Boy do they have a lot going on. Often times they are just BURSTING to tell me something and will come straight up to me and tell me what’s on their mind regardless of whether I am already talking to someone.
Well they used to.
That was before I saw this truly genius little technique from a friend.
I was chatting with her one day when her (then 3-year-old) son wanted to say something. Instead of interrupting though, he simply placed his hand on her wrist and waited. My friend placed her hand over his to acknowledge him and we continued chatting.
After she had finished what she was saying, she turned to him. I was in awe! So simple. So gentle. So respectful of both the child and the adult. Her son only needed to wait a few seconds for my friend to finish her sentence. Then she gave him her complete attention.
My husband and I started implementing this straight away. We explained to Jack and Sarah that if they want to talk and someone is already speaking, they need to place their hand on our wrist and wait. It took some practice and a few light taps on our own wrists as gentle reminders but I am so happy to report that the interrupting has all but stopped!!
No more, ‘wait‘. No more, ‘Please don’t interrupt‘. Just a simple gesture; a little touch of the wrist. That’s all.
Give it a try. It works!
…..
Wednesday, June 15, 2016
It’s “Summertime” Again and Leisure-Time and Play Starts for Our Children!
It’s amazing how fast a year goes by. I was thinking about the summertime and how important it is for our children both in school and home to continue to use their bodies to develop their cognitive, physical, social and emotional well-being through “leisure-time and play.”
Thinking about the benefits: 1. Play is important for healthy development of the brain; 2. As play is child-driven, children practice decision-making skills, move at their own pace, discover areas of interest on their own and ultimately engage fully in the passions they wish to pursue. However, when adults control play – such as in organized sports – children have to follow to adult rules and concerns (like winning) and lose some of the benefits play offers them, particularly in developing creativity, leadership and group skills. Note: Play offers parents a wonderful opportunity to engage fully with their children; 3. Leisure-Time helps children learn how to work collaboratively, to share, to negotiate, to resolve conflicts and learn self-advocacy skills; 4. Leisure-time allows for peer interactions. It is an important component of social-emotional learning; 5. Leisure-Time protects against the effects of pressure and stress.
What kind of other benefits are there for play and leisure-time? What kind of games can they benefit from during the summertime? Some camps, schools, after-school activities I have seen are hula hoops, parachutes, lots of music like playing musical chairs without using chairs (That is the last rear-end to touch the ground is out of the game) or “Everyone wins relay race.” (That is when you have a trio race with tied shoes and you come to the finish line, you wait for the others so all the relays cross the finish line at the same time and no one loses.)
Wednesday, March 9, 2016
DIY Paint Chip Easter Garland
I’m a bit of a hoarder when it comes to paint chips (see exhibit A below). They all look so lovely in the hardware store that I have a hard time sticking to my intended color scheme. As a result, I have quite a collection.
Lately I’ve been eyeing my stack and formulating a few simple projects in my head. The first of which I present to you today – a DIY Easter egg garland.
This was super easy and turned out even better than I’d hoped. I love how the white line in the middle mimics the look of a plastic egg. I even enjoy the slight reflection of words from the back of the paint chips when it’s strung in front of a mirror.
You can use this to print and cut out an egg template. I used Home Depot’s Behr paint chips, which have 4 colors per card, and cut them in half eliminating all white except for the line between the two color shades.
I traced the egg on the back of the card (so there wouldn’t be any residual pencil marks on the front) and then cut them out.
Lastly, I punched two small holes in the top of each egg with an extra small hole punch and threaded them onto a piece of waxed cotton. The cotton did a great job of preventing slippage.
Once all your eggs are strung up you just have to find the perfect spot for them. Mine has already changed locations a few times and it’s not even April yet… I may have to make a few more.
'How much does it hurt?' For preschoolers, cognitive development can limit ability to rate pain
Date:
February 3, 2016
Source:
Wolters Kluwer Health
Summary:
'Rate your pain on a scale of zero to ten' -- for most adults and older children, it's a simple concept. But preschool-aged children generally lack the cognitive skills needed to make reliable pain ratings, say experts.
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FULL STORY
"Rate your pain on a scale of zero to ten"--for most adults and older children, it's a simple concept. But preschool-aged children generally lack the cognitive skills needed to make reliable pain ratings, according to an article in PAIN®, the official publication of the International Association for the Study of Pain (IASP). The journal is published by Wolters Kluwer.
"Using a scale to estimate and report pain intensity is a complex mental process and is often challenging for children under the age of five or six," write Jenny Yun-Chen Chan of University of Minnesota-Twin Cities and Carl L. von Baeyer of University of Manitoba, Winnipeg. They discuss cognitive (intellectual) development issues affecting children's ability to rate their pain, and discuss modifications for more developmentally appropriate pain assessments in the preschool age group.
