top of page
Playful Wisdom Blog
Search
The Kids Who Feel the World Most, Sensory Sensitive Beings
Some children move through the world with the volume turned up. Lights are brighter, sounds are louder, and feelings run deeper. Other children are turned up differently and need more movement, more pressure, and more input just to feel like themselves. If you're raising a sensory kid, you already know how much these differences shape your days. What you may not know is how hopeful the research is. Doing Harder helped more for sensory kids Researchers call this differential s
Cary M Hamilton
6 days ago4 min read
The Girl Staring Out the Window, ADHD Hiding In Plain Sight
Girls with ADHD are often skilled at masking. They copy a friend's notes, stay up late redoing work, and people-please their way through the day. Many get diagnosed with anxiety or depression first, because that's what shows on the surface.
The ADHD underneath keeps running the show.
Cary M Hamilton
6 days ago3 min read
Not Spoiled. Not Picky. Not Dramatic. It's Sensory
I have felt that stare. One day I wasn't paying attention to everything we had already done: store to store, loud, bright. My son hit his limit in the middle of Target. He screamed, curled into a ball, and slammed his head into the floor. The looks from other shoppers were critical, judging, and disturbing. I knew he was in a meltdown, not a tantrum. I held him and told him, "I've got you, love." Then I looked up at the strangers, smiled, and said, "I've got this." What I mea
Cary M Hamilton
Oct 133 min read
Volume Ten: The Emotional Side of ADHD Nobody Talks About
The same brain systems that manage attention also manage emotion. Executive function includes the pause between a feeling and a reaction, and in ADHD those systems mature later, often by several years. Your nine-year-old may be working with the emotional brakes of a six-year-old.
Cary M Hamilton
Oct 133 min read
You Have Eight Senses. Your Child Is Using All of Them.
October is also Sensory Awareness Month, and I want to start with the senses nobody taught us in kindergarten. Most of us learned five. Your child's nervous system runs on eight, and the three we skipped explain a lot of what people call "behavior problems."
Cary M Hamilton
Oct 84 min read
ADHD, It's Not a Deficit. It's a Traffic Jam.
At least once a week, a parent sits across from me and says some version of this: "He can build in Minecraft for four hours straight. Why can't he do ten minutes of homework?"
It's a fair question. The answer changes how you see your child.
Attention isn't what's missing. Steering it is.
For years I wrote "attention deficit" in treatment plans without a second thought. I explained it to parents in my office. It sounded precise and clinical.
Cary M Hamilton
Oct 64 min read
This Fall Feels Different — And I Don't Think It's Just You
It's not just the kids this year
Every fall carries some version of transition stress — new teachers, new routines, the jump from unstructured summer days back into a schedule.
That's normal, and most kids move through it in a few weeks.
However, this year there's more sitting on top of the ordinary stuff. Families are watching the news and feeling the economy in ways that show up at the dinner table even when nobody says the word "budget" out loud. School safety has become
Cary M Hamilton
Aug 315 min read
Why Boredom Is a Mental Health Skill (Not a Problem to Fix)
Every summer, I hear some version of the same worried question: "My kid keeps saying they're bored. Should I be doing more?"
Usually, the answer is no.
Mental health isn't the absence of discomfort. It's knowing what to do with it. And boredom, as uncomfortable as it feels for both the kid experiencing it and the parent watching it happen, is one of the earliest places a child practices that skill.
What boredom asks of the brain.
Cary M Hamilton
Jul 53 min read
Raising Capable Kids: A Life Skills Roadmap from Toddlers to Teens
If you've ever stood in your kitchen watching your child struggle to do something you know they're "old enough" to do and felt that mix of frustration, worry, and quiet guilt, I want you to take a breath. You're not doing it wrong. And neither are they.
Here's something I tell parents all the time: being old enough to do a task and being ready to do it independently are two different things. A child can be developmentally capable of clearing their plate, packing their backpa
Cary M Hamilton
Jun 36 min read
Understanding Mental Health in Every Brain
Mental health is your ability to handle stress, connect with others, make choices that feel good to you, and move through life feeling like yourself. It's not the absence of hard feelings. It's knowing yourself well enough to understand what helps when things feel hard. For some kids, that's moving their body. For others, it's quiet time alone. For some, it's talking things through. For many neurodivergent brains, it's a combination—and it changes depending on the day.
Cary M Hamilton
May 73 min read
Living and Understanding ADHD: A Journey Through the Maze—From Both Sides
October is here, and with it comes ADHD Awareness Month. As someone who sits in a unique intersection—a licensed mental health counselor and child mental health specialist, registered play therapy supervisor, clinic owner, AND a mom to neurodivergent kids with ADHD and SPD married to a neurodivergent partner—I can tell you that ADHD awareness isn't just professional knowledge for me. It's a lived experience.
Here's the twist: I'm neurotypical.
Cary M Hamilton
Oct 16, 202512 min read
The Silent Crisis: Unmasking ADHD in Our Girls
ADHD in girls might manifest differently, but it's not an enigma.
Cary M. Hamilton
Oct 28, 20234 min read
FALL into Your Gustatory Sense
Fall is the season that brings out my favorite treats, and many are enjoyed during my family’s Thanksgiving feast.
Celia Courser and Cary M. Hamilton
Nov 2, 20214 min read
Fall Into Your Visual Sense
How many of your children have come home from school complaining about the lighting in the school? Maybe they have mentioned it hurts...
Cary M Hamilton
Oct 26, 20214 min read
The information contained on this site, blog posts, videos, and interviews are for general education purposes and do not constitute professional advice. If you are a provider, it’s important to seek training, continuing education, or clinical supervision. If you are a parent, I encourage you to seek direct help from a qualified provider for your child and family. All identifying information, including names and other details, has been changed to protect the privacy of individuals.
*The photos used are personal or are stock photography models and do not represent specific individuals in any way.
bottom of page