End of Summer check-in

It's been awhile, hasn't it? I've had a lot on my mind, but as always, life has been busy in these parts. It pains me, but I still don't have much time to write during normal circumstances. Free time is, as ever, a rare commodity with two kids in the mix. And being summer and all, most daylight hours are spent out chasing the sun during its brief 3-month guest appearance in our world. The short and magical season where you don't need to wear jackets, plan for rain, and eat hot foods is something to be enjoyed with wild hedonistic abandon. So I lead my merry band of pirates on adventures almost every day, pick berries, play down by the river, hunt for agates, work on gross motor skills (the playground), and pretty much live outdoors all day long. Hammock is both a noun and a verb. It is the beginning of September, and by my reckoning, summer is over. I know what the calendar says, but as an almost perpetual student and teacher, school has always ushered in the end of summer for me. And school has started in some parts of the state, the apples are ripe, and the nights are getting cold. The crickets sound desperate, the yellowjackets are making their last stand, and the blackberries are dried up and long gone. If I were teaching right now, I would be busy memorizing class rosters and making seating charts to solve incipient behavior problems. As it is, nobody is terribly interested in hiring me, so I will forgo such pleasures and enjoy my two-year-old who in many ways is much more enjoyable than a classroom full of teenagers, unless you factor in diaper explosions and inexplicable crying jags. For once in my life I really feel completely satisfied with how I spent my summer, and I'm sure it has a lot to do with the fact that it's not cluttered up with work, doctor's appointments, or other forms of sabotagery. Throw in a vacation to the Oregon Coast, and it's all good.

TV vs Reading

Found this lovely Roald Dahl poem that neatly sums up the questionable value of television for children:

Television

The most important thing we've learned,
So far as children are concerned,
Is never, NEVER, NEVER let
Them near your television set --
Or better still, just don't install
The idiotic thing at all.
In almost every house we've been,
We've watched them gaping at the screen.
They loll and slop and lounge about,
And stare until their eyes pop out.
(Last week in someone's place we saw
A dozen eyeballs on the floor.)
They sit and stare and stare and sit
Until they're hypnotised by it,
Until they're absolutely drunk
With all that shocking ghastly junk.
Oh yes, we know it keeps them still,
They don't climb out the window sill,
They never fight or kick or punch,
They leave you free to cook the lunch
And wash the dishes in the sink --
But did you ever stop to think,
To wonder just exactly what
This does to your beloved tot?
IT ROTS THE SENSE IN THE HEAD!
IT KILLS IMAGINATION DEAD!
IT CLOGS AND CLUTTERS UP THE MIND!
IT MAKES A CHILD SO DULL AND BLIND
HE CAN NO LONGER UNDERSTAND
A FANTASY, A FAIRYLAND!
HIS BRAIN BECOMES AS SOFT AS CHEESE!
HIS POWERS OF THINKING RUST AND FREEZE!
HE CANNOT THINK -- HE ONLY SEES!
'All right!' you'll cry. 'All right!' you'll say,
'But if we take the set away,
What shall we do to entertain
Our darling children? Please explain!'
We'll answer this by asking you,
'What used the darling ones to do?
'How used they keep themselves contented
Before this monster was invented?'
Have you forgotten? Don't you know?
We'll say it very loud and slow:
THEY ... USED ... TO ... READ! They'd READ and READ,
AND READ and READ, and then proceed
To READ some more. Great Scott! Gadzooks!
One half their lives was reading books!
The nursery shelves held books galore!
Books cluttered up the nursery floor!
And in the bedroom, by the bed,
More books were waiting to be read!
Such wondrous, fine, fantastic tales
Of dragons, gypsies, queens, and whales
And treasure isles, and distant shores
Where smugglers rowed with muffled oars,
And pirates wearing purple pants,
And sailing ships and elephants,
And cannibals crouching 'round the pot,
Stirring away at something hot.
(It smells so good, what can it be?
Good gracious, it's Penelope.)
The younger ones had Beatrix Potter
With Mr. Tod, the dirty rotter,
And Squirrel Nutkin, Pigling Bland,
And Mrs. Tiggy-Winkle and-
Just How The Camel Got His Hump,
And How the Monkey Lost His Rump,
And Mr. Toad, and bless my soul,
There's Mr. Rat and Mr. Mole-
Oh, books, what books they used to know,
Those children living long ago!
So please, oh please, we beg, we pray,
Go throw your TV set away,
And in its place you can install
A lovely bookshelf on the wall.
Then fill the shelves with lots of books,
Ignoring all the dirty looks,
The screams and yells, the bites and kicks,
And children hitting you with sticks-
Fear not, because we promise you
That, in about a week or two
Of having nothing else to do,
They'll now begin to feel the need
Of having something to read.
And once they start -- oh boy, oh boy!
You watch the slowly growing joy
That fills their hearts. They'll grow so keen
They'll wonder what they'd ever seen
In that ridiculous machine,
That nauseating, foul, unclean,
Repulsive television screen!
And later, each and every kid
Will love you more for what you did.