For Kids Under Five, Pain Intensity Ratings Aren't So Simple
Asking patients to rate pain intensity is a routine part of everyday healthcare, and in research evaluating the impact of pain and the effectiveness of pain treatments. But in both settings, pain ratings are less often obtained in preschool-aged children.
That's because children younger than five may "report their pain in idiosyncratic ways that appear inappropriate for the context," Chan and von Baeyer write. Factors like memory of pain and knowledge of magnitude and symbolic processing limit preschoolers' ability to make pain self-assessments.
Words used to describe pain--such as "ow" or "hurt"--emerge as early as 18 months of age, and toddlers can point to a part of their body that hurts. By three years, most children have basic pain vocabulary. But it's not until age five that most children can "accurately describe concrete causes, perceptions, and intensity of pain," according to the authors.
That partly reflects the cognitive process of "explicit memory," which is influenced by language ability and social interactions. For example, children look to their parents to assess whether a painful event is trivial or threatening. Past pain experience also plays a role--preschoolers who have undergone surgery make pain intensity ratings more similar to those of older children.
"Knowledge of magnitude"--especially the understanding of magnitude relations--is also important for pain ratings. Two- and three-year-olds can compare and label two objects but they may have trouble with intermediate rankings, especially in unfamiliar situations.
Young children are sometimes asked to use symbols to denote their pain--for example, pointing to pictures of faces or using poker chips as "pieces of hurt." But for two- and three-year-olds, it may be difficult to distinguish between the object itself and the hurt it is supposed to represent. As with numerical scales, the typical five-year-old has the skills to use these alternative tools while most three-year-olds do not.
Chan and von Baeyer propose some modifications for simplifying self-report pain scales for preschoolers, based on cognitive developmental research--for example, using tools with no more than three response options and considering the child's past pain experiences. The authors also note that pain intensity ratings are just one method for assessing one aspect of pain. They add, "Thus it is important, perhaps especially so with young children, to incorporate multiple methods, such as observation and parent report, and to assess multiple aspects of pain to better understand patients' experience and provide appropriate treatment."
Story Source:
The above post is reprinted from materials provided by Wolters Kluwer Health. Note: Materials may be edited for content and length.
Journal Reference:
Jenny Yun-Chen Chan, Carl L von Baeyer. Cognitive developmental influences on the ability of preschool-age children to self-report their pain intensity. PAIN, 2015; 1 DOI: 10.1097/j.pain.0000000000000476
Daycare teacher Belia Fuentes interacts with infants and toddlers at Buena Vista center in Watsonville. The children are playing with traditional stacking toys.
If parents want to help their babies learn to talk, they need to ditch the chattering electronic toys and bring back the books and blocks.
That’s the conclusion of Anna V. Sosa, an associate professor at Northern Arizona University, who conducted an experiment to determine whether the type of toy used during parent-child play influenced the quantity and quality of communications.
Sosa gave parents simple board books, traditional toys such as blocks, puzzles and shape sorters, and battery-operated toys such as a talking farm and a baby laptop and cell phone. Sosa then asked the parents to play with their child at home for 15 minutes at a time, twice a day, for three days. During each playtime, the parents used one type of toy or book. The children, who ranged in age from 10 to 16 months, wore a vest with a recorder to record their interactions. At this age, the infants typically relied on baby talk, such as “gah,” or single words.
The responsiveness of the caregiver, Sosa said, “is the No. 1 thing that seems to influence language development — are they tuned in to that child.”
The more parents talk to their children, the larger those children’s vocabularies, which can affect their achievement in school, researchers have found. Children from high-income, well-educated families can hear up to 30 million more words by the age of 3 than children in low-income, less-educated households. This research finding has been dubbed The Thirty Million Word Gap.
Although the parents in Sosa’s study were fairly homogeneous – mostly white, well-educated mothers – there were substantial differences in how much they talked to their babies, Sosa said. The babies wore the recorders for up to 16 hours during the day, making it possible for Sosa and her assistants to note those differences.
“We had parents who were super talkative and parents who over the course of the three days weren’t talking very much,” Sosa said. “We analyzed the results of the more chatty and less chatty parents.”
The less chatty parents talked a lot less, but in all cases, the books and traditional toys inspired the most verbal interactions.
“I was surprised at how consistent the results were,” Sosa said.
A recent study found that reading books aloud provides exposure to a wider vocabulary than simply talking to children. In the Sosa study, books also were best at encouraging the most words and more content-specific words, even though the board books given to the parents were mostly pictures with few words.
“They weren’t story books,” Sosa said. “But even with a limited number of words, they provided some sort of script that encouraged parents to talk.”
“For families where reading books is not a preferred activity or the child is too active and doesn’t want to sit and look at a book, traditional toys may be a valuable alternative for parent-infant playtime,” said Anna V. Sosa, an associate professor at Northern Arizona University.
