“Co-occupations”; The Joy of “Doing With”

Connect Occupational Therapy

Aug 24, 2023

A while ago, on an evening after dinner, I took my two girls for a bike ride. They are 3 and 6, and they were snugly squished into the bike trailer attached to my bike.

As I speedily traversed the cycle lanes in our neighbourhood, I thought a lot about the fact that biking together has to be one of my absolute favourite “co-occupations”.

A “co-occupation” is simply an activity that is “done with”. One that promotes emotional, physical, and responsive attachment.

And parenting is absolutely chocka-block with “co-occupations”.

For a new parent, co-occupations might look like:

Feeding
Rocking your baby to sleep
Babywearing
Changing diapers

And then as your child grows, they might look a bit more like:

Adventuring together
Gardening together
Playing with a ball together

A co-occupation is essentially something you do together, that you both feel good about.

I started biking with my kids more regularly in the lockdowns.

And I found it SUCH an enjoyable activity. I don’t have a flash bike, it’s about 15 years old from The Warehouse and it’s got rust specks and the tyres go flat more often than they should.

But, it’s enough to give me a sense of freedom.

And that sense of freedom is the essence of why cycling is such a cup-filling co-occupation for me and my kids.

When I go with my big boys, we go really fast and race each other (they win).
When we go as a family, we notice things in our neighbourhood together. We communicate with each other in a different way, and we experience a different sort of freedom that we don’t when we are pushing the buggy on a family walk.

Textbook definition – co-occupations occur when people perform an occupation in a mutually responsive, physical and emotional interconnected manner.

What "co-occupations" do you enjoy with your whanau? Can you identify them? Can you seek them out?

For further guidance to find your co-occupations and develop a sensory lifestyle together as a family, see our online course The In-Tune Parent.

Available for you to work your way through at your own pace, this course helps Maxed-Out Mama's of 2 - 8 year olds make key shifts to bring in more independent play, joy, and regulation for the whole household.