Ames & Ilg: Your X-Year-Old (series)

OK, well maybe it's not quite the end for this blog... I just had to post a review of these books. :-)

If you ever want reassurance about your child's behaviour at a specific age, or to gain detailed knowledge of what parenting challenges you are likely to face in the future, head to this 1980s Gesell Institute series by Louise Bates Ames and Frances Ilg. 

5 Top Communication Traps



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One of the aspects of being a parent that I find extremely frustrating is communication failure.  It drives me nuts when my child(ren) do not hear, do not acknowledge, or do not respond to my words.  Sometimes the failure is the child's lack of obedience.  However, far more often, the failure occurs on my part.

Skills Training 4: Task Planning and Execution

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One of my children finds it difficult to plan and execute tasks in a timely manner.  In short, this child is easily distracted.  This is a problem both at home, and at school, so we have been working with this child for about two years now on this one issue. 

Because of this, I have become more pro-active in training planning and execution skills with my other children as well.  This is very much a work in progress, as I am continually experimenting and learning strategies for training purposes, but here are some things I have learned along the way:

Skills Training 3: Pre-school and School-Aged Speech and Language

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Continuing my series on Skills Training, this post discusses strategies that you, the parent, can implement to support your preschool and school-aged child's speech and language development. 

This post assumes that your preschooler has achieved age-appropriate speech and language skills.  If not, or if your child stutters, please seek professional help, as delay in treatment makes problems harder to overcome.  You may also wish to read my post on Early Speech and Language Skills Training.

Skills Training 2: Early Speech and Language



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All children learn speech via modelling. Many children do not require any help in addition to this modelling, and will pick up sounds, words, and increasingly complex language without any difficulty. 

However, children who are not progressing, or who are progressing very slowly, do need professional help, and the earlier they get it, the more quickly they will overcome this early hiccup.

Caveat: I want to be very clear here that I am not a qualified teacher or speech therapist, but that I am writing as a mother with experience of speech therapy.  Most therapy sessions that I have attended require language skills to be worked on at home, and most of the tips I offer here have been gleaned from these therapy sessions.  Sally Ward's Baby Talk is an additional resource which has been extremely helpful.
 
The remainder of this post discusses what you, the parent, can do to support your child's early speech and language development.

Skills Training 1: Why?

I am a mother who by nature, leans towards letting children play by themselves, or with other children, and I place a high value on outside play, sibling play, and independent play.  However, I have had to learn how to play with and teach my children, because I am aware of the benefits, and of the possible detriments if I do not.

One of the goals I have in playing with and teaching my children is being intentional about training their skills in a wide range of areas: physical, verbal, social, independent living (see also my series on Chore Training), literacy, numeracy, money... the list is endless.

By planning for time and stategies to teach my children skills, I ensure that they have opportunity to learn and grow.  If I do not plan times and strategies to teach skills, then they may not have opportunity to learn what they need.  A no-brainer, right?!?

This series will focus on when and how I teach various skills to my children, and some difficulties we have along the way.

Defining Self-Control for Children



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Tonight, self-control was our bible teaching topic.  Somehow, when teaching scripture, the Holy Spirit graces me with the ability to simplify and give examples appropriate to the ages of my children (7.5 years, 5 years, and almost 3 years).  I know this is the Holy Spirit's work, because in general I am a really poor teacher, and I have no theology training!!!!

The definition that dropped into my head to teach the children tonight was this:

Sensory Processing: An Introduction

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I have had the opportunity over the past year to be educated in the basics of Sensory Processing. I am not an expert, but I thought it would be helpful to share some of the knowledge I have gained. The following notes are taken from Occupational Therapy workshops that I have attended, and associated handouts.

Know Your Child, Know Yourself

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The part of parenting I love best is discovering everything that makes my child special and unique - their gifts, quirks, temperament, and personality. 

I love comparing my children at specific ages, because it highlights how different they are. I love to stare at their faces when they are sitting or playing together, because I see how similar they are. I love to read about personality, developmental stages, sensory processing, love languages, and the like, because it helps me understand and value how uniquely each child is put together.

The longer I am a parent, the more value I place on knowing my child in order to parent that child well. But I am coming to understand that knowing myself is equally important.

For Moms in the Trenches

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 There have been times during my years as a parent when I thought I couldn’t keep going a moment longer due to a perfect storm of stress, lack of sleep, lack of wisdom, and/or lack of closeness with my loved ones. This post is written for others who may be enduring a bad time in the trenches right now.

