Some parents wonder… “How can working on skills OUTDOORS help my child INDOORS?”
And you know what?! This question makes tons of sense.
At first glance, what we do in outdoor occupational therapy can look so different from a classroom. For this reason, it’s easy to question how effective outdoor OT sessions are for promoting skills that get generalized to the classroom and daily life.
But first, let’s get the quick answer out of the way, right way — YES! Outdoor occupational therapy translates to real improvement and change in the daily lives of kids and their families across settings!
Here’s how this impact was described by a parent at Bearfoot OT:
“Our daughter is now willing to try and try again, and to say "yes" to so many things she said "no thanks" to before. She seems so much happier in her own skin, and we are able to move through the world with more ease. The Bearfoot OTs we've worked with have been so communicative with us. They devote so much time to your child's individual needs and make a concerted effort after and between sessions to keep caregivers in the loop and at the forefront of what's going on. This gives families ways to bring the work home, so that amazing OT sessions in the great outdoors translate into fewer struggles at home.”
Pull up a chair because we have a lot to say on this topic. Wondering why? Because the ability to drive change was a key factor in the creation of Bearfoot OT.
From the beginning, we weren’t satisfied with the typical model of weekly sessions that didn’t carry over to regular life. So we challenged the status quo of traditional pediatric OT to create a version of therapy that includes all the pieces to impact life in the best ways possible.
And we’re here to share with you exactly what that looks like.
What’s Learned in OT Needs to Generalize Across Different Settings
If you’re asking how outdoor therapy sessions impact daily life — you’re really asking about the concept of generalization. Generalization is applying a new skill in different situations.
This is when your child learns a skill that they can use no matter the place, situation, or people around. When that happens you’ve given your child a skill that’s truly useful in day-to-day life and is flexible and adaptable.
For our work with kids, that means...
We practice cutting plants and grass knowing it will improve coordination and strengthening for cutting projects in the classroom.
Or we practice noticing and naming how emotions feel in the body during outdoor sessions so a child can name their emotional or energy needs in daily life. It’s all about creating an environment where kids can learn at a level that leads to skill mastery and generalization.
So what makes concepts learned in outdoor OT more likely to generalize to daily life?
In simplest terms, generalization happens when¹ ²:
Skills are practiced in different ways
Learning feels meaningful and empowering
Self-awareness is woven into learning
Concepts are bridged to different situations & caregivers
Let’s look at each one and how it impacts how we provide occupational therapy at Bearfoot OT.
Practice Skills in Multiple Ways
What you won’t find in outdoor therapy at Bearfoot is repetitive, rote, uninspired drills. Because practicing the same thing, in the same way, over and over is not only boring — it leads to isolated skill development that is harder to plug into daily life.
This is exactly why your child can learn a new skill but then is unable to use it in different settings and unique situations. And that’s NOT the point.
Instead, when they practice a skill in a variety of ways, your child learns how to apply the skill in many ways¹. This skill flexibility matches the requirements of living in a dynamic world. The ability to provide dynamic, real-world activities is a big piece of what makes outdoor OT a high-impact service that generalizes to the rest of life.
What looks like simple fun activities are actually dynamic opportunities for your child to practice the underlying skills they need for home and school.
We’re talking about skills like:
Motor skills for handwriting, cutting, and gym class.
Social emotional skills for relating to others or managing conflict.
Thinking skills for problem-solving, following directions, and paying attention.
Body awareness for respecting the space of others or recognizing sensory needs.
Emotional regulation for navigating meltdowns, anger, or energy.
Let’s take the example of a child who is struggling to follow directions in the classroom. We’re going to take that core skill and find different ways to promote sequencing and following directions.
In one session of outdoor OT, you might see us work on a fun craft that requires following a set of step-by-step directions. Then in the next session, you might see us playing a movement game that requires that same underlying skill of listening and following directions.
Each activity is practicing that same skill in different ways so that it can be used in different ways for home and school.
To give this skill the best chance of generalizing to the rest of life, our team works with you on ideas to extend that same learning to your child’s bedtime routine or classroom work. Hold tight and keep reading, we’ll go in-depth on how this works later in the blog.
Learning Opportunities Need to Be Meaningful and Empowering
Here’s a secret — kids are motivated to learn what they want to learn.
This is sometimes very different from what ADULTS want kids to learn. Providing kids the opportunity to learn what they find interesting and motivating makes a huge difference in how hard they work, how much they learn, and what they retain.
Think about your own motivation to learn something new. It’s a lot harder to learn something when what you are learning feels forced, irrelevant, or boring — ahem, maybe like those dreaded compliance trainings at work.
