How do you and your family get silly together?

Teaching your child how to garden is a fun, hands-on learning experience that encourages patience, imagination and environmental awareness.  The best part about learning to garden is that it’s something your family can enjoy together, indoors or out!

Before you begin, talk with your child about the whole gardening process to peak their interest and help them become excited about the experience.  You could also pick up a children’s book about gardening or visit a children’s gardening Web site.

When you’re ready to start, gather a few supplies and child-appropriate tools—soil, seed cups, watering cans, etc.  Take a trip to the garden center together to pick out your supplies and seeds or seedlings for planting.  Some great plants for children to start their gardening experience with include sunflowers, snow peas, cherry tomatoes and strawberries. Read seed packets and plant tags—anything with easy care and a short growing season are perfect for little ones to plant! Be sure to acknowledge that some non-edible plants can be poisonous.  Check the National Capital Poison Center Web site for a list of some poisonous plants and always supervise your child while gardening.

Now that it’s time to plant, choose your location. If you have a large garden, section off an area or, if you don’t, use an old sandbox filled with soil as your child’s own special garden. Encourage your child to care for their plants throughout the entire process—from seed, to seedling, to mature plant, to harvest. How exciting it will be when the whole family is enjoying the fruits and vegetables they raised all on their own!

• Keep a list of chores for every member of the family—even mom and dad. This helps children see that no one in the house is exempt from doing their fair share of the housework. If they see in black and white what mom and dad do each day, their chores may seem like less of a hassle.

• Don’t expect perfection. When introducing a new chore, show your child how it is done first and then let them do it their way. It may not be exactly how you’d like it to be done, but at least they’re making an effort. Don’t step in and take over or redo the chore after they have finished. Next time, offer some tips on how to do it better. They’ll learn eventually and be encouraged to keep up with it.

• Time it! If a chore is assigned, give a time frame for completing it. If not, your child may realize they can put it off until you or someone else takes care of it. When a chore is completed properly and on time, offer appreciation and praise for your child’s diligent follow through.

By Dr. Michele Borba

Okay folks, I’m concerned. Over the last few weeks I’ve been reviewing studies involving children and play. “Shocked” and “disturbed” are the two words that describe how I feel when reading those reports.

Every study reaches one sad conclusion: Good old-fashioned play is quickly becoming an endangered pastime for today’s plugged-in, over-scheduled kids.

Worse yet, play is not only disappearing from our homes and neighborhoods, but our schools as well. And this comes at the same time when reports show that stress is mounting to  new heights in our kids while their mental health has plummeted to a twenty-five year all-time low. A good old fashioned childhood of cloud-gazing, leaf-kicking, and hill rolling is disappearing to be replaced by screens, earplugs, flashcards and tutors.

Facts About Today’s Play-Deprived Kids

• Since the late 1970s there’s been a 25% drop in our children’s free play and a 50% drop in unstructured outdoor activities

• Since the late 1970s kids time in organized, adult-supervised sports have doubled and the number of minutes devoted each week to passive leisure, not including watching television, has increased from 30 minutes to more than three hours

• The average U.S. child is now “plugged-in” to some kind of digital device–not including cell phone and text–71/2 hours a day

The loss of play and even skepticism about its value may be partly due to a more competitive, “no-child left untested era” (don’t get me started on that one…), our increasingly hurried, quicker-pace life style, and the belief we have to schedule our kids with activity after activity to stretch those IQ points. Now Tiger Mom–and every media outlet our there appearing to quote her–is urging every so-called “Western” mom to halt those play dates and any child-chosen activity.

Whatever the reason, today’s kids are playing less and many experts–and the kids–are crying, “Foul!” and with good reason. Dozens of studies prove that play is not just a luxury but essential to our children’s healthy development.

12 Scientific Benefits of Play

We’ve always known that “kids and play” are just a natural combo. But new research also shows that letting kids engage in self-directed play has immense value for their social, emotional, cognitive and physical growth. Here are just a few of the proven scientific benefits of letting our kids get messy and doing something besides clicking those darn keypads and video controllers and paper and pencil tasks:

1. Play boosts children’s creativity and imagination. Play gives children the chance to invent, build, expand, explore and develop a whole different part of the brain.

2. Play stretches our children’s attention span. Playing outdoors just 30 minutes a day increases child’s ability to focus and pay attention.

3. Play and rough-housing boost boys’ problem solving abilities. The more elementary school-boys engaged in rough-housing, the better they scored on a test of social problem solving. (Don’t ya love that one!)