Roald Dahl

Halloween

To celebrate my favorite holiday this year, we dressed up like pirates and went to Burgerville for breakfast. Then we did the usual low-key Halloween thing over at Gladstone. The kids dressed up like firefighters (thanks to a firefighter jacket the pre-schooler borrowed from his classroom over the weekend). I dressed up like a pirate (for the first time since I met my husband) which was fun. ;) The weather was actually nice too--no rain! So we did a little bit of trick-or-treating at the town square, the kids got to go in the fire engines, and we came home and carved our pumpkins.

Cannon Beach Blues

The itch,
87 miles,
Another year,
The immense pull of the ocean,
2 cranky kids,
Driving too fast,
Mushrooms and salal cheering me on through the pass,
Hit the junction,
And jump south,
And hit the gas,
There's sunshine up ahead,
I was born ready to go,
Painfully white sand,
The litter of seagull feathers,
Sea grass like some improbable Medusa's hair,
2 huge rocks,
A laughing boy, and crying baby,
Calm blue seas,
Mussels and razor clams,
Jellyfish and sand dollars,
Balm for my soul,
I never want to leave

Mushroom walks

Found "Mushroom Demystified" at the library, and its the height of the fall mushroom season, so we've been having a good time with that around here.

My son is fascinated by mushrooms, and October is prime time for seeing them. We've gone on a lot of hikes lately and I've been pointing them out to him, since he keeps asking about them. He grew up watching me harvest them in the woods as a baby and still remembers it. I figure I may as well teach him, since he seems to have the gift of finding even the tiniest ones. He's as good at spotting them as I am, so basically, I'm trying to impress upon him that many of the most beautiful ones (e.g. the Amanitas) are dangerous.

We went to Mt. Tabor, where I haven't been in probably 3 or 4 years now. There's big gorgeous conifers there, and lots of shade, so we saw tons of Amanitas, Russulas, Boletes, etc. The battery on my phone died, so I didn't get as many pictures as I would have liked, but enough to play around with IDing them.

Talking to Kids

"I love the way you talk to your son..."

I've been told this several times recently, and I had no idea what it meant. I really didn't know I was "doing anything" all that interesting. I also tend to be pretty wrapped up in my own life, and rarely am all that aware of what other people are doing. But after spending some time in settings around other parents of small ones, I think I have a better idea of what the people who said this meant by it. I do tend to do things a bit differently, and I guess in something as ordinary as talking to my son, this would come out as well. As to why that would be the case, I think it is a side-effect of teaching, and relates to my overall philosophy about communicating effectively with students. Parents (and other people who spend time around small children) tend to use pronounced speech patterns when communicating with infants and young children that are a bit different than what they use when communicating with other adults. It's instinctual. It usually involves the use of simplified vocabulary, a different pitch of voice (higher), increased use of questioning, and a slower rate of delivery. Popularly called "motherese", the formal term is "child directed speech". This makes sense, you don't talk to your child the same way you talk to your coworkers, and if you talked to your coworkers the same way you talk to your 2-year-old, they'd think you were batty.

