Girls To Grow

We started bedtime routines with our daughters when they were infants. Thanks to my reading the book Babywise when I was expecting, I had a pretty good idea of how I wanted our evenings to look. Obviously that has changed somewhat as our girls have grown, but I have kept things in the same general order. So, with girls that are ages eight and six, who get up in the mornings at 6:25 A.M. to get ready for school, here is what our nights look like leading up to bedtime.

Teaching Tuesday last week involved teaching early math skills such as counting, making comparisons and number recognition.

As we continue on with basic math skills, it is important to make sure that our child understands the concept that a numeral represents a number of objects. He/she can memorize counting numbers in order without realizing that a 4 equals an exact amount of something.

You can teach this relatively easily. Use some of the tactile numbers we talked about last week – magnetic, wood or felt ones, even a 3×5 card with a number written on it. Let your child hold the number and then have them count out that many objects (blocks, crayons, goldfish crackers, any manipulatives would work). Help them equate the numeral they are holding with the number of objects they have counted out.

Once they have grasped that principle, you can move on to teaching the idea of more and less. Have your child count out 4 of something and put it into a pile. Then have them count out 7 of the same item and put it into a pile. Compare the two, talking about which pile has more and which pile has less.

From there, when you feel your child is ready, you can begin simple worksheets. Again, you can usually find some printable ones online or purchase an inexpensive workbook. (I have even seen these kind of workbooks at a dollar store from time to time.) The type of papers you would be looking for might have a picture of ten objects and ask the child to circle 6 of them. Alternately, it might show 8 objects and underneath have the numbers 6, 7 and 8 printed and ask your child to circle which numeral shows the correct number of objects.

As I stress all the time – make it as fun and interesting as you can. I’m talking about preschool-age children here and if there is any frustration, put it down and revisit it another day. There will be plenty of time later in life to stress about numbers!!

Hope you’ll join me for more next Tuesday!

Last summer one of my daughters began having trouble falling asleep at night. This is a noteworthy occurrence at our house because we have always been blessed in that both girls are good sleepers. She began stressing about lying there trying to go to sleep, but being unable to do so.

I tried everything I could think of – nightlight on, nightlight off; music on, music off; lying on the bed with her for a few minutes; letting her read in bed; staying up a little later – you get the idea. I asked friends and family for suggestions, but came up empty.

Finally, I called my pediatrician, who happens to be the father of five, and asked for help. His suggestion? Put a fan in her room and turn it on medium speed. He said that would drown out any noises, or lack thereof, she may unconsciously be listening for and the sound of the fan would also be soothing. Why didn’t I think of that??

Guess what – it worked like a charm! Almost nine months later and she’s sleeping well. I do occasionally worry that she’ll become dependent on that white noise for falling asleep. I guess she’ll be dragging the thing with her when she goes off to college, but for now – having that fan running every night works for me!

Check out Works for Me Wednesday at We Are That Family for other great tips!

We have been discussing fine motor skills for the past two weeks here on Teaching Tuesday. {You can read those posts here and here.}

Today I’d like to give a list of self-care skills that we can teach our children. Each child’s ability will vary, so there is not necessarily a set age at which a skill should be mastered. However, when you think your child is ready to try something new, it’s a good idea to spend just a few minutes a day working on it. Both child and mom can get frustrated if too much time is spent focusing on mastering a skill too quickly.

• • Putting on clothes

• • Snapping

• • Putting on shoes

• • Opening/closing doors (house and car)

• • Buttoning

• • Brushing teeth

• • Zipping

• • Locking/unlocking a door (house and car)

• • Opening/closing lids

• • Brushing and combing hair

• • Buckling/unbuckling a seat belt

• • Bathing

• • Tying

• Pouring (from one container into another)

As we’ve discussed before, the more fun you can make learning, the better it is. There are dolls you can buy that have parts to help your child learn snapping, zipping and buttoning, but your own or your child’s clothes work just as well. Your child can practice pouring by playing with cups and pitchers in the bathtub or kitchen sink.

I’ll go ahead and admit that my six-year-old is not yet tying shoes. In my defense, there’s not one pair of shoes with shoelaces in her closet. Most of her shoes have Velcro closure or are slip-ons; there is one pair of boots that zip up. I do realize that’s not an excuse and plan to tackle tying shoes with her soon. On the other hand, she has almost mastered riding her bike without training wheels!

If you have stories about teaching your children self-care skills, or other ideas to add to the list, please feel free to comment. Check back in next Tuesday as we address beginning numbers skills!

Will the perfect parent reading this please raise your hand?

While we all want to be the best moms and dads possible, most of us freely admit to making mistakes in our parenting.  For those times when we know we’ve blown it, how thankful we can be that God made young children so willing to forgive us when we come to them in love and ask for it.

A certain event at our house over the weekend caused me to consider some of the mistakes I’ve made in parenting. Here’s a list of five, though I could certainly come up with more!  I’m sharing these today in hopes that I’ll recognize them more easily in the future and hopefully limit their recurrence.

1. Attempting to parent my children in my own strength without asking God for His help. I could probably avoid most of the other mistakes if I could remedy this one each day. Situations arise for which I have no answer, but if my first response is to ask God for His help and wisdom, I can be sure I’ll head down the right path.

2. Assuming I know what happened in a particular situation before getting all the facts. This is the good ol’ case of jumping to conclusions! It’s closely related to our latest incident. I hope this has taught me to be slower to react, to give as much thought as needed to the problem, and gather as much information as possible.

3. Taking my frustrations over an unrelated difficulty out on my children. This usually means I’m being short-tempered with them and not responding properly to their needs. Because my mind is preoccupied with other things, I don’t take the time to deal with my children as lovingly and gently as I should.

4. Talking about my girls to other people in front of them. I believe this starts when they’re infants; just innocent, casual conversations with other moms about our kids. However, as they get older and actually listen in, it can become something that makes our children uncomfortable. I was surprised when our older daughter had her feelings hurt because of things I was saying about her. They weren’t negative or embarrassing, but she did not like me discussing her with other moms. I am striving to do better in this area.

5. Putting other tasks ahead of spending time with my girls. I need to take time whenever possible to be with them, even if that means putting off other chores. Key times for us are when they come home from school and at bedtime. That’s when they seem to have a lot to communicate and I don’t want to miss that. I also want to take time just to do things they want to do, even if it’s as simple as sitting on the couch and reading a book together.

So now you know some of the mistakes I’ve made (glad I don’t have to share them all!) These are definitely areas in which I’m trying to get better. I hope by God’s grace to continue to grow in this area of child-rearing.

This edition of Teaching Tuesday is about letters. I would encourage you to introduce letters to your child at an early age, but NOT in a formal sense. There are many ways to incorporate the ABC’s into your day and have them become part of your play. Here are a few ideas that I used with our girls when they were very young.