Building Kid Steps

💙💚 Building Kid Steps Families — We’d Love to Hear From You! 💚💙

If your child has received services at Building Kid Steps, we would be so grateful if you would take a moment to share your experience with us. ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

Your feedback means so much to our team, but it also helps other parents in our community who are searching for therapy services for their child.

📱 Simply scan the QR code below to leave us a Google review.

Thank you for trusting Building Kid Steps to be part of your child’s journey. We truly appreciate every family we have had the opportunity to serve! 💙

Finish Strong Friday: WHEN YOU DON'T KNOW THE WAY ❤️
Last week, we talked about mountains.
About standing at the bottom, looking toward the summit and realizing we don't have to climb the whole thing today.
Apparently I wasn't finished thinking about mountains. 😂
Because sometimes the hardest part isn't looking up and realizing how far you have to go.
Sometimes it's reaching a place where the trail splits and thinking:
I honestly don't know which way to go.
And I think that's a place many of us know.
As parents, we make decisions for our children all the time.
Do we push or give more support?
Wait or intervene?
Try something new or give this more time?
Change course or stay consistent?
Are we asking too much?
Are we expecting too little?
And sometimes there simply isn't a giant sign pointing toward the correct answer.
That's hard.
Because when we love someone deeply, we desperately want to get it right.
We want to chart the course.
We want to protect them from unnecessary hardship.
We want to help them become everything they're capable of becoming.
And when we can't see exactly how to get from where we are to where we hope they'll someday be, fear can make the familiar awfully appealing.
Not because where we are is necessarily easy.
Not even because it's where we want to stay.
But because we know this ground.
The unknown asks us to loosen our grip on something we understand before we completely understand what comes next.
And that's scary.
I see this in therapy.
I see it in parenting.
And goodness knows, I see it in myself. ❤️
But perhaps there is a middle ground between refusing to move because we're afraid of choosing wrong and charging down an unfamiliar trail simply because we feel like we should be doing something.
Maybe we chart the course as we go.
We gather the information we have.
We ask questions.
We listen to people we trust.
We look at what is working and what isn't.
We take one thoughtful step.
And then we pay attention.
Because charting a course doesn't mean knowing the whole way before you begin.
Sometimes it means being willing to learn while you walk it.
And sometimes we will get something wrong.
We may take three steps and realize we need to turn around.
We may discover that what worked six months ago doesn't work anymore.
We may learn something about our child—or ourselves—that changes the plan entirely.
Changing course isn't always evidence that we failed. Sometimes changing course is part of finding the way.
That's something I want our BKS families to know.
You do not have to walk into our building already knowing what comes next.
You don't have to have all the answers.
You can say:
“I don't know what to do next.”
Those are not failure words.
They're conversation starters.
Let's look at it together.
Let's talk about what you're seeing at home and what we're seeing here.
Let's figure out what we know, what we don't know, and what one reasonable next step might be.
And then let's keep paying attention.
Because there may not always be a perfect map.
But you don't have to chart every mile today.
So maybe this week's Finish Strong Friday challenge isn't to make the big decision.
Maybe it's simply to ask yourself:
Am I staying here because this is still the right place to be—or because I'm afraid I might choose the wrong path?
You don't have to answer it immediately.
Sit with it.
Pray about it, if that's part of your life.
Talk to someone you trust.
Gather some information.
And when you're ready, take the next thoughtful step.
You don't need enough courage for the whole mountain.
Just enough for the part of the trail you're standing on today.
And if you discover down the road that you need to adjust?
Adjust.
We're all charting courses we've never walked before. ❤️
Maybe the goal isn't to never take a wrong turn.
Maybe it's to keep learning, keep listening, keep loving, and keep finding our way forward.
One step at a time.

📣 WE’RE HIRING — PTA + OTR! 📣

Building Kid Steps is looking for two great therapists to join our team!

💜 Physical Therapist Assistant (PTA)
💜 Occupational Therapist (OTR)

We are a locally owned outpatient therapy clinic serving children and adults in the Victoria area, and we’re looking for therapists who want to be part of a team that truly knows its patients and families.

For our PTA:
We’re looking for someone ready to step into an established and growing physical therapy program, work closely with our PT team, and provide hands-on, individualized care.

For our OTR:
We want OT back at Building Kid Steps! 💜

We know how valuable occupational therapy is to the children and families we serve, and we are looking for the right Occupational Therapist to help us bring this service back to our clinic.

