Play Ideas

Posted on 02/21/2011 by Mary K

I promise not to go on and on today as I wrap up this series on playing with your child. I have to confess I cringed when glancing at my very lengthy last post… the thing is… play is super important to me. (obviously LOL)

Today’s post promises to be much shorter. Now that you understand the role ‘play’ holds in life… I thought I’d just share a few ideas to get your imagination moving along playfully. In fact, below you’ll find a link to several suggestions of things to do. When you’re running out of ideas it might be handy to have on hand. Continue reading →

How Can I Play With My Child?

Posted on 02/18/2011 by Mary K

People are all different. That’s hardly news but it means not every game or every play style will appeal to your child. Or you for that matter. So if you’re tempted to give up on having fun playing with your child consider the idea that playing something else might be the answer. After all, it’s unrealistic to think you have to enjoy all the same games with one another.

Yet a word of caution here… don’t be tempted to get in a rut with your kids playing only the familiar games. Sure, some kids will find certain kinds of games more challenging that others. Some more boring than others. That’s okay… and you do want play that is fun (after all, it’s hardly ‘play’ if it doesn’t have an element of ‘fun’). But do your best to find a way for your children to build up skills in new areas too. Variety is the spice of life. Continue reading →

“Come Play With Me!”

Posted on 02/16/2011 by Mary K

For some reason the topic of playing with children has come to my attention quite frequently lately. In just the past two weeks I’ve had 2 different friends, who happen to be young mothers with young children, comment that they seem to be ‘play-challenged’… meaning they just don’t really know how to actively ‘play’ with their children. And I heard the same conversation going on while listening to the women of CBS’s daytime show The Talk.

I can empathize… at least to a point. For whatever reasons, and I suspect there are several, I find it quite easy and natural to play with kids. However, there certainly are times I simply don’t feel like it. And I wonder if parents who think they don’t know how to play with their kids might be confusing ‘being comfortably able to play’ with ‘feeling the desire to play with a child at any given moment’. Continue reading →

Kids Need to Read Fiction

Posted on 02/07/2011 by Mary K

Kids need to read, and have read to them, good, gutsy fiction! And more is better.

What is good, gutsy fiction? So glad you asked! Of course, you are not required to agree with my specific choices of fiction reading material… and naturally that’s perfectly okay. Yet I will take a stand that good, gutsy fiction provides us with exposure to challenging experiences and deep emotions of ALL kinds as well as a great story line.

What better way to ‘try on’ someone else’s experience than from the distance of fiction, experiencing a book that brings you to tears of grief and tears of joy, challenges you with ethical issues allowing you to explore your values, and describes different locations around the world in a way that makes them very real and present?

In a High School English class we were required to read A Death In The Family by James Agee. This is not a book with a lot of action. As the title makes obvious, it explores death… in an ordinary family in the early part of the 20th Century in Knoxville, TN.

Agee gently, yet powerfully, provides the perspective of the experience from various characters. I hated the sadness it provoked as I put myself in others shoes. Thought I was at risk of truly getting swept away by my feelings. Yet I learned otherwise. Instead, I grew… I learned I could move through intense feelings, I learned others hold different perspectives around the same event in some surprising ways. Continue reading →

Changing Schools, Changing Behavior

Posted on 01/24/2011 by Mary K

I watched this interesting animation yesterday about changing the education paradigm. It’s well worth the eleven and a half minutes. (I’ve included it below so you can easily watch it yourself. I’d love to hear what you think about it!) It really ramped up my awareness of WHY today’s educational system simply doesn’t work.

It’s been clear to me for a long time that the educational system that I grew up with, and what I see being experienced out there today is NOT supporting the optimum growth and development of our youth today. Continue reading →

Should we cut ‘Tiger Mom’ some slack?

Posted on 01/18/2011 by Mary K

If all you’ve heard about Amy Chua and her book Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother is coming from the ‘news’… or bloggers railing about the book and choices Amy made while raising her children as if she were writing a ‘how-to’ book… my title might land on you as something more than ironic.

Yet is it possible our very over-reaction to Amy Chua’s memoir is a good indicator that we don’t have a clue when it comes to raising children? Continue reading →

The Best Thing You Can Offer A Child

Posted on 01/17/2011 by Mary K

Children know innately who they are; it’s something grownups seem to have lost touch with… they have a way of reminding us.

So… how can we best guide them? After all, though we may be on the way back to remembering, many of our life experiences have trained us away from our inner guidance. Some days it’s seems impossible for me to trust that they are listening to their inner guidance… like when a toddler is climbing onto a tippy table or reaching for a sharp scissors.

What do you do in these kinds of situations? Continue reading →

11 Step Program for Those Thinking of Having Kids

Posted on 01/10/2011 by Mary K

Today’s brilliant tongue-in-cheek <but only a little> post was received from a friend over at facebook, Amy Lawrence.

11 Step Program for those thinking of having kids

Lesson 1

1. Go to the grocery store.
2. Arrange to have your salary paid directly to their head office.
3. Go home.
4. Pick up the paper.
5. Read it for the last time.

Lesson 2

Before you finally go ahead and have children, find a couple who already are parents and berate them about their…
1. Methods of discipline.
2. Lack of patience.
3. Appallingly low tolerance levels.
4. Allowing their children to run wild.
5. Suggest ways in which they might improve their child’s breastfeeding, sleep habits, toilet training, table manners, and overall behavior.
Enjoy it because it will be the last time in your life you will have all the answers. Continue reading →

EFT – Kids tapping on heaven’s door

Posted on 01/05/2011 by Mary K

So are you familiar with the Emotional Freedom Technique (EFT)? It’s an amazing and simple tool that has provided stress relief for millions of adults and can easily be taught to your children for use with anything from anger, fear, trauma and bedwetting to pain and a wide assortment of behavior problems.

EFT is a technique that can move you from ‘Yuck’ to ‘Yeah!’ faster than anything else I know of… because it moves energy through the body not just the mind.

We know that thoughts and emotions have an impact on the body. In fact, you can test this with your child. Have them hold out their arm firmly and straight. Then ask them to tell you something true, like their name or age, while you gently try to press their arm down. (You may have to tell them to resist… my 7 yr old grandson complied too easily because I didn’t tell him to try to keep his arm up and straight). The ask them to say something untrue about themselves. You can offer suggestions if they have trouble coming up with something. Now with the same pressure, press their arm down again. You’ll notice… and even more importantly they will notice that they are much weaker! Continue reading →

Your Inner Toddler

Posted on 12/20/2010 by Mary K

It’s that holiday time of year when things get a bit hectic. So let me ask you… are you taking care of yourself?

Several years ago I developed and presented a workshop to Childcare Providers in Ramsey County, MN. It was titled, Managing Children’s Behavior Based on Temperament. I was amazed at the things I learned about myself while I was researching this topic. And how much it has helped me learn to manage myself!

You see… temperament is our preferred style of responding and we’re born with this preference… doesn’t mean it has to dictate how we live our life… yet is IS the foundation we each have to work with. After working for five years in a newborn nursery, spending many, many hours with brand new babies, I can tell you with certainty… yes, we are born with certain, quite specific temperamental traits. And taking this into consideration can really help you know how to take better care of yourself to avoid those meltdowns (inner or outer) that might be occurring during this sometimes stressful time of year. (I’ll post later about how you can get familiar with your child’s temperament so you can better guide them to preferred behavior… today is about you.) Continue reading →

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meeting your child in the vortex

Category Archives: emotional development