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Playing with power

Well, it has happened.  My sweet baby is already becoming a willful toddler.  The past week or so has been filled with frustrating moments for her and for anyone near her.  She has begun to whine.  She is clinging to us like she thinks we’ll disappear if we’re out of her sight.  And of course, she’s also starting to walk.

Learning to walk and talk are HUGE developmental milestones for a baby and with the new development comes an equally big emotional response.  Tears and frustration abound as we humans learn new skills and reach new levels of development.  And it’s not just babies who experience the emotional ride of learning new skills.  Children and adults of all ages have the same big feelings.  When we reach a goal, there’s often a big emotional high and an accompanying let down.

So, what do we do with those feelings of sadness and anger that go along with new accomplishments?  We can try to ignore them or shove them aside, but that sure hasn’t been working at our house.  I’d rather embrace the feelings and provide a safe space for my daughter to fully express all that she’s going through.

Amazingly, just last week, my little one learned how to roar like a lion and wow, it’s a really ferocious roar!  So my mom and I began to play a game with her where we pretend to be frightened by her roar.  She LOVES it!  It’s really one of the first times I’ve seen her expressing and enjoying her power, she completely lights up.  She roars again and again while we cower in mock fear.  “Oh no!  Don’t eat me!  I’m so scared,” can be heard often at our house these days.  Here’s a short video of the game:

Then last night it was bedtime.  And you guessed it, she didn’t want to go to bed.  I could tell she was getting agitated and she started to test my husband by hitting him.  She knows that hitting people isn’t allowed, but she wasn’t sure how else to express the anger and frustration bubbling up inside her.

So I redirected her hitting to the stuffed animals on her bed.  Before we knew it, my husband, daughter, and I were all throwing and hitting and jumping on the stuffed animals yelling, “Take that!” and “Aaarrgghh!”  We all had a blast and each of us got an opportunity to express any unexpressed anger or frustration.  I can’t even tell you how satisfying it was to slam that pink elephant into the wall.  It was truly liberating.  The best part was that after the anger release, she was tired and ready to wind down to sleep.

So the next time anyone at your house is whining or getting agitated, try playing a power game.  Sometimes, just having an appropriate outlet for anger, frustration, or powerlessness is all a child really needs.  And when offered a healthy way to release those feelings, kids can easily return to their usual kind and cooperative selves.

Wish me luck with the rest of toddler-hood, I have a feeling I’m going to need it!

Have a great week, Shelly

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Open and close activities are a big hit!

Have you ever noticed how much young children love to open and close things? And how they’ll repeat the opening and closing action again and again? If you think about it, we open and close things all the time in our daily lives, so why wouldn’t children want to learn this important skill? One of the things that continues to surprise me about open/close activities for children is how many times they’ll repeat the action. I’ve seen kids absorbed in this work for well over thirty minutes at a time.

In the Montessori classroom we always had an open and close activity that the kids would gravitate toward, so I knew my daughter would enjoy learning to open and close things. But I had no idea just how MUCH she would enjoy it! We currently have an Open/Close activity in my office and every time my office door is open, my daughter makes a bee-line to it, takes the objects out of the box and begins to open and close them again and again and again.

Here’s a video I took last week…

My 13mo. old daughter doing her open/close activity from Shelly on Vimeo.

One of the great things about this activity is that it can grow with your child. Right now I have a couple of small metal tins, a small jar with a lid, and a plastic container with an attached lid in the activity for my 13 month old. But when she’s 3 years old, we’ll have a coin purse with a zipper, a box with a latch, and some other more challenging items.

Even if your child is 7 or 8 years old, you can find fun things to put in an open/close activity. Most 8 year olds I know LOVE figuring out how to lock and unlock padlocks or even the front door of their house. Of course you’ll have to decide what you’re comfortable with.  Learning to open and close plastic baggies and food containers can be a fun challenge too.  Remember diaries with locks?

So, the next time you get annoyed that your little one is emptying your purse out on the floor of the restaurant, remember, he’s just trying to learn about opening, closing, and containment. Oh, and he’s probably also looking for a toy or a treat too and I’m guessing he’ll find one!

Consider creating an open/close activity to keep at home, or a portable one for when you’re out and about. You can offer a lunch box filled with containers or an old purse you’re willing to give to your child. Begin collecting small items that have unique and interesting closures.

Once you have a few items compiled, arrange them in a basket or box and display the activity in an accessible location. When your child shows interest in the new “work,” sit down together and demonstrate opening and closing each item before allowing her to explore the activity on her own.

For added interest for your older child, include a small car, animal, doll, or action figure inside each container. For your reader, label the containers and invite your child to put the appropriate item back into the container when he’s finished playing.

We are having so much fun at our house with our open and close activity. I would love to hear about your experience with this fun work! Please share a comment below. And have a great week! Warmly, Shelly

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Back to school separation anxiety

School is starting! What an exciting and stressful time. You’re probably rushing around purchasing school supplies and wondering how your child will separate at the door. Or maybe school has already started and your child is in the throws of separation anxiety, completely freaking out when you leave. Be assured, the transition can and will go smoothly, it’s just a matter of time and technique.

