ABC Home Preschool Blog » Child Communication

8 Ways to Raise a Thankful Child

TheNanny612 — Sat, 27 Dec 2008 02:20:13 +0000

In today’s
modern world of gimme, gimme, gimme – raising an appreciative, well-rounded
child can seem like a difficult task. However, with just a few simple changes
it is easier than you might imagine. Read on to find our eight, resourceful
ways to raise a thankful child. It is the perfect secret weapon for the holiday
season and bey

Participate
in a local food drive
Help him
go through his old
toy bins and donate a few to charity
Help your child create handmade thank you notes for holiday gifts
they receive

Pick a child
from a charity tree and let your child pick out the gifts
Be an at-home
volunteer to charities such as Hugs
and Hope
Teach
him the value of a dollar with a weekly allowance earned for chores
Have him spend
a portion of that money on a friend or donate it to your church
Love him to
bits . . . giving him plenty to be thankful for

Remember, even when
you don’t think you are getting through, little drops of knowledge that
you think are washing right off those ears, somewhere along the line sink in.
We promise you; someday you will wake up and realize . . . You did a pretty
amazing job

Family Time – 5 Ideas for Making Time for Family

TheNanny612 — Fri, 27 Jul 2007 04:27:34 +0000

We all lead busy lives. Even those of us who try to simplify often have
more multi-tasking going on than we would like to admit. We’re always
only half-listening to the stories that our kids tell us while we’re
simultaneously checking email, scheduling appointments, planning our next
kids’ party or taking care of daily chores. Often, we barely see
our spouse in passing as we hand off the kids to get a little adult alone
time – even if it’s just a quick bath. It often feels like
a necessary situation to getting everything taken care of that needs to
be done on any given day.

But what really
matters more; that the laundry all got done and folded or that you got to spend
some time with the people that you love? Making time for your family is not
only possible, it’s necessary. And it doesn’t take another twenty
four hours in the day to manage it. It just takes a little bit of organization,
a willingness to let a few things go sometimes in order to be with your family
and the will to make it work.

Here are some ideas
for making time for your family which you might find helpful if you’re
starting to feel like you never really hear your kids and never really see your
spouse:

Make
family time a priority. You aren’t going to be able to
get everything done all of the time and still spend quality time with
your family. Sometimes, your email won’t get answered, your floor
won’t get vacuumed and your car won’t get washed. It’s
okay. The reality is that it’s not going to matter if you sleep
on sheets that should’ve been washed yesterday or the cat has
to eat tuna today because you didn’t make it to the pet food store.
But it does matter if your kids feel like you’re always taking
care of the house and never taking care of them.

Designate
an actual family time. Traditionally, dinner time used to be
family time. But that doesn’t work for all family these days when
hours in the office run late and kids have activities several nights
a week. That’s okay. But your family needs to have some sort of
time, every single day, that is family time. Figure out what works for
you. It might be just the twenty minutes before everyone goes to bed.
Or maybe you can get the family up half an hour early to spend the morning
hours together. Whatever works for your family works. Just plan it and
always spend that time just having quality time with your family.

Plan
special time with certain family members. Maybe the girls in
the family will have a girls night’ out while the boys stay home
and eat pizza with Dad. Or perhaps Mom and son will have a monthly movie
night and Dad and daughter do the same on a different day. It’s
often easier to coordinate schedules with less people so make some bigger
chunks of family time go more smoothly this way.
Take
a “well” day. Rather than a sick day, take a “well”
day now and then. Parents don’t go to work (or stop work from
home for the day), kids don’t go to school and activities and
you all just enjoy a day of being home together. Just like on days when
you’re sick, you can all cuddle up under blankets and watch a
movie together, eat chicken soup and do a lot of nothing.

Make
five minutes special. Everyone can spare five minutes. Make
yours worth more by having a special ritual that’s just for your
family. For example, do a “five favorite things in five minutes”
each day in which the family has five minutes to come up with a list
together of their five favorite things that happened during the day.
Little games and moments like these bond families and create quality
time even when there’s not a lot of quantity time to give.

Technorati Tags:family, quality time, games, activities, kids, fun

What is the Smallest Number – Zero or One?