If you are an OTR who would love the opportunity to help rebuild and shape an OT program within an established multidisciplinary clinic, we would love to talk with you.

✨ Collaborative SLP, PT & OT environment
✨ One-on-one patient care
✨ Established referral relationships
✨ Supportive, locally owned clinic
✨ Monday–Thursday primary workweek
✨ Opportunity to make the position your own

📍 Building Kid Steps, LLC | Victoria, Texas

Interested? Send us a message or your résumé to learn more.

Not a PTA or OTR? You can still help us find one! Please share this post. Sometimes it really does take the right person seeing it at the right time. 💜

🌱 THERAPY THURSDAY | Before We Expect… We Build

Sometimes we see the finished skill:
✏️ Writing their name
✂️ Cutting with scissors
🧥 Zipping a jacket
🪑 Sitting and attending in class
🎒 Completing a school task

But as therapists, we're also looking at everything underneath that skill.

Before a child writes, we're thinking about hand strength, shoulder stability, posture, visual-motor skills and coordination.

Before a child cuts with scissors, their body has to stabilize while two hands do different jobs.

Before we expect a child to sit, attend and learn, we're thinking about how well their body processes sensory information, moves through its environment and becomes organized for the task.

And that's where something as simple as PLAY becomes pretty powerful. 💚

Crawling. Climbing. Digging. Pushing. Pulling. Carrying. Building. Balancing.

Those aren't just ways to keep children busy.

They're opportunities to build foundations.

💪 Even “heavy work”—activities like carrying laundry, pushing a wagon, moving couch cushions, animal walks or helping with groceries—can provide proprioceptive input and help support body awareness and regulation.

👇 Take a look at this month's Foundations First page for some simple ways to build these skills through everyday play.

And here's our favorite part:
You don't need fancy therapy equipment to build a strong foundation.

Sometimes you need blocks on the floor, a pile of couch cushions, something heavy to carry—and permission to PLAY. 💚

🌐 Find more family resources on the Parent Resources page at www.buildingkidsteps.com

Before we expect… we build. 🌱

Finish Strong Friday: SOMEWHERE IN THE MIDDLE ❤️

I've been thinking a lot about progress this week.

I am a destination person. 😂 Give me a goal and my brain immediately wants to see the whole road between where we are and where we're trying to go.

And sometimes that's a good thing.

In therapy, we need to know where we're headed. We need goals. We need a plan. We need to understand the skills we're trying to build and why they matter.

As parents, we do it too.

We look ahead toward communication. Independence. Walking. Eating. Reading. Friendships. School. Adulthood.

We see the mountain.

And sometimes we stand at the bottom, look ALL the way up there and think:

How in the world are we ever going to get from HERE to THERE?

Maybe you've felt that way too.

Maybe your child just received a diagnosis.

Maybe you're watching other children reach milestones that still seem far away.

Maybe you've been working on the same skill for what feels like forever.

Maybe something your child could do last month suddenly seems hard again.

Or maybe this has nothing to do with therapy at all.

Maybe there's simply something in your own life that feels like a very long way from where you hoped you'd be.

Here's what I've been reminding myself:

We don't have to climb the whole mountain today.

We need to know where we're going.

And then we need to come back to where our feet are.

What is the next right step?

For a child, maybe it's one word.

One sound.

One bite.

One independent step.

One attempt before asking for help.

One transition that went a little better.

One moment of regulation that came five minutes faster.

One “I'll try.”

Sometimes progress is so small that we almost miss it because we're staring at something so much bigger.

But half an inch still counts.

One less cue counts.

Trying again counts.

Recovering faster counts.

Recognizing what went wrong counts.

Asking for help counts.

Showing up again counts.

And sometimes progress isn't never running into the same wall again.

Sometimes it's meeting the same wall a little differently than you did before.

But there's another part of this that I don't want us to miss.

Because if we're not careful, even progress can become another thing we chase.

We can become so focused on helping a child reach the next milestone that we start treating today like it's simply somewhere we need to hurry through.

And our children are not unfinished projects waiting to become their future selves.

They are people worth knowing, loving and enjoying right now.

Yes, the summit matters.

Absolutely keep working toward it.

Keep teaching.

Keep practicing.

Keep showing up.

Keep believing there are possibilities you haven't reached yet.

