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My littlest was beading a mountain of friendship pins this week, and she had strung all the decorated safety pins on a long purple string. I noted that when I was little, my friends and I would put them on our shoelaces. She gave me the strangest look.
But what was stranger than her look was that it dawned on me that I had completely forgotten to teach my child how to tie her own shoelaces! Oh, the guilt. Thankfully, my resilience skills are up to par, and rather than dwell on the fact that I had potentially failed as a mother, I thought about how we were going to solve this issue.
During this time of reflection, I reassured myself that although she could not tie shoelaces, she could knit a scarf. It’s definitely not a lack of fine motor skills holding her back. However, apparently knitting is higher up on my parenting priorities than tying shoelaces. To be honest, I also thought about going against all the ‘rules’ and seeing how far in life she could go without ever learning how to tie shoelaces, and the non-conformist in me was inspired. Who says she needs to wear shoes with laces? The only problem with this option was that I think she would look super cute in hightop sneakers.
The irony of all of this is I’ve done this before – the whole teaching a kid how to tie her shoelaces. I seriously can not remember how I did it. It’s been almost ten years!
I asked the littlest if she wanted to sit down and learn how to tie shoelaces, and she simply said, “Nope.” With 15 years of parenting behind me, I’ve learned to pick my battles very carefully which really means, I don’t pick many battles at all anymore. They’re right when they say your parenting relaxes with subsequent children. I respect that she doesn’t want to learn how to tie her shoelaces. That’s cool. And I’m cool.
In the meantime, she’ll wear slip-on shoes and shoes with velcro and buckles a little bit longer. She’s down with that, so I am too. One day she will want to learn, and when she does, I have some handy reference links up my sleeve!
A to Z Kids Stuff | Tying Shoes
youtube videos galore
Tying shoes step by step
Until then, I’ll keep my eyes open for the pair of shoes that will inspire her to learn and keep my shoe-lacing skills sharp. :)
Written by Nadine Reeves, Administrative Assistant
Resilience is the ability to bounce back from stress and adversity and take on new challenges. The Reaching In Reaching Out office (Promoting Resiliency in Young Children) shared this site with us:
http://storybook.fishfulthinking.com/FishfulThinking/WhatIs .
I have spent a bit of time exploring it, and I think it is FABULOUS! I thought everyone might find it interesting and useful.
Written by Heidi Payne, ECE Resource Centre Assistant
NOTE: Childreach is offering RIRO training this fall to assist early childhood educators and other child-serving professionals to become more aware of their own beliefs about adveristy and opportunity, and then in turn help young children learn to Reach IN to think more flexibly and accurately and to Reach OUT to take on new opportunities. For more information, please visit our website.
Please welcome our first-ever guest blogger , Chantelle Diachina!! I met Chantelle at a ChangeCamp Conference a few weeks ago, and I was so very flattered that she was an avid Childreach blog reader. When she offered to be a guest blogger, I nearly fell over in excitement. Absolutely!! Without wasting any time, she started writing, and here is her first (I hope there are many more!) guest post. Thank you, Chantelle!
Character Development Isn’t Just for Children
Who is teaching your child her values and morals? If you are not the one providing explicit lessons in how to ‘be’ in the world, then it’s safe to say your child’s character is being shaped by multiple third parties. Do you know who those third parties are?
In our society so little attention is paid to character development, yet it should come before the importance of good grades or how well a child plays soccer. If a child doesn’t have a strong internal compass, all energies spent ensuring he has a ‘good life’ are wasted.
In our family, my husband and I always keep in mind these three things when it comes to developing our children’s character:
1. We learn together (all of us are building our character)
2. We encourage each other (all of us need reminding from time to time)
3. We keep good company (it keeps us focused and strong)
We Learn Together:
As a parent, it’s just as important to rethink your own view of the world and how a human being living at her highest potential interacts with others, herself and the world around her. Some guiding questions for self-inquiry are:
Values: What are the things that are most important to you?
Morals: What internal rules and guidelines do you have to support you in reaching your fullest potential? (Do some of them need to be changed?)
Vision: What kind of world would you like to see your child grow up in? What kind of world would YOU like to live in?
Belief: What would you have to believe about yourself and place value in for your vision to happen?
Action: In what ways would you have to behave and act to contribute to your vision?
Adjust: What kind of environment would you have to be in to get the support you need in order to make action toward your vision?
We Keep Good Company:
Putting you and your child in the right environment is the best means of positive reinforcement and doesn’t just refer to physical environment. While your physical surroundings are important, it’s not always possible to pick up and move. But it could mean putting a stop to name calling during a disagreement or making more time for cuddling together. It might even mean changing who and what you associate with.
“It takes a whole village to raise a child” is an African proverb that rings true. While we may not have the same sense of community that our ancestors did, developing character greatly depends on more than one source to lean on.
For some it could be attending a weekly religious ceremony, others it may prefer finding a mentor or reading inspiring books (folktales and myths are great for children) or it could be as simple as connecting with a positive-minded friend. Better yet, it could be a combination of all of the above. For children to hear the same message from as many different sources as possible is extremely important because when it’s only coming from mom or dad, well, you’re just mom and dad – what do you know?