Transitions are almost always challenging for young people and that goes for both large and small transitions. Moving from bath time to bed can produce a lot of upset, so it makes sense that starting back to school (or starting school for the first time) would also cause some emotional ripples.

First, know that you are not alone. When I taught preschool there were always a few children in every class who had a difficult time separating at the beginning of the year. But after several weeks, everyone was transitioning joyfully.

Now, I’ll give you the same information and advice I gave the parents in the classroom that helped to resolve the upset quickly and fairly easily.

The most important thing about a morning school separation is that it is QUICK and that the parent is calm, comfortable, and relaxed. The more you can leave your own feelings of sadness, upset, and anxiety at home, the better your child will do.

I don’t mean to imply that you won’t HAVE upsetting feelings, just that you’ll do your best to experience and work through those feelings AWAY from the door of your child’s classroom. So, when you’re at the door, you’re projecting calm confidence, trust, and warmth. This is HUGE.

Why quick? The more time you spend helping your child get his things into his locker, making sure he has his lunch, asking the teacher about the schedule for the day, and giving him multiple hugs and kisses, the more time he has to recognize that you are uncomfortable (or that he is). Also, when your child sees you in and around his classroom, he begins to wonder why you can’t just spend your day at school with him. After all, you are one of his favorite people in the whole world, so why wouldn’t he want you to stick around?

What your child may fail to realize is that school is an opportunity for her to branch out socially and become more independent. It’s a growth opportunity and having a parent present could actually undermine her motivation to reach out to new friends.

But, when new friends and teachers are the only choice available, you’d be surprised how quickly children can acclimate and enjoy the new environment. Often, the kids who have the greatest separation anxiety are the same children who bond to the teachers and other kids quickly. The classroom becomes a new base of operations and they easily rely on their new community for the help and support they need. This is a very important skill.

Do you remember a time from your own childhood when you felt unsure, afraid, and you wanted to cling to someone or something familiar? Giving your child a keepsake, a slap bracelet, a hand stamp, or some other reminder of you can be a great way for your child to remain connected to you, even as she stretches her wings socially. But don’t go too crazy, leaving elaborate notes in her lunch every day. Take your cue from your child, what does she ask for and need?

Acknowledging your child’s feelings can help too, but again, be brief. Something like, “Honey, I know you’re feeling worried and that’s OK. I think some other kids are feeling the same way. If you need help, you can ask your teacher. I bet you’ll have a great day. I love you and I’ll see you at 3:00,” should be sufficient. And you can always talk more after school.

Next, if your child is having a difficult time separating, talk to his teacher and ask about their policy on separation anxiety. Some schools will call you if your child is inconsolable for longer than half an hour or so. Or it may be OK for you to call to check in. I always loved giving worried parents the news that their child was happily playing and working just minutes after they had left the room.

You’ve chosen to put your child in preschool, private, or public school for a host of reasons, so take a moment to ground yourself and feel into those reasons. You know what is best for your child, now it’s time to trust, let go, and enjoy the ride.

Have a wonderful week, Shelly

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How I Became an EC Mom

OK, so for those of you who don’t know, EC stands for elimination communication. Yep, you guessed it; this blog is about peeing and pooping, so if you’re the least bit squeamish on that topic, read no further! A friend of mine asked me to share about our EC journey, so here it is:

The first time I heard about elimination communication it sounded completely insane to me. I heard wild stories of families who NEVER used diapers and I pictured an entire house covered in plastic drop cloths with some pretty gross repercussions. Sure, if we were living outside and could just hold our babies away from our bodies like I read about in “The Continuum Concept,” I could imagine not using diapers. But I live in a house, and it really bothers me when my dogs or cats fail to go in their designated locations, so why would I allow my child to just pee and poop all over the place? At that moment I decided that EC was not for me.

But after my daughter was born, I read a really great article in Mothering magazine (Oh how I wish they were still publishing!) about elimination communication. In the article the author described lots of different ways that families could go about practicing EC to various degrees. Some families used diapers some of the time, and other used them most of the time but also watched for signals from their child that it was time to go. Through the article I was introduced to the idea of “catching” my child’s pee and poop and that’s when it happened. I became an EC mom.

A good friend of mine had given me TONS of great baby gear hand me downs, so I dug out the small Baby Bjorn potty you see in the photo. When my daughter was about a month old I took off her cloth diaper and sat her up on the potty. She didn’t seem to like the feeling of the cold plastic on her toosh, so I grabbed a pre-fold, cut a hole in it and put it between her butt and the potty. That one sacrificed cloth diaper made all the difference! After that, my little one was happy to sit on the potty whenever I thought to try. But, she didn’t actually go in the potty yet. That was OK with me though, I just wanted her to get used to sitting on the potty and wasn’t attached to achieving any specific goals yet, I think this is key in proper potty training. Looking back at my baby calendar I see that she had her first poop on the potty at 8wks and her first pee at 10wks old!