But every once in a while, look around.

Because good things happen in the middle too.

There are things being learned here.

Relationships being built here.

Confidence growing here.

Mistakes being made and repaired here.

Laughter happening here.

Tiny victories that nobody outside your family may ever understand happening here.

There are even things that may only grow in the valley.

And sometimes, if we stop staring at the summit long enough to notice, there is an awful lot of beauty right where our feet are.

So this weekend, here's our Finish Strong Friday challenge:

Look toward where you're going. Then come back to where your feet are.

Find one next right step.

Take it.

Then find one thing that is already good right here.

Celebrate the quarter-inch.

Notice the flowers.

Enjoy the person climbing beside you.

Rest when you need to.

Laugh when the path gets ridiculous. 😂

And then, when it's time, take another step.

Because the summit matters.

But so does the life happening on the way there.

And maybe we don't have to wait until we reach the top to discover that there can be a little bit of glory somewhere in the middle, too. ❤️

💜 THERAPY THURSDAY | One Little Word. So Many Possibilities.

Today we're talking about one of our favorite early core words:

💚 GO!

Why GO?

Because GO gives a child a way to make something happen.

🚗 Ready, set… GO!
🫧 Bubbles… GO!
⬆️ GO up!
🚪 GO out!
🏃 GO play!

And once a child begins using GO, we can build from there:

Go in. Go out. Go up. Go down. Go fast. Go slow.

But here's the important part: we don't want to simply ask a child to say “go” over and over.

We create opportunities where GO actually means something.

🎥 Watch this week's Therapy Thursday video and see how you can turn one little word into lots of opportunities for real communication:

https://youtu.be/UMm0ll8qXfE?si=SJ4tifSqdEWVEJJL

🌱 And for more ideas, videos, and tools you can use at home, visit the Parent Resources page at:
www.buildingkidsteps.com

Don't just teach a word. Give it a purpose. 💚

Building Kid Steps | Pediatric Rehab Clinic | Victoria, TX Building Kid Steps is a pediatric outpatient rehabilitation clinic for Speech, Occupational and Physical Therapy. We treat ages birth to 21 years of age.

Finish Strong Friday: WE’RE ALL HANGING ON

We all love a three-day weekend.

When Monday or Friday is a holiday, what do we say?

“YAY! THREE-DAY WEEKEND!” 🎉

Nobody says, “Oh no...a four-day work week.” 😂

In fact, a four-day work week sounds pretty fabulous.

Until you actually have one.

Because then Monday happens on Tuesday.

Wednesday feels like...who even knows.

Thursday comes around and somehow you are still convinced it should be Tuesday.

And then suddenly someone says tomorrow is Friday and you are thinking:

WAIT. WHERE DID FRIDAY COME FROM?

This week somehow felt like it barely existed and lasted forever at exactly the same time.

And maybe that is because losing one day does not just take a day off the calendar.

Sometimes it knocks us out of our rhythm.

And goodness, did it feel like a lot of us were out of rhythm this week.

Our kids seemed a little more out of sorts.

Schedules felt off.

There were more missed appointments.

More moments of “I just cannot quite get myself together today.”

And if we are being fair, the grown-ups were not exactly immune either. 😂

Because routine does something for all of us.

It gives our brains and bodies a rhythm. We know what comes next without having to think quite so hard about it.

And when that rhythm gets disrupted, some of us bounce right back.

Some of us need a little longer.

Sometimes the calendar has moved on before our brains and bodies have caught up.

And the best way I can describe my own brain this week is this:

The Titanic. 😂

One end of the ship was sticking straight up in the air.

The other end was already under water.

And I was somewhere in the middle holding onto a chair that was sliding out from underneath me thinking:

Could somebody PLEASE just make the ship horizontal for five minutes?

Not fix it.

Not magically patch every hole.

Not put all the furniture back where it belongs.

Just level the floor long enough for me to get my feet underneath me.

Because once I can stand up, I can start figuring out the rest.

And maybe that is what some of our kids needed this week too.

Sometimes we are asking them to listen, transition, communicate, follow directions, finish the homework, put on the shoes, participate, calm down...

while their floor is still tilted.

They may not be refusing to help patch the holes.

They may just be trying to get their feet underneath them.

And then there is the other piece.

Everybody has a ship.

Your child has one.

You have one.

The therapist has one.

The teacher has one.

The receptionist has one.