TheNanny612 — Sat, 21 Jul 2007 20:37:38 +0000

I was reading a
post
today on Bongo
Mirror’s Reflections and Bongo Mirror was discussing the
fact that a couple years ago she was reading a book that stated that Preschoolers
would defend the fact that 1 (one) is the smallest number. I found that hard
to believe… after all I was sure that my Preschooler, who would be starting
Kindergarten in the fall, knew that Zero (0) was the smallest number. So, I
asked my daughter, “Hannah, I have a question for you… What is the
smallest number?” To my surprise she answered, “One.” I was
truly surprised. After all, I have discussed the number zero with Hannah many
times since she was two while teaching her Preschool
at Home. So, I said to Hannah, “One? What about Zero?”
She then said, “Oh yeah!!” She got it. But, I was very surprised
that Zero wasn’t her first answer. She didn’t defend that one is
the smallest number, however it wasn’t her first choice.

So,
I’m left to wonder if the book that Bongo Mirror was referring to
is correct. Is it true that Preschoolers will usually defend that one
is the smallest number? I thought I would take a poll with my viewers:

Ask
your Preschooler what number is the smallest number…. what was
your child’s answer? Let me know by commenting to this post.

Technorati Tags: numbers, math, kids, preschoolers, preschool,

How To Improve Your Preschooler’s Listening Skills

TheNanny612 — Tue, 26 Jun 2007 23:19:49 +0000

It is infuriating
when it feels like your child ignores the directions that you have given. As
a parent, it’s frustrating to feel like your child doesn’t have
the listening skills that she needs to be able to understand, remember and act
upon what you have told her. But this is a normal part of the development process
and one of the reasons that parents of preschoolers require wells of patience
in order to assist their children in growing up with normal, healthy development.
You not only want to teach your child good listening skills so that she can
do what you say needs to be done but you also want to make sure she has those
skills so that she will do well in school, get along with peers and be able
to engage in appropriate social behavior in groups.

Here are some tips
to improve your preschooler’s listening skills and to get her well on
the way to being able to understand what’s said to her and to act upon
it appropriately.

Encourage
your preschooler to repeat your directions.
For example, when you say, “please pick up your toys” and
your child doesn’t move, ask her what you just said. This will
eventually became a habit that your child does internally, repeating
instructions in her mind once they are said and then acting on them.
Engage
your child in step-based activities like cooking or origami.
You can read directions to your child and then show her how to act them
out. This can hone listening skills in the context of every day activities,
such as cooking.

LISTENING
SKILLS FOR YOUNG CHILDREN-EARLY CHILDHOOD
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Model
good listening skills.
Often, when our preschoolers babble on about their days, we go on automatic
pilot with our responses. Model good listening skills by paying attention
to the stories that your child tells you and asking engaging questions
about them.
Play
listening games with your child. Simon Says is a common listening
game which requires children to pay attention to the words being said.
Many computer games are now available which can help you with this.
Play
rhyming games.
Rhyming is something which requires listening skills because your child
has to work to identify sounds that sound the same. As your preschooler
gets old enough to recognize rhymes, rhyming games will help with developing
those listening skills.
Read
aloud to your child every single day.
Reading to your children helps them on many different levels, including
improving their listening skills. Engage your child in the reading process
to make sure that she is actively listening. You can do this by asking
questions, having her add on to the story or seeing if she can memorize
parts of her favorite tales.
Show
your child how to use all of her senses. Explain about the
five senses and give her ample opportunity to use each of them. For
example, at the zoo you can ask your child what she sees, smells, and
hears from certain animals. This will not only give her good listening
skills but will hone her other senses and help her to develop a greater
capacity for attention to details.
Talk
with your child.
Simply engaging in regular conversation with you on a regular basis
will teach your child listening skills.
Use
multi-step directions. When your preschooler is young, you
often have to direct her with single-step tasks such as “pick
up your toys”. As she gets older, you can add multi-step tasks
(“pick up your toys and then put your shoes on”) so that
she can develop the attention to listening to multi-step directions
and following them.

Listening
skills are something that your child is going to use for the rest of her
life. They will be the cornerstone of communication in positive relationships,
the basis for strong academic skills and the foundation of her ability
to work with others in all situations. Bear in mind that it’s part
of your job as a parent to exercise patience in teaching her these skills
so that she can be a better listener for the rest of her life.