As you might have experienced, in these situations you’re not going to put very much effort into learning the material. And you’ll forget what you learned and never dynamically apply that information in new ways. The same is true for your kid. Give a child something to learn that feels boring or irrelevant — and you’re going to get half-hearted attempts that don’t lead to a deep level of learning and carryover.
The level of engagement and interest is what makes an outdoor OT session so powerful.
With an outdoor session that’s crafted around your child’s interests and needs, you’ll see skills bloom as your child is actively engaged in what they’re doing. In this scenario, the environment, OT staff, and the activity all work together to create learning experiences where your child feels empowered, excited, motivated, and interested.
This means they are willing to try hard things and put in the repetition it takes to learn. Ultimately, this level of personal investment translates to skills and confidence once they leave the woods of our OT sessions.
Focus On Teaching Self-awareness and Advocacy
If there’s one skill that makes a big difference to daily life when generalized — it’s self-awareness.
This looks like helping kids to recognize their own unique needs. We then help kids experiment and name what actions to take to fill those needs. For instance, naming when their body feels restless. Next, doing a variety of movement activities in an outdoor OT session and connecting that to feeling less restless in their bodies. Then finally, problem-solving with the child some actions they might take when they feel restless in their classroom at school. This approach teaches your child how to problem solve for their own needs across many different situations.
To accomplish this, we spend a lot of time helping kids get in touch with their:
own bodies
ways of learning
sensory preferences
strengths
And in turn, the goal is for them to be able to advocate for what they want and need no matter where they are or who they are hanging out with.
This might look like:
Self-identifying what being overwhelmed feels like in their body to take action to avoid a meltdown.
Requesting accommodations at school to reduce frustration-related behaviors.
Naming what makes them uncomfortable with friends to reduce conflict.
You’ll be pretty impressed by the ripple effect as your child learns how to identify and ask for what they need.
Empower Caregivers Who Bridge Learning To Different Settings
Let’s get super honest here about what it takes to generalize a skill.
Your child needs skills that are useful in ALL their different environments. That’s home, school, restaurants, and even family gatherings. This means they need ways to practice and learn in all those environments. That level of practice is impossible to provide inside therapy sessions alone, no matter what type of therapy your child is doing, or how often they’re attending.
This is what makes caregivers and teachers such an important part of the picture of successful therapy². For this reason, Bearfoot OT doubles down on innovative ways to empower families and teachers to continue that work with that child in different settings.
Yes, inside of our outdoor therapy sessions, we’re able to work on core skills that are important for you and your kid and it’s amazing and powerful. And we’re figuring out what works for your child and giving them tools to ask for what they need. But our work doesn't stop there. To ensure learning gets generalized to life, we look to support caregivers who will be there to support each kid in other settings. Because if you think about it, there are so many more waking hours in a week than the one hour your kid is in therapy.
This extra step of supporting the caregivers is the true key to helping kids bridge what they learn in therapy to regular life.
Support for Your Family
We don’t want therapy to feel like it’s happening in a vacuum where your child has a good time in the woods and you’re left not knowing what to carry over into the home.
At Bearfoot, our big vision is to take those extra steps that teach families how to be proactive and provide the right support for your specific child. Through phone consults and visiting your child’s Google Classroom containing videos, resources, and therapist communication — you’ll know what your child is working on and how to best carry those skills to all the settings that are important to your family.
Support for Your Child’s School, Teachers, and Psychologists
Our goal is to provide connection points with a lot of different providers who see the child in different contexts. Phone consults and your child’s Google Classroom offer the ability to collaborate with teachers, schools, and psychologists to help ensure everyone is on the same page in terms of supporting your child. With everyone getting updates and support, your child is set up for success as what they are practicing is supported consistently in different aspects of their life.
As you can see, outdoor therapy is way more than isolated skills that get learned in the woods and never used again. Outdoor occupational therapy is a dynamic and life-changing way for your child to acquire skills that generalize to everyday life.
If you’re interested in occupational therapy service through Bearfoot OT, check out our individual and group services in the Bay Area.
Do you love seeing the research as much as us? Here are the references for this blog!
Joan Pascale Toglia; Generalization of Treatment: A Multicontext Approach to Cognitive Perceptual Impairment in Adults With Brain Injury. Am J Occup Ther June 1991, Vol. 45(6), 505–516. doi: https://doi.org/10.5014/ajot.45.6.505
Kashinath, S., Woods, J., & Goldstein, H. (2006). Enhancing generalized teaching strategy use in daily routines by parents of children with autism.
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