The person answering the phone has one.

And sometimes everybody’s ship is tilted at exactly the same time.

That is when we start crashing into each other.

We misunderstand.

We answer a little more sharply than we intended.

We do not always show up as the very best version of ourselves.

That does not make unkindness okay.

But maybe it reminds us that when someone else’s hard moment bumps into ours, we do not always have to crash back.

Maybe they are hanging on too.

And sometimes the person who is supposed to help everyone else regulate is hanging onto the furniture in their own ship.

That matters too.

Maybe before we try to fix everything, everybody needs a minute.

Uuuuuuhhhhhhaaaaaahhhhh. 😮‍💨

Breathe.

Have the cry.

Say the prayer.

Sit quietly.

If your child loves hugs, hug them.

Cuddle on the couch.

If touch is not their thing, turn on some music and dance ridiculously around the living room.

Spin.

Swing.

Go outside.

Kick a ball.

Laugh.

Sit beside each other without saying anything at all.

And if you need five minutes before you can help somebody else find their calm?

Take the five minutes.

Sometimes choosing your child means giving yourself enough space to come back to them regulated enough to connect.

The laundry will still be there.

The dishes will absolutely still be there.

The paperwork is not going anywhere.

We are not ignoring the holes in the ship.

We are just giving ourselves a minute to get the floor level before we start trying to patch them.

Because regulation does not mean we never get knocked out of rhythm.

It means, little by little, we learn what helps us find our way back.

So this weekend, maybe do not spend all of it trying to make up for the week.

Give yourself permission to reset from it.

Find one thing that helps your family exhale.

Reconnect.

Find your footing.

Give yourself a little grace.

And maybe give somebody else a little extra grace too.

Because we are all carrying something.

We are all going to get knocked off balance sometimes.

And we are a whole lot more likely to find our footing if we stop crashing into each other while we do it.

We’re all hanging on, friends. Let’s be kind while we find our way back to level. ❤️

And one tiny practical note from your friends at BKS 😂:

If this short week knocked your therapy schedule out of rhythm too, reach out and let us help you find a make-up time next week.

We’ll get that rhythm back too. 😉

Finish Strong Friday: FROM WHERE I’M STANDING

Last Friday, I told you about the incredible blood-orange moon I saw hanging in a completely dark sky before daybreak.

Well...here are the pictures. 😂

And you're just going to have to trust me when I tell you:

This is NOT what I saw.

These pictures were taken within minutes of each other.

Same place.
Same morning.
Same moon.
Same person standing there looking at it.

But look at them.

In the first pictures, my phone adjusted for the darkness so much that the sky looks almost like daylight and that incredible blood-orange moon looks a little like a blurry sun.

The last picture comes closer. You can see that it really was dark. You can see the lights from my vehicle. You can see a little more of the sky the way it actually looked.

But even that picture doesn't capture it.

And I started thinking...

How often do we do this to each other?

We see one picture.

One behavior.

One therapy session.

One interaction.

One moment in somebody else's day.

And we think we understand the whole view.

But we aren't standing where they're standing.

As therapists, we have a particular view of your child.

We have training. We have clinical experience. We have evaluations and objective data. We know developmental milestones and treatment strategies. We may recognize patterns that are difficult to see when you're living inside them every single day.

That view matters.

But parents have a view we will never completely have.

You know what mornings look like.

You know what happens when your child is tired.

You know what getting dressed can take.

You know what happens at the grocery store, at Grandma's house, with siblings, at bedtime, in the car, when plans change or when absolutely everyone has had enough for one day.

You know the victories that look tiny to everyone else but took months of work.

That view matters too.

A parent may tell us, “He does this at home,” when we've never seen it in therapy.

Both can be true.

A therapist may say, “She can do this independently here,” while a parent thinks, You should see what happens when we try that at 7:00 at night.

Both can be true.

Same child. Different exposure settings.

Neither one of us can see the whole iceberg.

And that's why communication matters so much.

Instead of deciding whose picture is “right,” what if we put our pictures on the table?

Tell me what you see. I'll tell you what I see.

Tell me what works at home.

Tell me what doesn't.

Tell me when the strategy I gave you sounds wonderful in a therapy room but absolutely does not work in your real life.

And let us share what we're seeing too—even when it may be hard to hear.

Because clarity and transparency bring more of the iceberg above the water.

And the more we can see, the better course we can chart together.

