Starfish Therapies

A pediatric therapy company operating in San Francisco and the greater Bay Area. We provide physical, occupational, speech and aquatic therapy services in the most beneficial and convenient setting for you and your child, including our clinic, currently located in Burlingame, your home, school or daycare.

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The Power of Kids to Influence Us!

May 3, 2012 by Stacy Menz

       

So, I am always amazed at what good enrollers kids are.  They do it naturally.  Yes, we have our agenda that we want to get through to them however their agenda always manages to sneak in as well.  For instance, I use a lot of different motivation techniques, especially for my 5-7 year olds and as a result I now find myself hooked on Smurf Village and Zombie Takeover (not from my choosing but because its what works with our kids).  As if I didn’t have enough to do on my ‘off’ hours, I am now monitoring Zombies and Smurfs because if I didn’t the kids would notice.  For instance, I walked into the clinic today and the first question out of my 7 year old kiddo’s mouth was ‘Did you get the Zombie Cheerleader yet?’.  We also have intense discussions about what crops we should plant on the Smurf Village based on time left in the session.  I know these sound like silly games but they are amazingly motivating for the kids.  You’d be amazed at what a child will do in order to harvest the next crop or feed a zombie.

In addition to being motivating for the kids it also works on finger isolation and precision for pointing.  They get to learn limits (they are not allowed to spend Smurf Berries) and we can talk about do we want to earn more XP’s to get to a higher level faster or more coins to be able to add things to the village.  In addition we work on standing balance, cross body reaching while having them tap on the screen, and visual attention while doing gross motor tasks to name a few.  They also get to talk about strategy in terms of what is most important to do first and prioritize on each game, its great to see their reasoning skills.

I am sure there are a ton of other games out there like these although I don’t know if I want to know about them because I don’t think I can handle overseeing another set of creatures on a daily basis – my Smurfs and Zombies are keeping my hands full!

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Filed Under: Developmental Milestones Tagged With: apps, fine motor development, games, gross motor development, kids, motivation

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What Clients Are Saying

Our family moved to the bay area 6 years ago, and Starfish Therapies have been a part of our family ever since. Everyone at the clinic is caring and warm. The owner always looks for ways to improve the clinic and the services provided. The therapists are patient, enthusiastic, and know how to motivate the kids to do their best. Even after moving more than an hour away from the clinic, we kept going back to Starfish for intensive therapy sessions every summer! We cannot thank Starfish Therapies enough for helping my daughter to get stronger and to become more independent over the years!”

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Locations

  BURLINGAME / MAIN CLINIC
  1541 Old Bayshore Highway
  Burlingame, CA 94010


  SAN FRANCISCO
  (located in KidSpace)
  3401 Mission St.
  San Francisco, CA 94110


  PALO ALTO
  (located in Agile Physical Therapy)
  3825 El Camino Real
  Palo Alto, CA 94306


HALF MOON BAY
  (located at Sensitive Solutions)
  30 Avenue Portola, Suite 200 C & D
  Half Moon Bay, CA 94018

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