Though not as stimulating as books, traditional toys were also substantially better than electronic toys in encouraging more talking and content-specific words from the adults.
“For families where reading books is not a preferred activity or the child is too active and doesn’t want to sit and look at a book, traditional toys may be a valuable alternative for parent-infant playtime,” Sosa said.
Overall, the results “provide a basis for discouraging the purchase of electronic toys for babies that are promoted as educational and are often quite expensive,” she said.
Electronic toys may work as entertainment to keep babies occupied while parents are busy, “but there is no evidence that kids this young can learn language that way,” Sosa said.
Long-term benefits of improving your toddler's memory skills
Early intervention: New research shows that preschoolers with poor short-term recall are more at risk of dropping out of high school
Date:
January 12, 2016
Source:
Concordia University
Summary:
Preschoolers who score lower on a memory task are likely to score higher on a dropout risk scale at the age of 12, new research shows. In a new article, the authors offer suggestions for how parents can help kids improve their kid's memory.
If your toddler is a Forgetful Jones, you might want to help boost his or her brainpower sooner rather than later. New research shows that preschoolers who score lower on a memory task are likely to score higher on a dropout risk scale at the age of 12.
"Identifying students who are at risk of eventually dropping out of high school is an important step in preventing this social problem," says Caroline Fitzpatrick, first author of a study recently published in Intelligence, and a researcher at Concordia's PERFORM Centre.
She and the study's other researchers, who are affiliated with the Université Sainte-Anne and Université de Montréal, have suggestions for how parents can help kids improve their memory.
The study examines responses from 1,824 children at age two and a half, and then at three and a half. That data is then compared to the school-related attitudes and results of these children when they hit grade seven.
Results were clear: those that do better on a memory-testing imitation sorting task during toddlerhood are more likely to perform better in school later on -- and therefore more likely to stay in school. The imitation sorting task is specifically effective in measuring working memory, which can be compared to a childs mental workspace.
"Our results suggest that early individual differences in working memory may contribute to developmental risk for high school dropout, as calculated from student engagement in school, grade point average and whether or not they previously repeated a year in school," says Fitzpatrick.
"When taken together, those factors can identify which 12 year olds are likely to fail to complete high school by the age of 21."
Help at home
"Preschoolers can engage in pretend play with other children to help them practise their working memory, since this activity involves remembering their own roles and the roles of others," says Linda Pagani of the Université de Montréal, co-senior author.
"Encouraging mindfulness in children by helping them focus on their moment-to-moment experiences also has a positive effect on working memory."
Pagani also notes that breathing exercises and guided meditation can be practised with preschool and elementary school children. In older kids, vigorous aerobic activity such as soccer, basketball and jumping rope have all been shown to have beneficial effects on concentration and recall.
The researchers note that another promising strategy for improving working memory in children is to limit screen time -- video games, smartphones, tablets and television -- which can undermine cognitive control and take time away from more enriching pursuits.
"Our findings underscore the importance of early intervention," says Fitzpatick.
"Parents can help their children develop strong working memory skills at home, and this can have a positive impact on school performance later in life."
Story Source:
The above post is reprinted from materials provided by Concordia University. Note: Materials may be edited for content and length.
Journal Reference:
Caroline Fitzpatrick, Isabelle Archambault, Michel Janosz, Linda S. Pagani. Early childhood working memory forecasts high school dropout risk. Intelligence, 2015; 53: 160 DOI: 10.1016/j.intell.2015.10.002
Tuesday, January 12, 2016
Physical Fitness in Early Childhood: What's Developmentally Appropriate
By Rae Pica
No pain, no gain. Target heart rate. Pumping up. These are all expressions we relate to fitness for adults. But do the same terms apply to young children? Why should physical fitness be a concern during the early childhood years? Don't young children get all the activity they need naturally by being children? Certainly, they are active enough to be physically fit! Unfortunately, the statistics suggest otherwise. On average, children ages two to five spend about 25 ½ hours a week watching television (during a year, this is as much time as children spend is school), and this number doesn't include time spent playing video games or working with computers. Some studies show up to 50 percent of American children are not getting enough exercise (Taras, 1992). Research also indicates that:
40 percent of five- to eight-year-olds show at least one heart disease risk factor, including elevated cholesterol, hypertension, and obesity;
the first signs of arteriosclerosis (hardening of the arteries) are appearing at about age five; and
the number of overweight children has doubled in the last decade.
In the past, heart disease risk factors were rarely seen in anyone under the age of 30. Of equal significance are the facts that obese children tend to become obese adults, and that children with high blood pressure are likely to become adults with high blood pressure. All of this indicates that "just being a kid" is not what is used to be and is no longer enough to keep individuals healthy. The Good News Since scare tactics are not always the best means of motivation, here's the good news regarding physical fitness:
Children who are physically active and experience success in movement activities show higher levels of self-esteem and a greater sense of accomplishment.
