Nordstroms Children's Sock Sale is Predictor of Good Grades for School Children

Nordstroms put their hand-linked-toe socks for children on their half-yearly sale this year. The socks are usually about $5 a pair, and are on for half price. I'm thrilled. Here's why.

1. I will be able to send my children to college, because I won't have spent their inheritance buying socks they can wear in their youth.

2. I believe I now hold stock in Nordstroms because of my past prolific sock purchasing, and now I can spend half of what I have spent in the past.

3. My children are able to conform to the norms of society by adhering to the suggested "sock-shoe" ratio outlined in the dress code of their school.

4. Sweaty, monkey feet. Enough said.

5. Their struggle with sensory integration is reduced dramatically when they can stand to wear socks with shoes.

So, my kids struggle with something called "Sensory Integration." Basically, we all have senses. We learn about them as children. There is sight, sound, touch, taste, and hearing. Those are the basic ones. There are also a few more that we often don't talk about. No, I'm not talking about ESP...I'm talking about some heavy duty, psychological definitions. The other "modalities" interact with the basic 5 senses. The two most interesting to me are "vestibular" and "proprioception." There are other modalities, such as the ability to feel pain, temperatures, etc. Even so, I usually group those with "touch" because they have to do with how things feel to us. For the sake of this little 30 minutes I have to blog, and because I'm no psychologist, I will only touch on the two that are most pressing to my family.

Vestibular is your sense of balance, from the Latin name, vestibule, for the space between the front door and the inner part of your house. In our ears, we have a space like this that regulates balance. Therefore, the "vestibular" sense is our sense of equilibrium when we are on our feet--because we are bipedal...most of the time.

Proprioception is roughly your sense of spatial awareness. The word comes from the Latin word "proprius" (or proprio in Spanish and Portuguese) meaning "self", and "perception" being the way that we perceive ourselves. So, it is how we see ourselves in space, or basically a very strong case for why I'm clumsy.

Okay, boys and girls, put on your thinking caps and fly your nerd flag for a moment. We are going to go under, swim deep, and stay down there for a little. Trust me, you will be rewarded.So, why do these senses matter? Well, we integrate our sensual experiences (not x-rated, I mean experiences with the senses) with each other to interpret our surroundings and to make judgments as to what we are doing. For example, we integrate our sense of smell and taste and interpret them together. We integrate our sense of sight with our sense of hearing to understand and have an experience. We integrate many of our senses as we interpret things in our lives. If we can't integrate our experiences, then we struggle to keep up with today's fast-paced, and overwhelming world.

When there is dysfunction in this integration, problems occur. My children struggle with SID, or sensory integration dysfunction. There are several types, but theirs mainly is about the inability to discern between sensory experiences and they become overwhelmed and shut down. That means that if their tag in their shirt, or seam in their sock, bother them, they can't focus on math. At the end of the day, if their chair feels to hard, they can't concentrate. They often are overwhelmed by noise if it comes at the wrong time, such as the sound of people chewing food or a movie theatre that is turned up very loud. If light is too bright to them, they can't handle it. If there is too much distraction around them they shut down. Many of these things are distracting to children all along, but neurotypical children learn to block these things out as they mature. My children are struggling with this.

Did I mention that the local ER knows my third son by name because we have had his head stapled and stitched up so many times? (struggles with integration of proprioception and vision)

To overcome this, we have embarked on a crusade to remove distraction. We began by buying underwear and socks that don't have a seam. We have moved them each to their own rooms, and given them space to work in and sleep in. We have put fans in their rooms, if they don't have a ceiling fan, to give them some white noise.

Sounds like we have "kobe beef" children, because we trip over ourselves to make their lives "just so." Other parents may see us as over indulgent in this aspect of our lives, but we are just trying to hold on and keep everyone up to speed.

In our house these socks are basically like cigarettes in prison.