Rather specifically, child-directed-speech tends to look a bit like this: The speaker usually gazes into the child's face and raises the pitch of her voice to a higher register. The speech itself features dramatic changes (low to high, from soft to loud)--in other words, it almost always sounds like someone reading aloud a dramatic story. The speaker exaggerates consonant sounds, and stretches out vowel sounds, uses shorter sentences, with few words, and uses dramatic pauses and longer wait times. It's a kind of scaffolded conversation that adults do instinctively to help children learn how to speak.

But I've noticed there's also strange but very common variations on this concept.

There's variation #1 that I call "cutesy-wutsie baby talk", where seemingly sane adults talk to children like they're brainless small fuzzy stuffed animals incapable of forming an intelligent thought. It sounds like the verbal equivalent of syrup poured over a deep-fried candy bar with a dusting of powdered sugar on top. It grates on the nerves, and frankly comes off as totally degrading...to the point where you start thinking, "If someone talked to ME that way, I'd stab my eyes out." Dramatic intonation, and simplified vocabulary, yes. Scaffolded conversation? Not so much.

Variation #2 is what I call "the dog trainer", where people talk to kids like they would a dog: lots of short bursts of one or two-word commands. "sit down." "shut up." "quit it." (these are actually the polite variations--often they're laced with profanity). Reduced speech and simple vocabulary, yes. Scaffolded conversation? Not so much.

Variation #3 is what I call "parents as peers", where parents talk to their child (you usually only see this one with an only-child) like they are a miniature adult (peer). Seriously. If you overhear the conversation it usually sounds like a verbal equivalent of the New Yorker, and tends to be a monologue (since few kids can respond/converse in this fashion). So you get a steady stream of narrative or exposition, that sounds so utterly pretentious that it's ludicrous. (Living in Portland, when I see this, I expect to see the film crew for Portlandia jump out from behind the bushes and yell "Cut!" every time I overhear this kind of dialogue in parent/child interactions.

Now let's leave the volatile world of parenting behind for a moment and jump to teaching, and how verbal communication works in that setting:

Talking to students is a bit different from talking to your own child. For one, the student/teacher relationship is a less personal kind of relationship, so it works best if most of the communication is positive in tone, brief, and relatively non-emotional in content:

"We're on page 47." (versus "Why aren't you doing your work, I told you five minutes ago to get started, let's get going buddy!") "Cool car!" (versus "Oh my goodness, that's a really wonderful red car you drew there, you are the best artist ever!") "Not a good plan." (A student is caught doing something she shouldn't be doing in class.)

According to kids, most teachers err on the side of talking a lot, maybe too much. Many have told me they appreciate the fact that I don't do that. As a teacher, you really don't have the luxury of talking one-on-one with students a lot, so you either tend to talk to all of your students at once (lecturing), or lean towards using a variety of non-verbal behaviors to show your attention. Most students seem to respond better to less verbiage (blah blah blah).

As a teacher, most of your communication is largely focused on persuading entire groups of people to cooperate and do something as a group, against all their natural inclinations, so your conversations tend to be far less personal, and more like directing traffic. It's the verbal equivalent of conducting an orchestra, so you tend to develop a number of lines that you use for the sake of efficiency, and through repetition, they develop meaning to your audience.

When you DO talk with students one-on-one, you can only do it in brief snatches, rather infrequently. So when you do have time to talk to a student one-on-one, it pays to be honest (authentic) and direct, but non-emotional (I call this "being real"--you say what you have to say, but only what's important and worth saying). Kids and teenagers hate "phony" conversations, lengthy explanations, rhetorical discussions, sermons, scoldings, advice, etc. Often non-verbal gestures work even better than words: high-fives, fist bumps, and a smile work better than flowing words of praise. Instead of nagging/lecturing, a simple shake of the head, or if necessary, "the look of death" often gets the job done nicely. (If you have some praise, and need to say something more in depth, it's often better to write a note!)

Things that do NOT work with students include telling them how they should think or feel about something, what lessons they should be learning, and giving ultimatums. Often it's best to say less, rather than more, and let them feel the weight of their mistakes and the inner joy of their successes.

