Connections: Nancy Bixbee at A Balanced Child
In Connections every month, we will share a wonderful practitioner who specializes in child development, body, energy, traditional, or complementary therapy.
- Is your child having issues in school?
- Trouble concentrating?
- Staying organized?
- Having issues with reading or math?
- With coordination or motor skills?
- With social skills?
- With anxiety?
- With executive functioning abilities?
- Is your child lacking confidence or having issues with self-esteem?
If you answer ‘Yes’ to any of these questions, you should give Nancy Bixbee at A Balanced Child a call. She is an R.N. who has studied methodologies and practices to help children experience a smoother developmental pathway and a more cohesive brain-body connection. I think of her methods as an extension of occupational therapy or OT.
When my son completed OT for all of his sensory and motor issues, he was still experiencing problems with executive functioning. He was disorganized, could not in fact, get his homework from the house to the school. It was a mystery as his homework would be completed and I would actually see it go into his backpack and yet, POOF, it would magically disappear, lost in some black hole. He also could not use his planner. If something was recorded or not, it was treated the exact same way.
“What? I have homework? What assignments do I have?” It was so frustrating as I had to become a 5th grader again just to keep him on track.
At the same time, my daughter, who had never experienced any issues with development, was starting to lack confidence. She was just finishing 2nd grade and I’m sorry, that is way too young to start to see a dip in confidence.
We knew Nancy as she had been working at my children’s school and I thought, “Okay, let’s give A Balanced Child a try this summer. I don’t have any other options right now, so let’s see what happens.”
Talk about perfect. It was absolutely the best thing we could have done. Both children made major strides. People who saw my daughter grow up said they had never seen her so outgoing and full of confidence (their words, not mine). My favorite quote was, “I have known her for 5 years and in all of the years I have known her, she has never talked so much as she did today.” Yay.
As for my son, he started 6th grade with major improvements in his ability to actually pass in his homework and to use his planner. I did not have to become a 6th grader. Double yay.
A Balanced Child is located in a beautiful room, actually a sanctuary in Cummings Center in Beverly, MA, where Nancy does all of the work with the children herself.
Her methods involve a program, named Extra Lesson, combined with the use of bodywork for further alignment and flower essences for emotional support.
Extra Lesson looks like a combination of brain gym exercises, watercolor painting and schoolwork, but it is so much more than that.
During the first Extra Lesson assessment, Nancy will review your child’s midline barriers, laterality/sidedness, bi-lateral integration, spatial orientation and body geography, visual and auditory skills , motor planning, fine and gross motor abilities. For those of you who have experience with OT, this all sounds the same, doesn’t it?
However, it is not the same. This work actually goes deeper. Instead of your child plowing through ball pits, he or she will be performing movement exercises, painting and drawing. These exercises connect the brain with the body, center the body, align the hemispheres and open the lines of communication between and among the body. They give your child a grounding, calming effect while increasing body awareness and acuity.
Incorporating bodywork and flower essences, provides more physical and emotional support for your child while he or she is experiencing the developmental changes driven by this work. It is a masterful approach that is gentle, yet so effective.
Nancy Bixbee has a distinctive approach that is just as unique as she is. She is kind, compassionate and sensitive, yet she is direct, intelligent, and forthright. This combination provides the right balance for achieving the best results.
Nancy has blended the best of the traditional and complementary therapies to help your child develop into his or her full potential.
If your child is experiencing issues with anxiety, literacy, numeracy, attention, social skills, confidence, motor planning, organization, executive functioning, or self-esteem, call Nancy. She will do an assessment and then discuss it with you over the phone for as long as you need to understand the issues and to determine your child’s lesson plan.
Nancy contact information is: 978.922.2223 or nancybixbee@yahoo.com. Check out her website at http://www.wellbalancedchild.com.
