Our senses are not simply tools to help us thrive and survive in the world; they can be excellent “accessories” for tons of fun with children!  Here are a few activities to try with kids to get them to listen to the sounds around them!

1. Name that Sound - my preschooler LOVES playing this game, and it is perfect to play just about anywhere.  We take a blanket and crawl underneath it and stay really still, listening to sounds around us to identify.  When the weather is good, this is a great game to try outdoors, whether the sounds are cars on the road, birds or wind in the trees or neighbors talking nearby.  By blocking the other senses (sight and smell in particular), the sense of hearing is heightened.  Playing indoors is just as fun, as we discover sounds like the refrigerator making ice, the clock ticking, and the heater turning on!
2. Telegraph - this classic game is good to play with a group of children.  Have one person start by whispering a simple message into another person’s ear, such as “My mother made eggs for breakfast.”.  Once the message is received, each person turns to another to whisper and pass it along until it reaches the last person.  That person states the message out loud and the group can find out how close the original message and the final message are.  It is a great tool to use to teach children to listen for detail!
3. Name that Noise - much like the song, “Old Macdonald”, children create sounds and then try to identify them.  The sounds don’t have to be just animal sounds made with voice, though.  Try a squeeky door, a rhythm that is clapped out, or humming a popular song.
4. Make A Sound Band - using only your body, try to create sounds and rhythms to fit together as a “band”.  Have several people create sound without the aid of instruments, such as a whistle, a clap, leg pats, tapping the cheeks, or other various sounds.  Put them together for a unique instrumentation!
5. Marco Polo - this famous “pool game” doesn’t have to be played in the heat of the summer alone!  Have the person who is “it” stand with his or her eyes shut.  Another person should move quietly around him or her, stop and clap a few times softly.  “It” should point to where he or she believes the clapper is standing.  This hones in on discriminatory hearing skills - being able to select certain sounds when there might be other sounds in range as well.

I got a terrific idea from my son’s teacher this week.  This idea can be used with just about any subject being studied.  Take a piece of posterboard (12 x 18 inches) and have your child decorate it with anything that is currently being studied.  For example, if your child is learning his or her multiplicaction facts, have him or her write them around the edges of the posterboard.  Or, if your child is learning to identify colors or letters, do the same with that information.  Maybe your older child needs to memorize a timeline or a set of dates or events.  Write whatever subject it is on the posterboard, then cover it with clear Contact paper.  Viola!  Your child has made an instant, teachable placemat to use at mealtimes!

It has been a long, hard road, but we finally crossed the bridge into Big-Boy-Pantsland.  My younger son is almost four, and I wasn’t sure he would live to see his next birthday at the rate we were going.  While my first son was Mr. Compliant, Number Two taught me some valuable lessons in potty training.

First of all, each child is his or her own person, and the more you honor and acknowledge that, the more eager and ready your child will be to “do the right thing”.  Once I backed off the potty-pressure, he was on his potty-game, as long as it was on his own time.  And this is where I probably had the most trouble: learning to trust my three year-old to KNOW when he needed to go to the bathroom.

Our son had huge issues with bowel movements.  It was obvious he didn’t like them because it would be DAYS before he would finally go, usually accompanied by abdominal cramping and pain.  Since it was quite a horrible experience for him, he didn’t want to go again and would, once again, hold it for several days before finally giving in.

We tried so many things with him - radical techniques like holing up in the bathroom until he would finally relent to bribery with little chocolate bars.  Each trick worked about once and then we were back at Square One.

What finally worked for us was a series of revelations and a bit of intervention.  We came to realize that:

• Our child was his own person and needed to learn this on his own.
• Our child did not want to be “singled out” by bribes or stickers.
• Our child knew what the potty was and how to use it. 

Then we intervened.  It was a radical move, but it worked for us.  We added a teaspoon of the age-old remedy, Castor Oil, to a serving of his favorite side dish: applesauce.  He spooned that applesauce down like usual, and by the next day, he was easily experiencing bowel movements.  He has not had one accident in the five weeks since we added that ONE TEASPOON of Castor Oil.  It was a little “push” that he needed to get on track.