We Encourage Each Other:
The following are a few ideas that have worked well in our family and may work for you or spark ideas of your own:
- Use dry erase markers (Crayola Window markers work fantastic) to write quotes and phrases on your mirrors. When you get ready in the morning, it sets the tone for the day and in the evening while you get ready for bed, it holds you accountable as you reflect on your actions throughout the day. Have the kids choose and write their own “reminders.”
- Each week or month, create hand-decorated posters on a particular value or ethic to be reinforced. Hang them up in the kitchen for discussion at dinner and for a personal focus theme. Put them in a book and reuse when particular issues need to be addressed or a renewal of commitment needs to be made.
- We also have a secret code question in our house to hold us accountable for our actions: “What kind of seed did you just plant: a weed or a flower?” This reminds us that every thought and action has a consequence. If we think ahead we can have a greater influence over outcomes and if we recognize soon enough that we have planted a weed, we can change our actions (in many cases, reactions) to ensure a more pleasant consequence for others and ourselves.
Consciously teaching your child morals and values every day requires a lot of thought, time and energy, but it definitely has the makings of a beautiful blossom. It also has an added benefit – it makes you become a better adult. While the process of updating, rearranging, adding and dismissing the constructs of your worldview never ends, when you put more thought into how you live your life and why you think the way that you do, chances are you will create more value for yourself, your child and the world around you.
About Chantelle Diachina
After six years as a London resident, Chantelle Diachina, a busy wife and mother of two, is very proud to call the Forest City her home. She is currently the client relations manager at rtraction, and brings with her over 10 years of prior experience as an elementary school teacher. Chantelle is also a certified yoga teacher and teaches evening yoga classes at The Athletic Club. Her academics include a Bachelor of Science degree in Education from Wayne State University and a Master’s of Education degree in education from The University of Windsor. She recently graduated from Fanshawe College’s Corporate Communications and Public Relations graduate studies program receiving honours and the 2010 London Life/IABC Leadership award for up and coming communicators. In 2010 Chantelle appeared as a guest panelist on TVO public affairs show The Agenda with Steve Paikin and volunteered as editor and contributing writer of the 2010 Special Olympics Canada Summer Games monthly newsletter, “The Insider”.
Teach your children these simple rules of playground safety and conduct so that they can play safely and courteously at all times.
- Don’t play with or on broken toys or equipment. If a toy breaks while you are playing with it, give it to an adult or tell an adult about it.
- Know and obey the rules of the playground.
- Play in the playground only when it is open.
- Approach other people’s pets carefully. If they are scared of you, they may hurt you.
- Get off the seesaw only when both riders have both their feet on the ground.
- Do not destroy the equipment. Treat it as if it were your own.
- Throw trash in the the trash cans or baskets.
- Watch out for others using the playground.
- Do not sit at the bottom of the slide. Climb up the ladder, not the slide.
- Do not walk directly in front of or behind moving swings.
Discuss these rules with your children, and reinforce them on the playground.
Over the next week or so, we are going to post some ideas and activities related to rainbows and colours which is pretty appropriate for some of those drizzly, rainy days we’ve been having recently. You can incorporate these teaching suggestions into play with your child(ren) or into your childcare program.
The rainbow unit is an exciting exploration of the world of colours. You will be teaching basic colour concepts throughout these activities.
Here’s some background information to start you off!
Rainbows
A rainbow is divided into bands of colours: purple, blue, green, yellow, orange and red. It is formed by the refraction (bending) and reflection (turning back) of the sun’s rays in drops of rain. The light bends at different angles, separating it into its composite colours. A rainbow appears in front of an observer whose back is to the sun. A rainbow can be seen from a few feet or a long distance away.
There are several types of rainbows. The light of a primary rainbow is reflected once. The colour sequence from the outside to the inside of the arc is red, orange, yellow, green, blue and purple. This is the brightest and most common kind of bow. Occasionally a fainter secondary rainbow can be seen outside the primary bow. In the secondary rainbow, the sun’s light is reflected twice before emerging from the raindrops, reversing the colour sequence. The light in a tertiary rainbow is reflected three times. This kind of rainbow is rarely seen. In a supernumerary rainbow, faint red or red and green bands appear inside the primary rainbow. A complete circular rainbow is visible from an airplane at a certain height.
Colours
Objects that reflect light of a particular wavelength are perceived as having colour. Objects that reflect all wavelengths equally appear white, whereas objects that reflect no light appear black. you cannot perceive colour in the absence of light; the brighter the light, the brighter the colour appears. All colours in the spectrum can be derived by mixing three primary colours (in art, usually red, blue and yellow).
Some things such as air, clear glass, clear plastic and pure water have no colour. They are transparent, and light can pass right through them. The names of many woods and metals are used to describe colours, e.g. oak, walnut, cedar, redwood, copper, silver, gold and brass.