Technorati Tags: listening+skills, improving+listening+skills, child, kids, children, parening, communicating, boys, girls, preschoolers

Understanding Your Preschooler’s Imaginary Friends

TheNanny612 — Wed, 20 Jun 2007 03:02:36 +0000

We are always wondering if
our children are “normal”. We don’t mean to do it, but nevertheless,
it’s something that we do all of the time. From the time that we first
count those ten toes and ten fingers, we’re subconsciously (or consciously)
comparing our kids to some ideal standard of what is “normal” and
wondering how they measure up. And when it comes to areas of life that aren’t
so easy to understand, we often have trouble figuring out what’s “normal”
and how to deal with it. Often, this is the case when it comes to imaginary
friends.

We wonder if it is “normal”
for our kids to have imaginary friends. Of course it is. But at what age does
it stop being normal? Or what behaviors in interacting with these imaginary
friends are not normal? We worry, because we want our kids to have a healthy
level of social and emotional development. Here are some things to think about
which can help you alleviate those concerns:

It is
absolutely “normal”
(meaning common) for children to have imaginary friends.
Imaginary
friends
usually turn up in a child’s life during the preschool years and often
fade out of the child’s life during elementary school.
Imaginary
friends
are more common among first born children and only children and may reflect
the child’s desire to have increased interaction with other children.
Preschool groups can assist with this.
Imaginary
friends represent the creative side of your child’s brain so
you should never discourage your child from healthy exploration of this part
of life.
Children
often keep their imaginary friends to themselves. While it’s appropriate
to ask questions about the imaginary friend to ascertain what your child believes
about the situation, you shouldn’t pretend to interact or play with
your child’s imaginary friends unless your child invites you to do so.

If you’re still having
concerns that your child’s experience with an imaginary friend isn’t
normal, here are some warning signs for negative play with imaginary friends.

Your
child
regularly refuses to play with other children and only wants to play with
the imaginary friend.
Your
child’s
imaginary friends linger into the older elementary school years.
The imaginary
friend
is introduced into play with other friends who make fun of your child.
Your
child
acts out behavior with the imaginary friend which is violent, sexual in nature
or otherwise indicative of an underlying problem. In this case, your child
may be using the imaginary friend to try to tell you something that he or
she can’t tell you alone.

As a general rule, it’s
perfectly “normal” for your preschooler to have imaginary friends.
They help your child exercise his or her imagination and provide additional
stimulation during playtime. And of course, all children develop differently
so your child’s interaction and length of time spent with the imaginary
friend may vary from that of other children of the same age. As long as you
don’t see any of the above warnings signs, you can probably assume that
the imaginary friends are a fun phase that your child will pass as he or she
begins to enter elementary school age.

Technorati Tags: imaginary+friends, kids, child, children, parenting, behavior+issues, social+skills, normal+behavior

Social Skills and the Homeschooled Preschooler

TheNanny612 — Sat, 09 Jun 2007 12:22:34 +0000

There is a myth which is
widely associated with the homeschooled student and that myth is that he is
going to have difficulty developing normal social skills. It’s true that
children learn social skills primarily in the school environment, but this doesn’t
have to be the only place that kids can learn how to socialize with peers and
non-relatives. What a parent needs to realize is that children DO need to learn
social skills by interacting with others outside of the home but that there
are many different ways that this can be done.

This is especially true for
the preschool age child who is being homeschooled. Many parents of children
this age are planning to send their children to public school once kindergarten
or first grade rolls around and they fear that their child will fall behind
socially at that time because of being homeschooled up to that point. Taking
active steps to make sure that your child develops social skills can be done
while still protecting him from the outside influences which may have caused
you to be interested in preschool homeschooling to begin with.

The main thing that a homeschooling
parent needs to know is that there are different stages of development which
take place during the preschool years. Making sure that your child has the opportunity
to engage in the appropriate type of socialization at the right time is the
key to making sure that the social skills of the child develop positively. The
first stage takes place usually before the child is three years of age and is
known as “side by side play”. In this stage of social development,
your child will be interested in playing next to other kids, often mirroring
the other child’s action, but probably won’t engage directly with
the other children. As your child gets into the ages of 3 and 4, he will be
more prone to group play.