Now back to the original subject, talking to one's own children:

Naturally, you can do this anyway you want, but in my own particular case, being a teacher for awhile has probably influenced how I talk to my son. For starters, I think overly-syrupy baby talk is degrading to the intelligence of children, and dehumanizing, so I don't do that with children of any age. I operate on the assumption that children almost always understand far more than they can say, so I talk to them like they are human beings with feelings, thoughts, and motivations of their own. As humans, we tend to equate intelligence with speech prowess, so the tendency to "talk down" to children, people with disabilities, and people who speak another language is very strong. Until children are talking well, conversation is difficult, and a bit one-sided, but there are ways to talk to babies that still respect their dignity as small people.

Children are small humans with feelings and ideas of their own, so I find the "dog trainer" style of speech aversive because children are cognitively much more advanced than dogs, making them worthy of complete sentences. Granted there are times when short and sweet is best, but using a variety of words and mixing short and long sentences together when speaking is helpful to a child who is still learning how to speak. I think the people who tend to use "dog trainer" style language with children do it because unconsciously they believe the child is incapable of understanding anything more advanced. You see this most often with people who are communicating with a non-verbal child (or adult), which bothers me because it's often the case that the speaker assumes the listener is mentally incapable of understanding regular speech. I have found that this is rarely the case, even with severely disabled children or adults (if you remember to give these folks longer wait time for processing verbal information, you will often find that they understand you just fine). However, even with a toddler or child who usually speaks only in one or two word phrases, you can elaborate on them, or ask questions in order to help the child develop more sophisticated sentences of his or her own.

Generally, it's good to talk to children as much as you can. Speech, like any other skill takes practice. The more adults talk to children, the more words and sentence constructions (syntax patterns) children hear (and learn to use). Before children learn to speak, this conversation will be fairly one-sided, but you can narrate your daily routines, read books, or tell stories to babies. As they get older, you can leave spaces for them to "add" to the conversation (scaffolding).

It's good to talk about all kinds of things, because the more we describe things and extend our speech about things, the more names for things and the more kinds of logical structures between ideas children learn. A good way to do this is to go for walks (and talk about the things you see out in the world), through reading books together (good for experiences and situations you don't have in your own environment), and so on. With children, speech/experience/cognition are all highly linked, so the more concepts the child is exposed to, the more speech has a context and makes sense.

I think it's important to use rich language with children, so I do that with my students, and I do that with my son. I think in both cases, it's best to use a variety of words (simple and complex), so that vocabulary development happens in a natural context. My students are always telling me I use "big words", but they don't complain about not understanding them. With my son, I use a judicious mix of simplified and more "adult" vocabulary, so that he'll be used to hearing it, so that by the time he goes to school and starts learning to read in earnest, he'll be familiar with a wide variety of words. To do this, I try to make sure I'm not overusing the same adjectives (big, pretty, etc.), and using both simplified and precise names for things (train -vs- diesel locomotive).

Other principles of communication that I use with my students (and my son) are:

Stick to the message: with boys in particular, it's often best to leave out the emotional overlay, and deliver messages directly but neutrally. For instance if my son starts throwing his toys, I usually say (in a pretty neutral fashion) something like "Those are not for throwing", or "You can throw your ball if you want to throw things." Leaving out the emotional overlay (anger) makes it more likely that he will listen and respond appropriately. In a classroom setting, it always seems to work best if you deliver most messages with a positive but neutral affect.

Judicious use of Logic: I know this doesn't work with all kids, or probably even most kids, but my son has always been a rather "logical" character, and very interested in figuring things out on his own, so a lot of times, if he can't have/do something, I will provide information on what that's the case: "If you run in the street, a car might hurt you." "If you touch that, it will hurt you." "You are welcome to do that outside where there's more room." "You need money to do that." "You have to take a bath because you got very dirty when you were playing outside." "We go to sleep because it's night time." etc, etc. It seems to greatly reduce the arguing. In a classroom setting, this works surprisingly well at reducing arguments because it's harder for kids to argue with facts/logic than ideas/preferences (although there's always a few kids who will try their best).