Chore Training for School-Aged Children

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Today, I am continuing my series by detailing the methods I use for chore-training my school-aged children. (If you are interested in other age groups, you may wish to read the earlier posts in this series, Chore Training for Toddlers and Chore Training for Preschoolers). 

In this age group, I use chore training to focus on timeliness, responsibility, and attitude.

Starting Family Daycare: Part 2

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Two months after indulging myself in a good cry when my kids started at family daycare, I thought it was time to reflect on how that part of our life is going, and to give you an update.

Back then, my biggest concerns were my youngest child’s adjustment and napping, and my middle child’s safety.

Chore Training for Preschoolers

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I started this series by outlining why and how I start chore training for toddlers. Today, I am looking at continuing chore training for preschoolers: children age 3-5. 

While chore training for toddlers is about introducing the tasks in a positive way, chore training for the preschoolers is about building competency, independence, and self-discipline. 

When You Don't Like Your Kids



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There have been times in my life when I found my children adorable, cute, and a blessing.

 

There have been other times when I did not like them at all.

 

Usually, it is one child who is going through a developmental phase of challenge or conflict, not all three children at the same time (thank goodness!); but it is still a very uncomfortable feeling for this mom to realise “I love you, but I really don’t like you at all right now”.

 

Here’s what I do when this happens:

Chore Training for Toddlers

Jacob Willemsz Delff: Portrait of a Boy, Aged 2

Training my children to help with housework is something I value highly. Why?

• I believe that in a family, everyone should help to the best of their ability with the tasks required to keep a clean and tidy home.
• I believe that those who make messes should learn to clean them up.
• I believe that part of a parent’s job is to train children with a long-term goal of independent living, which includes basic housekeeping skills.
• I believe that a healthy attitude to work starts in the home.
• Finally, as much as I love him, my husband’s strengths do not include a love of order, and I want to pass on my own love of order to our children.

So I start when my children are mobile enough to help, and mature enough to understand and follow an instruction - somewhere between 18 months and 2 years.   I have found that at this age, my children are very keen to help, and are bored with the usual ‘baby’ toys and occupations - they are ready to start learning ‘real’ work.   In addition, at this age, they are usually down to 1 nap a day, and have oodles of time to spare.   Chore training is one way of keeping them out of mischief!

Does Good Parenting Equal Great Kids?

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Two recent, very different, blog posts from writers and moms I greatly respect, have sparked some thoughts in my mind. The first post was from Susan at Heart Pondering, the second from Val at Chronicles of a Babywise Mom. 

I’ve drawn a crude continuum to represent how I interpret these two posts - and my apologies to the authors if I’ve misrepresented them in any way!

Toddler Bed Transitions

When the time was ripe to move our eldest son from his crib to a big boy bed, I didn’t know enough to be concerned.   So we took him along when we bought the bed, and told him it would be his new bed (he seemed very excited).   We then took it home, set it up in his room, and took down the crib, all in one afternoon.  That night, he had his first sleep in the big bed, and amazingly, we had no problems with the transition.

Now that I have been a parent a bit longer, I know that not all kids deal with change this easily.  My youngest son, while a very placid, happy, charming boy, does not like big changes in his personal environment, and has been like this from infancy.

So when it came to transitioning him from the crib at age 2 years 3 months, we knew we needed to take it in baby steps.  I hope these will help you if you are dealing with a child like ours who doesn’t like change!

How Do Kids Learn Social Skills?

Now that two of my three children are in school, I am learning a lot about how kids learn to socialise and make friends.

My youngest son is 2 years 9 months, and currently loves to interact with strangers and test his smiles and verbal skills. He is in the very early stages of learning about other people.

Starting Family Daycare

My two younger children started at family daycare last week. They are booked in for one day a week to make it possible for me to start working. I have not yet landed a job, but my DH felt we should go ahead with daycare now.

The children started for a half day only, after visiting to play a few times while I met the caregiver and talked through our concerns. There were several:

• would my almost-3-year-old DS be able to nap in this environment?
• would DS adjust happily, given his personal dislike of change in general?
• would my almost-5-year-old DD be safe given her compulsion to mouth toys and other non-food objects?

Getting to know you: what's your parenting style?

I have been wondering for quite some time now about the link between personality, parenting style, and our choice and application of the parenting method(s) we favour.

Personally, I am an organised introvert who values self-knowledge. My parenting style favours structure over flexibility, and I value obedience in small children more highly than problem-solving. For these reasons, among many others, the Babywise and Growing Families materials are a natural fit.