4. Play boosts self-confidence and self-regulation. Kids learn to become masters of their own destiny without an adult directing, pushing, managing or scheduling.

5. Play forges friendships, strengthens social competence and teaches social skills. Undirected play allows kids to learn how to work in groups, share, negotiate, communicate and develop core social skills they need not only now but for the rest of their lives.

6. Play helps kids learn to enjoy just being in their own company, entertain themselves and develop identity. Ease that guilt when your kid says, “I’m bored, Mom!”

7. Play reduces children’s anxiety and diminishes stress. A study published in the Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry shows that play is also critical for our children’s emotional health because it helps kids work through anxiety and reduce stress.

8. Play creates joyful memories of childhood. Come on, no kid is going to remember the car pools and worksheets but the swings, jumping in leaves, playing leapfrog in the mud, blowing bubbles, building forts–those are the unforgettable childhood moments. Sigh!

9. Play boosts physical health and reduces risk of obesity. Henry Joseph Legere, MD, author of Raising Healthy Eaters points out: “Rises in screen time have led to the rise of a sedentary lifestyle for our children. In 1982, the childhood obesity prevalence in the United States was actually less than 4 percent. By 2004, that number had grown to about 30 percent.”

10. Play expands our kids minds and neurological development. Self-initiated play improve skills such as guessing, figuring, interpreting and is important to brain development and learning

11. Play builds new competencies, leadership skills, teaches lifelong hobbies, and develops resilience. “Play is what allows kids to manipulate their environment,” says a report written by Kenneth Ginsburg, M.D. of the AAP, “And how you manipulate your environment is about how you begin to take control, how you begin to develop your senses, how you view the world.”

12. Play nurtures the parent-child bond. Child-driven play also improves our parent-kid relationship.Play offers a wonderful opportunity for parents to see the world from our children’s eyes as well as strengthen our relationship when we join in.

In fact, playing with our kids is one of the few times when clocks stop and stress fades. There’s no judgments, schedules or time constraints that worry us. It’s just a glorious opportunity to give our kids our full presence, be in their space and enjoy each other’s company, and build those wonderful childhood memories. Keep in mind folks, there’s no rewind button when it comes to childhood!

So parents, why not just this week push pause and tune into your kids’ schedule? I dare you: take a Reality Check and see just how how unstructured, unsupervised time your kid has. While you’re at it, here are a few questions to help you assess if play should be added to the “Endangered Species List” at your home.

Reality Check: Could Your Kids Be ‘Play Deprived’?

How much are your kids plugged into some kind of a digital device?

How often are your kids glued to that TV or clicking that keypad?

How much free time do your kids have that is unscheduled, unplanned, unsupervised?

How often do your kids go outdoors to just recompress?

Do your kids know how to entertain themselves solo an adult, coach, teacher, or you whether it be indoors or out?

Do your kids enjoy the great outdoors?

How often (if ever) do your kids see you throwing off your shoes and joining in the unplanned, spontaneous fun with them?

Do your kids know outdoor age-appropriate games and have the equipment for those activities whether it be hopscotch, jump rope, Red Rover, I Spy, basketball, freeze-tag, kick the can, skateboarding?

Do your kids know how to self-entertain and do activities that would nurture their creativity or imagination on a regular basis?

Do you set a rule that when friends come to the house a minimum or no plugged-in devices are allowed?

Would your kid say that you encourage them to play unstructured?

How do you respond when your kids get messy? (Just asking…but remember letting your kids get messy every now and then is actually a great way to teach them that nobody’s perfect, accidents do happen, and teaches them to enjoy themselves and their own company).

Let’s remember: Play is an essential — not a luxury – for our children’s well-being. Thirty years of solid child development research confirms that play is crucial for our children’s social, emotional, physical and cognitive growth.  So check into your kids’ lives and make sure at least  a bit of “free time” is a part of their waking hours.

What do you think? Are our kids becoming play-deprived? And if they are, what do you see as the disadvantages?

Dr. Michele Borba, Parenting Expert.  You can also refer to my daily blog, Dr. Borba’s Reality Check for ongoing parenting solutions and late-breaking news and research about child development.

Throughout 2010, bullying has been on the rise at all levels of education. In an effort to combat this growing problem, the nation’s leading preschool franchise, The Goddard School, is reaching out with a renewed vigor to help families discover the benefits of playful learning at an early age and how it can prevent bullying. With their proprietary FLEX™ Learning Program, designed to build children’s self- confidence through play, The Goddard School hopes to break the cycle of bullying and halt a national trend.