Input: Kids like to have input (or choices) whenever they can. Starting in toddlerhood, this becomes a real issue and often leads to dramatic power struggles and a lot of frustration on both sides. Since the urge to self-determination is impossible to extinguish, I find it works best to give kids choices (and practice making them) whenever humanly possible (they don't have to be dramatic ones--small choices seem to work wonders). In terms of communication, it means that I frequently ask my son (and students) questions that require them to make choices; if he wants to do something one way or another way (both alternatives being perfectly acceptable to me). Instead of making demands all day, you find yourself asking a lot more questions. (Note: this only works if you have a child who is capable of making choices).

Interest: the more you know about a child, the more you are aware of what they're interested in. Talking to children about their interests is a great way of building relationships and rapport. The only way to know what children are interested in is to invite conversation, and pay attention to what they have to say, and use the information in your conversations. Depending on what it is, the area of interest can be expanded into a variety of different contexts, and you can use it metaphorically to explain other ideas/concepts in a more concrete fashion. This sounds obvious, but it's amazingly effective, and sometimes hard to remember to do. In a classroom setting, it's invaluable when you have to explain difficult/abstract ideas to kids because you can compare them to things the child is already interested in.

So, I don't think there's anything that profound in all of this, but maybe it's not that typical to talk to kids like they're human beings, or treat them with respect, but I think it's pretty easy. I do it all the time, so I don't think it's all that magical, but apparently it's less common than it should be. For the record, I don't think most kids are any more mysterious than most adults, and certainly talking to them isn't any more difficult (at least not for me).

This parenting thing

"The Mask of Motherhood by Susan Maushart...warns young couples talking excitedly about becoming parents that they are in for the best and the absolute worst time of their lives."

"It was the best of times, it was the worst of times..." Oh how true this famous line feels some days. Okay--many days. Parenting of one (or more) small critters is a bit of a bi-polar rollercoaster ride. There's really nothing you can do to prepare for it, and no well-meaning advice can quite do it justice. The "good" moments are so amazingly deliriously wonderful--and when it's "bad" it's so incredibly awful, and draining, and no doubt shaving years off of my life--bad. Really. And you never know from one moment to the next which version you're going to be experiencing, and when. There's a reason why preschool sounds so attractive at times....

"I have never felt more moments of pure, warm bliss than I do sprinkled throughout every week with little family. And I genuinely relish them, bask in them, luxuriate in them. I process every nanosecond of joy...because those moments feed me. They have to. The rest of the week is a big bunch of physically, emotionally, and mentally exhausting bull puckey. Because as intense as the radiant joy can be, I have also never been more frustrated in my life than I am every single day..."

Really. Some days, parenting a small child can be more frustrating than even my absolute worst days of substitute teaching (or student teaching) ever were. Seriously. (There are days when I would trade my dearly beloved child for a position working in a state prison for violent offenders because it would actually be less frustrating/stressful.)

"If parenting was all playing and tickling and teaching I’d be ALL over it. But it’s not. It’s planning and whining and cleaning and cooking and getting several times at night and staying intently focused all day and ignoring impulses to direct energy into personal needs (sleep, bathroom, showering, exercise, quiet, books). And I don’t like that. I just don’t."

The tickling and teaching are the fun part. Sitting outside on a sunny afternoon watching my son play in the front yard is fun. Going for walks over by the river and finding ladybugs, rocks, bottle caps, pine cones, sticks, and worms is fun. Climbing all the stone steps at the Japanese Garden is fun. Reading books together in bed every night is fun. Seeing the world anew every day through the eyes of a small curious critter is so fun it's amazing. But unfortunately mixed in with all the fun is a good heaping dump-truck-load of endless whining, irrational resistance, incredible neediness, the need to do incredibly unpleasant but totally necessary things all the time (enforcing personal hygiene with a small child definitely tops the list). To keep doing, and doing, and doing, day in and day out, whether one feels like it or not with the vague hope that it will pay off sometime. It's the ultimate gamble, really. To put in a ton of effort and time into something so utterly unpredictable as another human being, not knowing how it will all pan out. The ultimate act of faith, is the raising of a child, through all of the darkness and lovely despair, and the radiant hope.