Knowing this can help you
when setting up and supervising play dates with your child or even just in situations
where your child is naturally interacting with other kids, like at reading time
at the public library or during playground time at the park. As a parent, if
you know not to force your young child to interact with other children or to
appropriately encourage such play, you’ll have the edge up on watching
out for signs of problematic social development in your homeschooled preschooler.

In summary, your child DOES
need to socialize with others. A child who doesn’t have any interaction
with other children or with adults outside the family unit may have some trouble
adjusting when he is finally thrown in to that environment. But chances are
that you already engage in activities that allow your homeschooled preschooler
to gain necessary social skills. You probably have friends who have kids that
your child plays with or have a big family with cousins that come over on holidays
or take your child to public activities where socializing is natural. Social
skills aren’t just learned from a preschool environment, so as long as
you’re staying aware of what’s right for your child’s developmental
stage and giving him the opportunities to develop appropriately, you don’t
really have to worry about those old myths that homeschooled kids are bound
to be socially awkward. It simply isn’t so.

Key Phrases That Teach Children Manners

TheNanny612 — Thu, 31 May 2007 00:52:21 +0000

Manners are something that
we all want our kids to have and something which can be very elusive to teach.
We all know a well-mannered child when we see one but it can be difficult to
identify exactly what it means for a child to have good manners, especially
at different stages of development and in varying social circumstances. While
there are many different things which go into learning manners, these are the
basic phrases that your child should be able to use appropriately in any situation
to have the basics of good manners:

Thank
You

It’s the first
one we seem to learn as kids and the one that is going to last us throughout
a lifetime as the sign of having good manners. If someone holds a door
for you, you probably automatically say “thank you”. If you
didn’t, it might not be a big issue but it would probably be noted
in the mind of that other person that you were being kind of rude. It’s
just common courtesy to thank others for the nice things that they do
to us. It acknowledges their action and lets them know that it was appreciated.
If your child doesn’t ever learn any other phrase of good manners,
“thank you” should be the one that gets ingrained.

Please

Please is right up there
with “thank you” just because kids tend to learn them at the same
time. We say please when we would like to ask someone to do something for us
because we’re acknowledging that they don’t have to do it and we
appreciate in advance that they will. This one isn’t as easy as “thank
you” for kids to learn because there’s that stage where “please”
can be used as a ploy. Kids sometimes don’t understand that a “pretty
please” doesn’t mean that they’ll get what they want. But
if they at least learn how to ask politely, they’re chances are greatly
improved.

I’m Sorry

Kids who are able to acknowledge
that they have done something that they shouldn’t do – either accidentally
or on purpose – and to apologize for their actions are generally viewed
as having good manners. Learning cause and effect in this way takes some time
but teaching your kids to say “I’m sorry” when they’re
in the wrong starts them off on the right foot.

Excuse Me

This one is said in different
ways, of course. If a bodily function accidentally comes out in an inappropriate
place, “excuse me” is the right response. If a child wants to interrupt
a conversation, “excuse me” makes it okay for him to do so. And
if a child needs to reach something or go somewhere where others are in the
way, saying “excuse me” lets other kids know that the child is coming
through. In all of these instances, the child is learning that sometimes humans
collide with each other in the real world and “excuse me” helps
to, well, to excuse that.

There are lots of little
things that your kids will learn over time to exhibit their good manners. Manners
specific to the table or to engaging in conversation will come with time. Appropriate
behavior and rituals related to manners will be a useful part of their social
development. But getting the basics down really does just mean learning these
few key phrases and the right times to say them.

Technorati Tags:children, manners, kids, parenting, behavior

Your Child Learns Anger Management From You

TheNanny612 — Sat, 26 May 2007 00:44:43 +0000

As soon as your
child is old enough to feel the emotion of anger, you are going to start wondering
how to help her learn anger management skills. There will be books to read,
counseling classes to take and plenty of friends and acquaintances to get advice
from about the best methods of making sure your child learns how to control
her anger. These tools are all important; but in the end, your child is going
to learn how to control her anger by watching how you control yours. Modeling
positive anger management is the best method of making sure your child learns
how to behave appropriately when she gets mad.

