

When a child avoids touching paint, playdough, or sticky textures, it’s not always about “being picky.”
It’s often a sign that their sensory system feels overwhelmed by certain tactile experiences.

In OT, we gently introduce these sensations in ways that feel safe and fun, because comfort with touch is tied to so much more than play. It supports eating, dressing, handwriting, and self-regulation too.

It’s never about forcing participation; it’s about building trust and helping the body and brain process touch in a calmer way.

💬 If your child avoids textures or gets upset during messy play, it may be their sensory system asking for support.

Send us a message. our OT team in Olathe and the greater Kansas City area can help.

10/10/2025

Movement and communication are more connected than most parents realize.
When kids get vestibular input, that’s the sensory system for balance and movement, it doesn’t just help their body, it helps their brain get organized for learning.

Here are 3 examples of what we might do in therapy and how it connects to speech and reading:

1️⃣ Swinging → strengthens core control and attention, which supports breath control for speech and focus for early reading tasks.

2️⃣ Balance activities (like walking on a beam) → build postural stability and bilateral coordination, key for sitting upright in class and tracking words across a page.

3️⃣ Spinning or rocking gently → organizes the nervous system, helping kids regulate so they’re calmer and more ready to process language and engage socially.

💡 Bottom line: vestibular movement is not “just play.” It’s an important foundation for the focus, coordination, and regulation kids need for speech, reading, and beyond.

💬 Curious how movement supports your child’s communication? Message us anytime, our OT and speech team in Olathe and Kansas City is here to help.

10/09/2025

Was just talking about this to a parent today! Sharing because I could not say all this better than this person did! Worth reading ❤️

There’s a growing backlash against gentle parenting. It’s often described now as permissive, exhausting, unrealistic. A movement that makes parents feel guilty, never good enough. A parenting style that lets children run the home. That tells you to smile through tantrums, say yes to everything, and centre your child’s feelings while ignoring your own.

This isn’t what gentle parenting ever was meant to be.

But the truth is, many parents are finding it overwhelming. Many are walking away from it altogether, saying it made things worse. And that deserves attention.

Because somewhere along the way, gentle parenting has been misunderstood, both by those who criticise it, and by many of those trying to follow it.

It’s not gentle parenting that’s the problem. It’s how we’ve come to interpret it.

Too many people now believe that being a gentle parent means never saying no. That if your child cries or becomes angry, you’ve done something wrong. That setting limits is “mean.” That expressing your own frustration or needing a break is a failure.

But that’s not gentleness. That’s fear.
And fear-driven parenting, even if it’s soft and quiet, is still fear-driven.

Gentle parenting has never meant permissiveness. It has never meant self-sacrifice. It has never meant abandoning adult authority or control.

It does mean holding limits with empathy.
It does mean understanding behaviour rather than punishing it.
It does mean regulating yourself before you try to regulate your child.
But it also means being clear. Being firm. And staying grounded when your child can’t.

Gentle parenting says: I won’t hurt you to teach you. But I will teach you.

Why it’s feeling toxic to so many parents.
Gentle parenting, as it's commonly practiced online, has become perfectionistic. It's been reduced to a set of rules, how to phrase things, what to avoid saying, what never to do. Parents are bombarded with advice that’s often out of context and lacking nuance. They try to follow it to the letter, even when it goes against their instincts, their energy levels, their reality.

So instead of feeling supported, many parents feel anxious, hypervigilant, ashamed. Afraid that if they raise their voice or enforce a consequence, they’ve traumatised their child.

That isn’t gentle parenting. That’s parenting through fear of failure.

No wonder people are turning away from it.

A return to what gentle parenting really means.
At its heart, gentle parenting is not about behaviour management at all. It’s about relationships. It’s about approaching your child with the same respect and compassion you’d offer any human being, while still leading them.

It’s not soft or passive. It’s not an absence of discipline.
It is clear, calm leadership. It is boundaries, held without shaming. It is guiding children with kindness and confidence.

Yes, we understand the “why” behind behaviour. But we still respond. We still say “no.” We still move the child away. We still uphold rules that keep everyone safe and respected.

And we forgive ourselves for the hard moments. We repair. We keep going.

Gentleness must include you too!

The most overlooked part of gentle parenting is that you matter too.

If your child’s needs always come first, if you’re constantly suppressing your own emotions, if you’re afraid to hold boundaries because of how your child might respond, that is not sustainable.

You are not a robot. You are not a therapist. You are not immune to anger or exhaustion or grief.
You are a parent. A human. And you deserve compassion too.

The healthiest homes are not the quietest ones. They are the most connected. Where everyone feels safe, including you.

It was never about doing it perfectly!

The pressure to do gentle parenting “right” has turned it into something many of us can’t live up to.

The reality is that you will lose your temper. You will say the wrong thing. You will sometimes need space from your child.
That doesn’t undo the connection you’ve built. It doesn’t erase the moments of tenderness. It doesn’t make you a bad parent.

Gentle parenting was never about perfection. It was about presence.
Repair. Relationship. Growth. Over time.

Let’s bring the gentleness back, not just for our children, but for ourselves too.

Do you agree?

📕 For the truth of gentle parenting check out the new fully revised and updated edition of my bestselling “The Gentle Parenting Book”. https://amzn.to/47f2ovw

10/08/2025

Milestones aren’t about perfection, they’re about patterns of growth.
From first gestures to first words, these early skills set the stage for communication, learning, and connection.

If your child is close but not quite there, it doesn’t always mean there’s a problem, but it is a sign to check in. Early Intervention can make a huge difference in these first years.

💬 If you’re unsure about your child’s milestones, send us a message. Our OT and speech therapy team in Olathe and the Kansas City area is here to help guide you.

10/06/2025

By around 6 months, babies begin to coordinate the tongue and jaw movements needed to move food from the front of the mouth to the back, a big step toward safe chewing and swallowing.

But here’s what we want parents to know: sitting independently is an important readiness skill for starting solids. Some babies are ready a little earlier, and others take longer. For babies with developmental delays, low tone, or medical needs, solids can still be introduced, it just takes the right guidance and support.

Factors like reflux, tethered oral tissues, or sensory sensitivities can make eating solids harder than expected. That’s where feeding therapy comes in. We help babies build oral-motor skills while keeping mealtimes positive, safe, and stress-free.

💬 If your baby gags often, refuses textures, or mealtime feels overwhelming, reach out. Our OT team in Olathe and the Kansas City area is here to help you figure out the next step.