(Quotes from: Parenting ambivalence, 28 July 2008, Naptime Writing) http://naptimewriting.wordpress.com/2008/07/28/parenting-ambivalence/)

The almost-three-year-old

Cedar is almost 3 now (his birthday is about two weeks away). Today I’m having an “off” day and unfortunately am feeling rather irritated with my son, for doing things that don’t normally bother me that much. The reality is, I’m feeling kind of burned out, and not that patient today, so I think now that he’s finally taking a nap, that I’m going to reflect on what it is that I DO like about him (most of the time).

Generally I love spending time with him. He’s a very likable kid, and we do have a good relationship. As far as toddlers go, he’s fun to hang out with. In no particular order, here are some of the things I like best about my quirky little son: Normally he’s pretty easy-going. He’s pretty adaptable (in his short life we’ve moved 3 times, and alternated caregivers, and done all kinds of things to shake up his little world). In spite of that, he’s pretty mellow, adjusts quickly to change, and is usually positive.

In terms of behavior, he’s usually a pretty good kid. He’s usually open to redirection, usually behaves well, and wants to please you (which means he’s pretty easy for other people—like his speech path—to work with. I don’t have to worry about his behavior that much, and frankly I kind of take it for granted—I know in a lot of ways I’m getting off easy—he doesn’t do a lot of the awful things that normal toddlers do, or if he does, he does them so infrequently that I don’t usually have to deal with them.

He’s not a social butterfly, and due to his speech limitations isn’t inclined to strike up a conversation with strangers, but even so, he’s often friendly to strangers (he often runs up to people and offers them his toys), he’s affectionate (with us) in his own way, considerate of me (most of the time), fairly cooperative (usually does what I ask him to do), trusting (of people he knows), usually willing to share, and is often downright helpful (he helps me around the house quite a bit!). He’s always been less independent than some other children I’ve been around (very slow to feed himself for example), but he seems to be moving into a more interdependent phase of life. He wants to do more things for himself, and is starting to take pride in what he can do (and attempts to do things more than he used to). He’s always been a rather curious child, and likes to learn new things. It seems like he spends most of his time exploring, experimenting, and discovering new things. I love watching him and his endless delight at discovering the small details of his world.

He’s a calm, but happy kid. He’s usually pretty positive, and confident (although he’s definitely still inclined to watch first before diving in). He’s persistent in trying to do things for himself (but not in a way that is dangerous or bothersome or stubborn), and does not easily get frustrated. I think many of these traits will serve him well in life.

Shopping with Toddlers

'Tis the season. While the rest of the world is engaging in "Retail Madness", I definitely won't be going anywhere near a store (or even leaving the house if I can help it). In honor of the temporary insanity that is Black Friday, I thought I would share this parent tip I came across about shopping with toddlers in tow:

Shopping fun

"When my 10 and 8 year old were toddlers, I would always put them in the shopping cart and we would first head over to the floral department to touch the balloons. We never bought a balloon, but they knew each time we came, they would have the opportunity to see the new balloons and touch any that were out. Next we headed over to the aisle with children's books and toys. I let each child pick out one thing to play with in the store. We talked about how we are borrowing the toy and need to be very careful – they always were. Then we would start shopping. When we were finished shopping, we would return to the toy/book aisle and say "good-bye" to the toys or books. There was never any screaming or demands to buy the toys because they knew the next time we were shopping; they would have the chance to pick out another toy to borrow. I rarely had problems taking my children shopping. I think they felt that I respected their need to "shop" and it was a fun event."

Cathy

Brilliant suggestions! This is a great way to deal with a trip to a huge place like Walmart or Costco. I can't say that shopping with my toddler has ever been that bad, but then again, he's an easy-going kid to begin with, and I don't insist on putting him into situations where he's likely to fail.

