The greatest gift is a passion for reading. It is cheap, it consoles, it distracts, it excites, it gives you knowledge of the world and experience of a wide kind. It is a moral illumination. – Elizabeth Hardwick
I have a real passion for books… and that includes books for children. So I thought it might be fun to share with you some of the books that have been particularly fun to share with the kids in my life.
Today I thought it would be fun to share a couple of ‘tests’ to see if you are left-brained, or right-brained. Heck, share these with the whole family and see who falls on which side…. the more rational left-brained or the more creative right-brained.
The Optimist’s Creed
Natural disasters, while natural, can certainly be cause for concern. While the world continues to reel with news of the 8.9 Earthquake and subsequent Tsunami that hit Japan on March 11, 2011, don’t be surprised if your son or daughter is feeling the impact too. Even if you live in an area physically untouched by this event.
With steady news coverage your kids are bound to have heard at least something about this huge event… and depending on your child’s age and awareness level, could be causing them some alarm. I urge you to be sensitive to their concern, honest with what you share and open to them needing a bit more reassurance than usual from you. Continue reading
A friend shared the following today – Continue reading
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
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
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, 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