According to Dr. Kyle Pruett, a child psychiatrist, published author, and advisor to The Goddard School, the success and enjoyment that preschool children experience through playful learning can help develop self-confidence. Confidence, along with strong parenting and learning to interact in a social group, is an important factor in helping children stand up to bullies.

“Confidence comes from competence, and there’s no better way for a child to discover competence than through play-based learning,” said Pruett. “When children learn through play, they become independent thinkers capable of solving problems themselves instead of seeking help from parents or teachers. That’s a huge self-confidence booster.”

Playful learning has been at the heart of The Goddard School’s core curriculum from the beginning. This approach to learning, which helps introduce children to new skills in a playful and engaging way, is supported by a growing body of research from Play for Tomorrow, the consortium behind the respected playful learning movement.

“We make learning enjoyable and we build in lots of opportunity for each child to experience the satisfaction of success,” said Joe Schumacher, CEO of Goddard Systems, Inc., franchisor of The Goddard School. “A key benefit of this approach to learning is its emphasis on building self-esteem and confidence as children try, and succeed at, new challenges. A confident child is much less likely to develop into a bully or to accept bullying from another child.”

To jumpstart this initiative, The Goddard School will be hosting the Goddard Community Games event February 5 in communities across the nation. The focus will be on fun and enrichment, but also teach children about playing well with others and accepting each other’s differences. The event will also give families across the nation an opportunity to join with their children in playful learning programs selected from The Goddard School’s enrichment curriculum, including Sign Language, Yoga, Nutrition and “Rock ‘n’ Tot” pre-dance and creative movement.

“In our preschools, playful learning activities not only equip children with specific skills and knowledge, but also teach them about friendship, compassion, cooperation and kindness,” said Sue Adair, Director of Education at Goddard Systems, Inc. “In fact, as a part of this special day of fun and learning, the children will be involved in a ‘Good Deed’ – an outreach program that will benefit the local community. As we foster a sense of accomplishment and purpose in each child, we build a foundation of self-confidence that we believe is the best defense against bullying.”

To learn more about bully prevention in preschool and beyond or The Goddard School, visit http://www.goddardschool.com/games.

Bullying is a problematic, but not inevitable, part of human interpersonal business. It differs from the usual scrapes and chafes of everyday life because of its intentional nature. Toddlers and preschoolers are busy working on their unique sense of self, using newly learned personal pronouns to announce what’s theirs. This includes their toys, body parts and random objects that catch the eye (see Toddler Property Laws in my book, ‘Me, Myself and I’). So, when someone unknowingly violates one of these property laws, ‘No, mine!’ gets screamed and a brief, small (in the scheme of things) social encounter of an aggressive nature may occur. A parent or teacher usually handles such incidents with some helpful words and – it’s on with the day.

Bullying, however, is an intentional, aggressive act – social or physical – with the sole aim of intimidating a peer. Such acts happen daily on the margins of adult supervision and as such are witnessed by most peers. Most of the children we know have either been a perpetrator, victim or bystander – since as long as they can remember, these three jobs may even be a continuum.

We are born with a drive to master the world around us, and a portion of selfishness and aggression seems to be part of everyone’s tool kit. Parents begin early by helping their children get the ‘dosage’ right, helped along by culture and society’s expectations. One of nature’s partners in this process is the innate capacity for empathy which shows up, developmentally, in the middle of the second year of life. Remember the toddler offering (temporarily) his binky or blankie to a sad friend?  How do we get from there to Michele Anthony’s descriptions of the painful social bullying in her Little Girls Can Be Mean: Four Steps to Bully-proof Girls in the Early Grades - in just a few short years? Well, we could go on forever, but in this article’s worth of advice, I know parents are pretty sure they’d like to strengthen their child’s defenses against distressing stuff.

Supporting an early drive to care for one another is the winning strategy. The brain –and its hormonal partners- treat acts of kindness and caring with the same special care as it does warm human relationships. The ‘relationship hormone’, oxytocin, increases whenever such acts are performed, improving our capacity to regulate our emotions and get our aggression and selfishness under control. If parents can ‘catch’ their children in small acts of kindness and add a few words to explain why this feels good – to them and to the child, and why they value it so highly – resilience to bullying when parents are not around is under construction.

Speaking up about how we treat each other is an especially powerful tool in anti-bullying strategies because it has the power of majority.  Bullying feeds on our silence. Let’s help each other and our children find our voices.

Infant

Encourage babies to explore activities that allow for reaching, rolling, sitting, crawling, pulling themselves up and walking.  ‘Tummy Time’ is the perfect opportunity for babies to practice lifting their heads and develop strong muscles.  Placing toys just out of reach encourages babies to reach for the toys, assisting in physical development. 

