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.

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!

Two approaches to potty training

Potty training. How do those words make you feel? Is that a groan I hear? :-)

I have been through this process twice now, with a boy and a girl, and am currently in the middle of it again with another boy. I hope that the things I’ve learned may be of some help to some of you!

First method:

• read all the current potty training literature
• decide to wait until the child is “ready”. Start training at 2 years 9 months when there are no indications that he will ever be ready, and you are sick of changing diapers for 2 children.
• go hard for a week, on your own, washing poop and pee out of underwear and clothing every day. One success for the week, which you know was an accident. Feel that the child has an attitude problem rather than an understanding issue, in spite of a significant language delay.
• get stressed, angry, and escalate consequences, even though you know this will not help you or the child
• give up for a month
• keep trying with different motivators for about 6 months. Poop and pee accidents continue daily.
• talk to a friend who suggests M&M food rewards as per dog training principles.
• start M&Ms with a few more successes. Continue for 2 months more. Poop and pee accidents continue every second day.
• at 3.5 years, decide enough is enough, and throw away diapers for night and day. Tell child that he will stop making messes on day X. put the potty chair in the bedroom for early morning, and put waterproof sheets on the bed. Mentally prepare for accidents in the bed.
• Be amazed by complete overnight success. Daytime pee accidents dwindle to 1 or 2 per week, completely trained in 2 months.

the end.

Second method:

Daytime training:

• start child between 12-18 months on potty chair inside bathtub, once a day, with books. First goal is for child to be comfortable sitting for 15 minutes. Child achieves this within a week. Many pee & poop successes in this time.
• Second goal is for child to sit twice a day, unsupervised.  Child achieves this within 2 weeks.
• Third goal is for child to sit after each meal, and increase number of successes. Continue doing this until child is 21 months. Be amazed by early signs of physical awareness (holding diaper when wet, telling mom, etc).
• Try underwear on days at home. Use whatever combination is least stressful, eg diapers or pullups when out, diapers for naps and bedtime, underwear only when you are able to devote 90% attention to child for the morning or afternoon.
• Move child to toilet when physically large enough (about two years). Gradually remove supervision and lengthen sitting time to 10-15mins to increase chances of success. Keep to routine. Do not expect child to initiate, but respond if he/she does.
• Continue to gradually teach skills, language and concepts - pulling clothing up and down, wet and dry, wiping, poop and pee, “tell mom”, etc.
• When child is ready to initiate, praise extensively, and help only as much as necessary.

Nighttime training:

• wait until child has physical capacity to sleep all night without wetting (approx between 3 -4 years).  Remove pjs pants, diapers, and underwear - bare bottom only in bed. Get child up for “dream pee” before you go to sleep. Expect accidents. Expect early morning wake-ups.
• When child is able to go from dream pee to morning without wetting, try skipping the dream pee. If child wets, continue DP for another 2 weeks, then try again.
• Continue until child is able to go from bedtime to morning without wetting.

the end.

What method are you using?