There is something else I believe deeply as a therapist:

I cannot save a child.

And I'm not supposed to.

My job is to guide.

To teach.

To challenge.

To encourage.

To provide tools.

To share what I know.

To help families see what may be possible.

And sometimes to say, “I think we need to try a different course.”

But the day-to-day trenches matter too.

Because whether a child has a disability or not, we aren't trying to create a life where nothing is ever difficult.

We're helping build a person who has tools for when life is difficult.

A person who learns to communicate.

To problem-solve.

To ask for help.

To try again.

To adapt.

To advocate for themselves.

To discover, little by little:

“Maybe I can't do this...yet.”

And eventually, our children have to begin navigating some of the course themselves.

That's why parents and therapists need each other.

Not because one of us has the whole answer.

But because we're standing in different places, and each of us can see something the other cannot.

So here's this week's Finish Strong Friday challenge—for parents, therapists, teachers, caregivers, and honestly, all of us:

Before you decide you understand someone else's situation from the picture you can see...

ask them what it looks like from where they're standing.

Listen.

Share what you see.

Be willing to put both views on the table.

You don't have to be standing where I'm standing to believe me when I tell you what I see.

And I don't have to be standing where you're standing to value what you know.

When we're helping a child chart a course, we need both views.

Because sometimes the picture is real...

and still doesn't come close to capturing the whole view.

Finish strong, friends. ❤️

Happy Thursday

🌱 THERAPY THURSDAY | It Looks Like Crawling…

But our therapists see a whole lot more. 💚

We usually think of crawling as something babies do before they learn to walk.

So why might you see an older child crawling during therapy?

Because crawling brings a LOT of systems together at the same time.

🧠 Right side + left side working together
💪 Shoulders + core building stability
👀 Eyes + body coordinating movement
🖐️ Hands + joints + muscles taking in sensory information
↔️ Crossing midline and coordinating both sides of the body
🧩 Motor planning + body awareness figuring out where the body is and what to do next

And those foundational abilities are important far beyond gross motor development.

They are part of the sensory-motor foundation children draw on for things like sitting and attending, using their hands together, handwriting, visual tracking, moving across a page, and participating in reading and learning tasks. 📚✏️

Crawling also gives the body repeated opportunities to practice coordinated movement patterns that are part of early development—including patterns associated with the natural integration of early reflexes.

So when you see a therapist build a tunnel, put toys on the floor, or send an older child through an obstacle course on hands and knees…

They're probably not just practicing crawling.

They're working on the foundation underneath a whole lot of other skills. 🌱

👇 Take a look at this month's Foundations First: Why Crawling Matters for more of the WHY—and don't miss the Try This at Home ideas.

🏡 You can also find more information, videos, and family resources on the Parent Resources page at:

🌐 www.buildingkidsteps.com

Sometimes therapy looks like play.

But there's usually a whole lot happening underneath it. 💚

🌱 THERAPY THURSDAY | It Looks Like Crawling…

But our therapists see a whole lot more. 💚

We usually think of crawling as something babies do before they learn to walk.

So why might you see an older child crawling during therapy?

Because crawling brings a LOT of systems together at the same time.

🧠 Right side + left side working together
💪 Shoulders + core building stability
👀 Eyes + body coordinating movement
🖐️ Hands + joints + muscles taking in sensory information
↔️ Crossing midline and coordinating both sides of the body
🧩 Motor planning + body awareness figuring out where the body is and what to do next

And those foundational abilities are important far beyond gross motor development.

They are part of the sensory-motor foundation children draw on for things like sitting and attending, using their hands together, handwriting, visual tracking, moving across a page, and participating in reading and learning tasks. 📚✏️

Crawling also gives the body repeated opportunities to practice coordinated movement patterns that are part of early development—including patterns associated with the natural integration of early reflexes.

So when you see a therapist build a tunnel, put toys on the floor, or send an older child through an obstacle course on hands and knees…

They're probably not just practicing crawling.

They're working on the foundation underneath a whole lot of other skills. 🌱

👇 Take a look at this month's Foundations First: Why Crawling Matters for more of the WHY—and don't miss the Try This at Home ideas.

🏡 You can also find more information, videos, and family resources on the Parent Resources page at:

🌐 www.buildingkidsteps.com

Sometimes therapy looks like play.

But there's usually a whole lot happening underneath it. 💚