First Steps/Toddler

Support young toddlers mastery of walking by allowing them to be active!  Play with them as they learn to run, hop, dance and throw.  Have them chase bubbles or invent a silly walk – play becomes exercise.  Remember to always provide encouragement to toddlers as they build self-confidence.

Preschool +

Preschoolers need plenty of time and space to run around and play.  Taking your child to a playground or park is a great way to release energy and exercise!  Encourage creative dancing and riding scooters and tricycles.  Play ‘Statues’ by playing up-tempo music.  Have your child move while the music is playing and freeze into a statue when you pause it.  Play outside with your child and teach hand-eye coordination by showing the basics of throwing, catching and kicking a large, soft ball.

• The fewer words the better.
• Actions speak louder than words.

Fewer Words

My own decades of experience in clinical practice shows me that when parents use discipline phrases of more than 20 words, their children do not respond most of the time. If the emotional tone of that discipline is negative and nagging, children are particularly deaf. This is so hard for many parents because we feel we are so right (actually righteous), compared to our children. We want to believe that the more we correct them, the better they will behave. The data shows exactly the opposite.

Effective Actions

Few words only work in the self-control area if you back it up with action. Otherwise, internal shame will turn into the humiliation of being useless. When your child bites someone during a visit, take her home after a simple reprimand, and don’t endlessly berate her in her car seat. The action of losing her playtime speaks louder that anything you might say. Handing a spoon to a child who is mashing food into her mouth at dinner beats a lecture on manners.

Your love and opinion of your children matters deeply to them, especially when they are struggling to develop more self-control. Showing your children that their behavior affects the way you feel, helps children understand that you have feelings, too. Empathy and compassion begin to grow. When children see that their evolving self-control can make their parent feel good, the affirmation adds social and cognitive accomplishment to the achievement of controlling one’s behavior.

Self esteem begins with building trust.  You can build trust with infants by meeting their needs in a timely fashion.  When you respond to a child’s cry, you are showing them that they are worthy of care and love.  When you meet their needs consistently the infant trusts that they are consistently worthy therefore building self-esteem.

Toddler/Get Set (18-36 months)

Now that your infant has trust it is important to continue building trust into the Toddler phase.  Self-esteem comes from the picture the child has of himself as someone who can do things.  Toddlers believe they can accomplish certain tasks and supporting their independence builds confidence that they can succeed.  Offer your child activities that lead to success.  Toddlers are very successful at self-care activities such as getting dressed, cleaning up after self and helping around the house but they also enjoy new activities.  When planning your day, find ways for your Toddler’s involvement to be important.

Preschool  (36 months – 5 years)

A preschooler’s self-esteem is all about supported choices.  Unlike the Toddler phase when choices are made from selected options, a preschool child’s actions are the choice.  Preschool children are attracted to specific activities such as blocks or art.  Goddard teachers will support that child’s choice to stay in that center every day and take the learning skills to the child.  By doing so, the teacher has supported the child’s choice.  The child interprets this as “If my choice was supported, I am good because my choice was good.”  Consistent support will lead to the child’s trust in his own decision making, therefore building self-esteem.

Pre-K/K  (5+ years)

Pre-K and Kindergarten children build self-esteem through skill mastery.  You may see your Pre-K child go back to old familiar activities or repeat activities.  This process of experiencing past successes builds confidence.   Ask your child open-ended questions to find out what they are thinking and know about their own activity.  After your child displays their knowledge inquire with “what if?” questions to draw out the next level of curiosity.   Social skill success begins to play an important role in self-esteem.  Offer opportunities for new social opportunities in anticipation of the next step to Kindergarten or First grade.

• Make enough pasta for everyone – choose a fun shape like spirals, pinwheels, or shells.  Not only is the pasta pleasing to look at, it’s already bite-size!  Put a fist-size amount in a bowl for each family member.

• Steam fresh vegetables a cup or two at a time.  Choose your family’s favorites and provide variety in color, texture, and taste such as, carrots, corn, and peppers.  Put each veggie in its own serving bowl.

• Add the “plus” to dinner with a little protein power!  Place a legume or two into individual serving bowls.  You could choose soybeans, peas, lima beans, lentils, or chick peas.

• Let the kids choose their own veggies and legumes to create personalized recipes.

• The sauce is up to the chef.  Do your kids prefer a red sauce, white sauce, or no sauce?

By providing good food choices, you are modeling a healthy attitude. By giving your children an opportunity to make their own food choices once in a while, you are empowering them to make their own decisions.