The Impact Our Book Smart Parent/Smart Child Can Have On A Family!

Many of you may not realize that my daughter and I have written a parents book which is an extension of our day care’s mission statement:

“We believe that all children are incredibly intelligent from the moment they are born. When a child is respected, understood, and care for by loving, highly skilled communicators with relationship and development related expertise, it is amazing what a child can accomplish. In fact, each child will achieve their maximum potential.”

We wrote the book when we realized that if the children in our care were actually going to reach their maximum potential, we had to educate the parents so that results would be more likely to occur.

I want to share an unsolicited endorsement from one family that expressed what we have heard from hundreds of parents. However, this family has expressed it all in one statement when they were communicating about their child joining our daycare.

“We have read your book cover to cover. The book is highlighted and dog eared and is already a beloved and worn in household staple. We believe that it is the only childcare book that we will ever need. We have found its direct approach accessible to understand, apply and integrate. From the moment Silas was born, it was clear to us that he was an intelligent individual. He learns so quickly and picks up on everything around him. We have brought greater awareness to how we speak and use language to communicate with him since reading your book. We want to maximize his potential to the greatest of our abilities.”

It is so rewarding every time we get constructive feedback from families and realize we have had some impact on the family in a positive way. 

The book is available on amazon and hopefully will make your challenges as a parent gain more positive results.

Good luck!

Biting! How to stop the habit without resorting to a punishment!

Peter joined our daycare when he was seventeen months old. His parents had relocated and were transferring him from his current daycare.

We were unaware that he had a history of biting and were shocked when he bit a twenty month old child at our facility.

Even though I have been a care giver for twenty four years I have only had two other children who were biters. Ironically it was the only behavior I have been unsuccessful in correcting.
Both of these previous children were diagnosed with serious behavior issues and transferred to a special needs daycare.

In Peter’s case, his situation did not appear to be as serious as theirs were. So when the parents agreed to get professional help, as a family, I agreed to support that choice and work with them.
The parents have made major changes in their parenting style and we have seen a measurable, positive change in Peter’s behavior.

However it seems that peter concluded along the way that biting sometimes worked in his favor. Prior to our intervention, he was getting what he wanted in many cases, so we were still not really getting the resulted we needed.

It seemed his biting was becoming his weapon of choice when he desired a toy someone else had. Truthfully this was not happening that often, but once was too much.

I feel there must be some approach we can take to put an end to this.

The only suggestion that we heard was to “bite him back”. I was already aware of this approach and for me it was not an option. I am totally against physical violence of any kind.

I would love to hear from any of you who have been successful in stopping this habit in a more compassionate way. I am particularly curious of whether anyone from a different culture may have had a successful experience they could share. I would really love to hear from you!

Peter seems to take this aggressive action mostly when he is tired. However, he is very impulsive. We have made a huge commitment to resolve this issue and can only be satisfied with 100% success. We must be confident he will not have an option to hurt any other child.

I am excited to hear from you, thanks for your help!

The Surprise (Even For Us) Of The Results And Benefits Of Expanding Responsibilities

In our world, the time of day that includes lunch and nap is the most demanding and possibly hectic. This is primarily because children are allowed to leave the table, take care of their bathroom needs and some cleaning up, get on their floor cot and sleep. This is all accomplished on an individual basis.

About one year ago, one of my assistants came up with the idea of assigning a “helper” role to each of the older children, this involved three of them.

Their responsibilities were: to get diapers, place blankets at the end of the color cots, assist with diaper changing, socks and shoe removal. They also, as needed, sat with younger children so they would feel safe and remain on the floor cots. They were clearly providing a secure, calming effect.
This plan quickly expanded to being a “helper” throughout the day. Helping the teachers with materials, reading to the younger children, reviewing early learning with them etc.

We were exceptionally pleased with their performance and also noted that the week that each child is a “helper” became their favorite. Not only did they talk about when their turn was coming up, but it became their favorite time. We saw them grow in terms of their self-confidence, empathy, patience and caring. 

This is a perfect approach that you can translate to your home. If you don’t already expect your child to be responsible for many of their personal tasks, please do so. If you already d, then maybe you can expand on that and include some family tasks especially if they have siblings.

You will be pleasantly surprised at the level of responsibility they will achieve. Occasionally we found some of the responsibilities they wanted to take on not practical, but we did our best to arrive at some compromise or alternative i.e. they could not be a classroom teacher but they could independently review some work with an individual child.

The more you can involve your child is your family tasks the better they will feel about themselves. Be consistent! Also be patient, give them time to achieve your standards, it will be worth it.
Their achievement is their reward. I do not feel this plan should have a tangible reward such as a gift of some kind.

Good luck!