Physical activity helps children get through the day without fatigue and makes them more alert.
Fit children are more likely to participate in sports, dance, games, and other physical activities that improve muscular strength and endurance, flexibility, cardio-respiratory endurance, and body composition.
Many health problems are preventable. With an estimated 250,000 deaths a year in the United States caused by low levels of activity and fitness, the solution appears to be as simple as getting up and moving! Although there is currently little research suggesting that childhood physical activity affects childhood health, it is believed that individuals who are physically active as children are likely to remain physically active as adults. Therefore, physical activity in childhood may indeed have an effect on adult health. The key to physical activity in early childhood is enjoyment. For adults, success might be defined in terms of an extra lap run around the track, an extra ten pounds lifted, or getting through an extra 15 minutes of aerobics. For a preschooler, success in any activity is simply a matter of how much fun it is! What Early Childhood Professionals Can Do Pangrazi and Corbin (1993) report that most children are involved in low-intensity, high-volume (long duration) activity each day and "this naturally occurring activity is consistent with the developmental levels of children" (p. 17). Therefore, teachers and caregivers need not be concerned with the type or intensity of the activity, as long as regular activity remains a part of the child's life. The Physical Best program (1989), developed by the American Alliance for Health, Physical Education, Recreation, and Dance, defines physical fitness as "a physical state of well-being that allows people to 1) perform daily activities with vigor, 2) reduce their risk of health problems relative to lack of exercise, and 3) establish a fitness base for participation in a variety of physical activities." If this definition of physical fitness is to become a reality for the children of today, they must be taught that physical activity is just as important in life as good hygiene and a proper diet. Teachers and caregivers must encourage, praise, and validate physical activity at every opportunity and serve as role models to the children in their care. Because Americans now burn fewer calories in the course of their daily lives, physical activity must be planned into each day. Yes, the competition with television, video games, and computers is steep, but children will never be as motivated to be physically active as they are during the early years. The fact is, children love to move! So parents and early childhood professionals are not without weapons in their war against sedentary lifestyles. Rae Pica is a movement education consultant and the author of Experiences in Movement, and the seven-book Moving & Learning Series. An adjunct instructor with the University of New Hampshire, she conducts movement workshops nationwide and has served as a consultant for Children's Television Workshop, the Head Start Bureau, and Children's World Learning Centers. References AAHPERD, (1989).Physical Best Program. Reston, VA: American Alliance for Health, Physical Education, Recreation, and Dance. Pangrazi, R.P., & Corbin, C.B. (1993).Physical fitness: Questions teachers ask. Journal of Health, Physical Education, Recreation, and Dance, 64(7), 14-19. Taras, H.L. (1992).Physical activity of young children in relation to physical and mental health. In C.M. Hendricks (Ed.) Young children on the grow: Health, activity, and education in the preschool setting(pp.33-42). Washington, DC: ERIC Clearinghouse.
Developmentally Appropriate Aerobic Activities Physical activity, like everything else in children's lives, should be appropriate for their level of development. Calisthenics and structured exercise regimens are not developmentally appropriate for young children and are not likely to contribute to a lifelong desire to keep moving. The following are examples of activities promoting both fitness and fun for young children.
Maroning- An energetic march around the room is a great fitness activity. You can provide an accompanying drumbeat or play a recording of a march. Challenge the children to swing their arms and raise their knees while keeping the rest of their bodies straight and tall.
The Track Meet- Running is a great aerobic exercise, and a lively piece of music in a steady 4/4 meter can help motivate the children. With school-age children, you can challenge them to race across the country and plot their daily progress on a U.S.map, thereby integrating physical fitness with geography and math lessons. Once around the room might, for instance, equal a mile on the map. With preschoolers, you could use a puzzle map instead. Every day that they run around the gym or playground or for the length of a favorite recording, another state is placed on the puzzle to show their progress.
Rabbits and 'Roos- Children love to pretend to be animals. Ask them to jump like rabbits and kangaroos, alternating from one to the other. Which is the larger of the two animals? Which would jump more heavily?
Giddy-Up- If there are children in your group who can't yet gallop, challenge the class to move like horses. Those children who can gallop will likely do so, and those who can't will simply pretend to be horses so that they can still meet your challenge and experience success.
In essence, any locomotor skill can be an aerobic activity if it is performed continuously. Begin slowly and gradually increase the length of the activities. Encourage the children to push themselves a bit further each time.
Boy do they have a lot going on. Often times they are just BURSTING to tell me something and will come straight up to me and tell me what’s on their mind regardless of whether I am already talking to someone.
