Squishlet & Co™ calming squishy set for kids

helps your kid calm down in minutes Pressure calms the body. When hands squeeze, the muscles and joints send the brain a steady signal to settle, the same input that makes a hug so calming. Homework, car trips, doctor visits & the end of ipad time keep kids still with nothing for their hands. That antsy energy piles up and spills out as tapping, rocking, chewed sleeves or meltdowns. A slow rise squishy gives restless hands that pressure. Squeeze to settle, let go to release the tension, watch it rise to keep an easy rhythm. Your kid calms down in minutes, without a screen. soothe meltdowns without the tablet Handing over the tablet ends a meltdown fast because the screen pulls their attention away from the feeling, but it does the calming for them, so they miss the practice of doing it themselves. In a JAMA Pediatrics study of 422 preschoolers, kids who were often calmed with devices grew more emotionally reactive within six months, boys most of all, and a second study linked more tablet time at age 3.5 to more anger and frustration a year later, and that anger to even more tablet time: a short term solution the researchers say it will backfire. A squishy lets them calm their own body with their own hands, so every meltdown they squeeze through is practice, and the calm is theirs to keep, without the help of any screen. helps your kid finish their homework Fidgeting at the homework table is the body hunting for input to stay alert. Telling your kid to sit still takes that input away A squishy works by feel, so the free hand does the fidgeting. In a study of 4th and 5th graders, an object to handle cut their extra movement and raised the number of math problems they finished. keep them busy on long car rides The brain stops noticing a feel it already knows, which is why one stress ball gets dropped before the first rest stop and the seat kicking starts again. Every squishy in this box feels different. When one gets old, the next one wakes their hands back up, each one fits in a car door pocket, and with 8 in the box there's one for every kid in the back seat. make doctor visits less scary Needles and waiting rooms are where kids feel most helpless, and "don't look, it's almost over" gives their hands nothing to do with the fear. In a hospital trial of 120 children aged 7 to 12, the kids who squeezed a ball during a blood draw felt less pain and less fear than the kids who didn't. Slip a squishy in their pocket before the appointment, and they have something to squeeze through the scary part. build a calm down habit that lasts Every time they reach for a squishy instead of a screen, they teach themselves to calm down, and like any skill, it gets easier the more they do it. Children's occupational therapists use heavy work like squeezing to help kids settle for sleep, so a few slow squeezes at bedtime end the day on calm instead of a fight. And because the squeeze simply feels good, they keep coming back to it, until reaching for calm is just what they do. recommended by occupational therapists Children's occupational therapy services list squeezing and squishing among the heavy work activities that calm kids, cut fidgeting and sharpen concentration. The pediatrician who led the JAMA Pediatrics study recommends the same kind of sensory tool instead of a screen, like squishing something in their hands or watching a sparkle jar, and the Snowflake Cube and Ocean Cube are both at once: squeeze them and watch the snowflakes and seashells inside move with every press.