Whole Child Development
As I’ve been writing about routines and transitions, I’ve thought back to an interesting product I discovered not long ago. This product, called the Time Timer, displays time visually with a red segment that gets smaller as time progresses. This is a great way to help children understand the concept of time. Instead of verbal reminders, which often sound arbitrary to young children who can’t tell if 20 minutes is longer than 5 minutes, time becomes a visual concept.
Woodrow Wilson once said, “If you want to make enemies, try to change something.” Transitions are all about change, and that is why they can be so challenging. While asking a child playing with legos to “please put on your shoes” may sound like a simple request to us, from a child’s perspective we are suddenly barging through the door into the comfortable world they’ve created through their play. We are not just asking them to put on their shoes, we are asking them to immediately stop something gratifying, something unfinished, and to reject their own desires and impulses and obediently comply. Not such a simple request anymore, is it?
Those “lazy days of summer” are finally here, and while summer is often synonymous with the lack of structure, it is actually a great time to evaluate the routines you implement with your children. [Read more…]
I know it’s unbecoming to be a braggart, but there is one thing, about which I must boast. I won the March Madness bracket competition in my husband’s family this year. Now, I’m no bracketologist. I tend to make my picks based on which state the team is from, or who has the cooler sounding name, and I like to pick the underdog as much as reason will allow. I missed a lot of picks in my bracket, but the one pick that put me over was when I chose Duke. That pick I made based on the fact that I knew who their coach was.
I’m over at Simple Kids today with a guest post about supporting the development of social skills in preschoolers. Scoot on over and check it out!
My mom has always said that she hated Mother’s Day. Especially as a young mom. She says that every Mother’s Day, she would go to church and hear people speak about how wonderful, selfless, patient, and kind mothers are. How sacred their role is and how God-like they are. This was all intended to honor mothers and elevate the role of motherhood. What my mother came away with, however, was a gut full of guilt. She never felt she measured up to that idyllic “Mother’s Day Mom”.
My mom has always said that she hated Mother’s Day. Especially as a young mom. She says that every Mother’s Day, she would go to church and hear people speak about how wonderful, selfless, patient, and kind mothers are. How sacred their role is and how God-like they are. This was all intended to honor mothers and elevate the role of motherhood. What my mother came away with, however, was a gut full of guilt. She never felt she measured up to that idyllic “Mother’s Day Mom”.
I facilitated a training session with a group of preschool teachers recently, and as I was transcribing a list they had created of social skills they wish every child had, I couldn’t help but wonder if a few of them could be applied more frequently to ourselves as adults as well. Here are the ones that caught my eye. [Read more…]
“I just need more patience!” It’s a statement I hear from teachers and parents quite frequently. While there’s no magic pill for patience, there are a few things we can remember that help us muster up a bit more patience. Here is an article I wrote WAY back at the beginning of this blog, originally titled, Patience Comes From Understanding:
Photo provided by mikkimoo.
Learning is risky business. Think about it. Anytime we try something new, we are destined to fail before we can succeed. A child’s first steps often end with a fall. Scraped knees and colorful bruises are the tuition many children pay as they learn to ride a bike. And no child ever picked up her first book and read it cover to cover. When we invite children to learn something new, we are indeed inviting them to be brave enough to fail, so that they can learn to succeed.
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