One of the
most important steps in anger management learning is being able to identify
the feeling of anger. When your child first starts dealing with issues
of anger, she’s not really going to be able to understand what those
feelings are. Giving a name to those feelings will help her to better
understand them. When you see your child getting angry, you should identify
that emotion out loud. And just as importantly, you should identify out
loud when you are feeling angry so your child can learn to understand
that all people get angry and there are appropriate ways to deal with
the emotion.

Identifying the emotion of
anger isn’t all that there is to modeling responsible anger management,
of course. You also need to be sure that your child sees your reacting to anger
in the way that you want her to react when she is angry. If you want your child
to be able to identify anger and put herself in a time-out to take a break from
whatever is causing her to be angry, then you need to model this in your own
behavior. Let’s say that you are angry because the dog has just torn up
your favorite blouse. Instead of yelling at the dog and then telling your child
that you yelled because you were angry, you should be able to think ahead, tell
your child that you are angry because the dog tore your blouse and then say
to her, “I’m going to sit in a time-out for a few minutes until
I am not angry about this anymore.”

You should also be able to
admit when you have acted out in anger and fix the problem. Sometimes, you’ll
get mad and yell at the dog. Identify out loud for your child that this is what
happened and then state what you would prefer to do next time to better handle
your anger. When an opportunity arises to behave differently in the face of
anger, take it and point it out to your child. By modeling his ability to make
improvements in your own anger management, you are teaching your child how to
improve her own behavior when she is mad.

Technorati Tags:children, kids, anger management, pareting, temper tantrums

Communication Benefits From Reading To Your Child

TheNanny612 — Fri, 27 Apr 2007 18:35:21 +0000

There is no greater
skill that you can teach your child than the skill of communication. Communication
is the tool that we use every single day in order to identify and articulate
our needs and to work with others in society to get those needs met. But communication
is an elusive thing to teach because it is done through daily experience rather
than through planned lessons.

One of the best ways that you can begin to develop the communication skills
that your child will need all throughout life is to sit down for a short period
of time each and every day to read to your child.

Reading
to your child helps build the foundation of your child’s communication
skills because it extends the child’s vocabulary, teaches him or
her to modulate tone to convey different emotions and ideas and helps
him or her to draw links between words and images which builds the ability
to understand “the bigger picture” and therefore to relate
better to others. Another communication benefit of reading to your child
every day is that you are opening the daily lines of communication between
your child and yourself through this reading time.

At a very basic
level, reading to your child improves communication skills because it allows
him or her to develop the vocabulary and grammar skills necessary to speak with
others. Having a wider vocabulary will make it possible for your child to correctly
identify what he or she is thinking or feeling and to convey that to others.
This important skill will be used in every single relationship that your child
has for the rest of his or her life so the more that you read to your child,
the greater their future relationships with others will be. As you read aloud
to your child, you will be using different voices and tones to express different
emotions, teaching your child a range of appropriate expression which will enhance
this overall communication.

At a more complex level,
reading to your child teaches him and her about “the bigger picture”
of life. By reading words aloud and then linking them the images happening in
the books that you are reading together, you teach your child to interpret the
same information in multiple ways. This helps to give a more well-rounded perspective
to experience. Additionally, by reading to your child about a number of different
fiction and non-fiction topics, you open up your child’s world to a variety
of different experiences. With more information, your child will have a broader,
more open view of the world and so will be in a better position to communicate
with people from diverse backgrounds.

Finally, and perhaps
most importantly, reading to your child every day directly benefits the communication
that you and your child have together. Simply spending that time with your child
each day will help you to bond together and to create the positive relationship
that stimulates good communication in your relationship. The books that you
choose to read can also be starting points for conversation and you can use
them to introduce topics that you want to discuss with your child, such as how
to deal with strangers or what is happening with his or her body as she grows
up. These topics which can sometimes be difficult to discuss can be taught during
reading time in a more comfortable setting which will set the stage for ongoing
positive communication which you will enjoy with your children long after they
can read on their own.

Technorati Tags:communication, reading, child, kids, education