That’s not to say everyone should run out and buy Castor Oil to get your child to go on the potty.  The timing has to be right.  The development level of the child needs to be appropriate.  There are other alternatives as well that work.

Please comment and leave any tips or stories you’d like to share about your potty training experiences.  Each one is unique, and that is how we all learn what works for our own child; by trying what has worked for others.

Even our little kids will get a kick out of this great idea for using fun food to create some excitement about geometry!  It is a great way to explore shapes, and even older kids can benefit tremendously from this hands-on activity with shapes.

You will need toothpicks and a soft (and yummy) food, such as gumdrops, fruit snacks, grapes or marshmallows.  Use the toothpicks to place the piece of food on each end, then stick another toothpick in to form shapes, such as triangles, squares, and three-dimensional objects.  The food pieces are your “endcaps”.  This is similar to Tinker Toys and K’Nex.  See what interesting and new structures your little architect can create!

With our second child, we learned early on that in order for him to be successful, he needed to be in charge, or in charge as much as we could let him.  Letting children make their own decisions gives them ownership of the situation and can help them learn to behave well.

First of all, make sure that children are allowed to make choices.  However, as a parent, you can control the types of choices the child will make.  For instance, it is bathtime and my child IS going to take a bath, but I give him the choice of a bath in his tub or a bath in mine.  His choice, but it is the outcome that I desire (a clean kid!).  Or, we are getting ready to go to the store.  I may give my child a choice of two kinds of shoes to wear.  He is going to wear shoes, but I allow him to choose which ones he wants.

Giving choices is a good way to work with potential misbehaviors.  When my boys are getting overly rough, I give them a choice.  For example, stop throwing the ball in the house or the ball will have to be put away for a while.  My child then has the choice of rolling the ball (an acceptable behavior here) or no ball at all. 

Oftentimes, giving choices is a great way to get children to cooperate, even when it is something they initially do not want to do.  Instead of the battle of bedtime (and actually getting into bed), I give my son a choice of two or three books to read in bed before lights out.  He is getting in bed, but he gets to decide what we will do when we are there.  And, if he chooses all the books?  That’s okay, too…he is in bed, and that is the ultimate goal.

There are times, though, that my child will try to make a choice other than those that are given.  In cases such as this, the best thing to do is to let the child know what the choices are again.  I have been known to sound a bit like a broken record, but eventually my child will make a choice that is one of the options given.

Allowing your child to solve his or her own problems through making good choices is a wonderful way to parent with limits.  It gives freedom with structure, which is vital to providing a sense of security and confidence in children.

Last week, I mentioned monitoring my child’s progress through an incentive chart to achieve a certain goal - staying in bed for my older son and potty training with my younger one.  Incentive charts can be a useful tool for teaching a child a new skill or desired repeatable behavior, from picking up toys to folding clothes to clearing the table without being asked.  The key is consistency.

Charts are fairly simple to make.  With my boys, I created a simple grid for each of them.  The “title” of the grid was simply the desired behavior, such as staying in bed all night.  Then, I created a grid of ten rows, five columns.  Our charts hung on the side of the refrigerator, right at my son’s eye level.  This way, each child was able to view his chart and participate by putting a sticker in a box each time a the behavior was met.

Each time my son met his goal, he was given a sticker to place on his chart.  By the time he filled a row (in this case, five days), he was rewarded with a simple incentive.  Sometimes, it was a special trip to the Dollar Store.  Other times, it was a special playdate or an outing to the bowling alley or movie theater.  There was always a reward at the end of the “row”, though. 

In the beginning, it took my son well over a week to get his five stickers.  That was okay, though, because once he reached his fifth sticker, he was very excited to get his reward!  And, when he realized how simple it was to achieve that again, the desired behavior showed up more and more frequently, quickly becoming a natural habit.

When we finally filled the chart, we came up with a special reward.  In my son’s case, it was a sleepover at his grandparents’ house.  At the time, he had never been to their house to spend the night without my husband or I, so this was a GREAT reward for him.  And, by the time he reached that goal, sleeping in his own bed through the night was no longer an issue.