After my little one had some better muscle control and was able to sit in her Bumbo (around 4 months old) I put the potty in front of the mirror in her room and sat with her for up to 10min. at a time. She loved her potty time! We would make faces, look at books, and talk about increasing our intrathecal pressure, complete with grunting. and bearing down together. At that point she would occasionally go during potty time. We were making progress!

I still wasn’t able to see any signs from her or predict when she would need to go, but we just tried a little potty time here and there when the mood struck me. And then we introduced solid foods at 6mo. Whoa! Suddenly my daughter’s poops became solid and then I noticed that she seemed to go at around the same time, during the morning between wake up and her first nap. After some experimentation I narrowed it down and caught a poop! I was so happy not to have to scrub that cloth diaper that I became determined to catch more.

At some point during her sixth month, I realized that I always pee when I wake up in the morning, so she might need to as well. I tried putting her on the potty first thing after we woke up in the morning and magic happened. She peed AND pooped that first morning and has almost every morning since. I was elated! I had suddenly gone from soaking, scrubbing, sunning, washing and drying poopy diapers to simply dumping the poop in the toilet and getting on with our day!

Now we put her on the potty after she wakes from sleep and a couple more times throughout the day and she almost always pees. She clearly knows what the potty is for (and has since around that six month mark) and although she will hang out for up to thirty minutes if needed, she more often goes within five to ten minutes and then waits for me to wipe and re-diaper her. Yesterday, for the very first time, she finished her business and then stood up.

I know that a lot of EC parents talk about the importance of noticing the cues and the deep connection they feel with their child about these important bodily functions, but for us, EC is more about practicality and ease.

I also like the notion that I’ll never have to “potty train” my child. Sitting on the potty is just something we do every day already. And just for the record, I don’t think our version of EC is something we could only do because I’m a work from home mom. We’ve taken our potty to Grammy’s house and even on vacation with us! All of my daugher’s grandparents and babysitters have used the potty with her seamlessly.

The next step in our journey will be to teach my little one how to signal when she needs to go. So, I’ve begun signing “toilet” every time I say the word potty. No luck yet, but given our success so far, I’m not too worried. I’m pretty sure that she’ll put two and two together in no time.

So, how many of you have gone on your own EC journey? I would love to hear how it went or is going. Please share your stories with us!

And have a wonderful week, Shelly

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Parenting exhaustion

Boy, is it exhausting to be a parent or what?!  You start off with the nighttime wake ups but at least when they’re that little, they’re not moving around too much.  Remember when you’d put them down and they’d just stay put?!  It’s like a distant memory, right?

And, by the time you’re actually getting a good night’s sleep (except for the occasional accident or vomiting in the bed), they’re running around like crazy people and screaming, “Play with me! Play with me!” and wanting to go to the park and the pool and everywhere else they can think of.  Whew!  I feel tired just thinking about it.

I’ve heard some divorced parents admit that they’re actually relieved when they’re kids go to their co-parent’s house.  And now that I’m a parent myself, I can see why!  It really does take a village, doesn’t it?  I think we should all have statues erected in our honor if we survive parenthood long enough to see our adult children become exhausted parents.

As a kid, one of the things I never understood was why my parents didn’t have the energy to play with me all the time or take me wherever I wanted.  The idea that resting would be more fun than constant activity was a completely foreign concept.  I think the only time I was still was when I was mesmerized by the television or forced to sleep.

One of the things I loved about being a nanny for twins was that at least they always had each other to play with.  But the truth is, you can’t always just pawn off the littler kids with the bigger kids.  In fact, sometimes that creates more of a hassle than a help.

So, what do we do when we’re tuckered out and our kids are raring to go?  Well, I like to set them up with a self-directed activity and then sit nearby and read a book or rest while they are engaged in playing and learning at the same time.  Here’s a post I wrote a while back about some things kids can do mostly on their own.

There are tons of things that kids would love to do themselves, but often it feels like more work to let them.  Take cooking for instance.  Everyone I know loves to eat cookies.  And kids love to mix and bake them too.  Sure, they’re likely to make more of a mess than you would, but amazingly, they also often ENJOY cleaning up too!  I wrote a post about how to get kids to help with clean up too.

But, once you have them set up with an activity, the really challenging part begins.  We as parents must choose to take care of ourselves and actually REST, rather than jumping up to do another load of laundry or cleaning up after our kids while they’re still making a mess.  We need to learn to stop and take a break!

So, what can you do to maximize the 5-10min. window you have when the kids are happily engaged?  Here’s a list of some of my favorites:

1)     Close my eyes and take deep breaths (or meditate)

2)    Read a novel

3)    Take a bath

4)   Sit outside and watch the wind blowing through the trees

5)    Yoga

6)    Take a cat nap

7)    Smell the roses (literally)

What are the things that you could do to maximize the few minutes of restful time you can squeeze out of the day?  And how else do you deal with the exhaustion of parenting?  Please let me know, I could really use some help on this one!

Have a great week, Shelly

 

 

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