Using an incentive chart can work very well for children.  Keep in mind, though, that the focus should only be on one behavior at a time.  Trying to run two or more incentive charts for a child at a time can be overwhelming and confusing.  Once a behavior is mastered, then introduce a new one.  And, once a child finishes an incentive chart, move on to simply verbally praising him or her for their new skill.

Incentive charts are a great way to achieve a goal for a child!

Goodness knows that my older son is a schedule-kid.  He thrives on routine and repetitiveness.  He also has a tough time handling transitions or change, typically when he isn’t prepared for them.  Here are some tips we use to make transitions easier.

1. Time is on your side - I always prepare my son for a change by letting him know it is coming in a matter of time.  For instance, I may tell him that we are leaving the house in four minutes to go to school, and he knows that he needs to be getting ready.  I sometimes have to give him a countdown (three minutes, two minutes, etc), especially if he is really involved in something else.  However, he has enough sense of time to understand the concept.
2. Routines really work - by keeping our routine each morning and evening relatively the same, we eliminate many of the factors that could lead to a breakdown.  My son knows the “order” of the morning: breakfast, get dressed, brush teeth, comb hair, etc.  Even during the summer, we try to stick with the routine to simply make our day start out on a good note.
3. Put some fun in the task at hand - with my younger son, we hold lots of “races” - races to brush our teeth, races to pick up the trains, races to get dressed.  He loves to do anything that resembles a game, so making it something simple yet fun is so much better than simply putting the toys away.
4. No room for backtalk - arguing about a transition or a task is simply not allowed in our house, and that goes for adults as well as children.  When the arguing begins, I simply state, “You have two choices: do what I asked you to do or sit in that chair for three minutes to get ready to do what I asked you to do.  Which would you like to do?”  My child still has a choice, but in the end, he will complete the task!

For the past week or two, I’ve published little snippets of discipline strategies as ideas or even reminders for us all.  With summer here (and school out), I’ve found myself needing to re-evaluate our “game plan” at home and set some ground rules.  Being consistent and clear in directions, and providing meaningful and effective consequences can establish the groundwork for a good, solid relationship with your child.  It is equally important to give your child plenty of praise.  Catching them being good, and letting them know about it, can be just as effective, if not moreso than many other forms of discipline.

There are several ways to show children that their behavior is exactly what is expected.  The easiest and most direct way is simply by telling them.  “Thank you for putting your dishes in the sink” or “I like the way you cleaned up your Legos without being asked” lets the child know that their behavior is on the mark and you, as the adult, have noticed.  Children will want to hear this again and again, and so the positive behavior will repeat as often as you acknowledge it. 

In addition to verbally telling a child about their good behavior, adults can also provide a physical “reward”.  Hugs, a pat on the back, high-fives or even a nudge can be just the thing to let a child know they’ve done the right thing.  In our house, these work especially well with our eight year-old, who doesn’t necessarily want to bring the attention of others to how proud his mom is!  We have a secret “squeeze” that we share when I want to compliment him, yet I don’t want to completely embarrass him in front of his pals.

It is okay to reward your child with other things as well.  Perhaps a walk together through the neighborhood, reading a book together, or even taking a special outing is just the way to show how proud you are of your child.  If your child spent the afternoon cleaning their room, why not enjoy it together with a board game (now that the floor is clean!) or a book together?

And, while material rewards shouldn’t be used all the time, they can be beneficial, especially when a new behavior is being learned.  Our three year-old has struggled with himself over potty training until we introduced Pez.  While I’m not big on food as a reward, the cute dispensers are perfect for him, and he only takes one candy per potty-trip.  It has been a HUGE incentive to getting him on track in the bathroom!  Another idea might be to keep a chart of successes, and when a behavior has been achieved a certain number of times, the child can earn a small toy or special treat.  Our older son had a hard time learning to stay in bed, so we kept a bedtime chart.  Each night that he stayed in his bed, he earned a sticker on his chart.  After ten stickers, he was rewarded with a trip to the Dollar Store, and after 100, we bought him an extra-special toy.  By then, the behavior of staying in bed had been learned and we were ALL much happier!

Look for the good in your child and let them know about it.  Praising a child for their good behavior is a great way to reinforce things you want to see in them again!