I don't usually try to go more than a couple of places per outing, and I don't drag him to the store when he's tired or sick, or during his accustomed meal or nap times. I keep healthy snacks in my purse, so I can sidestep the whole issue of him wanting the alluring looking things that the stores so cleverly place at toddler eye level. I give him little jobs to do to stay busy. If I'm really on top of my game, I might even schedule something fun at the end of the trip (like a stop at a park, or some other fun place that he really likes). I don't take him to places that are overwhelming, noisy, and likely to be busy (except during off-peak times of day), and try to intersperse a little "fun" into whatever we're doing. (Just the other day I was at Trader Joe's and they were playing some really fun song, so we had a mini dance party in the middle of the cereal aisle).

Take it Outside

“Given a choice, young children will usually choose to be in a natural environment. They want to be outdoors, in the fresh air and sunlight, barefoot and naked, surrounded by grass, trees, and flowers, hearing the birds and the wind, playing in water with sticks and rocks. If you ask most grade school children what is their favorite part of school, they say outdoor recess. When children spend time outside where they can run, jump, climb, swing, swim, and play, they eat better, sleep better and are happier. We all know that children thrive in the outdoors. Yet we often forget how much the environment can affect a child's mood and behavior. When children spend too much time inside breathing stale air, hearing the hum of all the lights, electrical appliances, and the television, surrounded by synthetic fabrics, playing with plastic toys, eating foods that contain artificial coloring and preservatives, they get cranky and disagreeable.” -Pam Leo

From a very early age, I could reliably calm my son and smooth out his rockier moods simply by taking him outside. As an infant, when he became “fussy”, (and all the usual suspects were exonerated) I would throw him in a baby sling and go for a walk around the neighborhood. I figured if nothing else, a “break” and a change of scenery would sooth MY nerves and restore my ability to meet his needs, but he almost always settled down right away when we went outside for a while.

As he got older, the walks became longer and longer because he clearly enjoyed them. When he became mobile, his enthusiasm for walks increased tenfold because now he could interact more directly with the world. These days, I can always count on enthusiasm about going outdoors. Now that he’s a toddler, it’s a lifesaver because the outdoors is a better forum for his boundless energy and endless curiosity. This morning, for example, I told my son we would be going outside later, and he RAN to grab his shoes. He was ready to go!

My son seems to have developed a strong preference for being outdoors. Even though he usually brings a toy or two with him on our trips outside, they are usually quickly forgotten (and go in mama’s pocket) as soon as he catches sight of the green grass, interesting leaves, bright yellow dandelions, acorns, rocks, and sticks. He likes watching the birds and squirrels, spotting airplanes flying overhead, and walking along familiar paths stopping to smell the flowers along the way. He’s a much happier critter when he is able to spend time outdoors where he can run around, jump over cracks and puddles, walk backwards, and climb on every bench and playground structure. So almost every day, we go outside for at least 20 minutes for some “nature therapy”.

Nature therapy works pretty good on teenagers too, by the way. I remember fondly doing these kinds of daily walks with my health class students at Job Corps. We had this great outdoor trail we could use, and I took generations of incoming students on a 20-minute nature trail walk every single day (unless it was pouring rain). By the time they arrived in my classroom, these students had been at Job Corps for a month, and were at a critical stage of adjustment to the program. They had been away from home for a month, disconnected from familiar people, eating unfamiliar foods, dealing with unfamiliar routines, and sleeping in dormitories for the first time in their lives. Usually the magnitude of changes in their lives started having a visible impact on their coping skills and overall mood. I figured the best thing I could give them during health class was a 20-minute break from all of that, so every day for two weeks, we went outdoors, looked at plants, watched the clouds, enjoyed some exercise and light conversation, and enjoyed whatever surprises nature had to offer.

Books are Good for Kids...

Books are good for kids. There’s no shortage of studies that confirm being read to as a child is enormously beneficial. Yet another study was published in the month of October by Brian Avants, who is assistant professor of radiology at the University of Pennsylvania.

What makes his study a bit different is that instead of focusing on the act of reading, per se, it addresses the stimulating effect that reading-friendly environment has on childhood cognitive development. “The amount of mentally stimulating content in a child's home — such as the number of books that are around — may predict the structure of the child's brain later in life.”

While this study speaks mainly to the growth and organization of the brain during early childhood, it speaks to the importance of reading itself, and the positive impact of providing an “enriched” home environment on a young child’s overall cognitive development. The results of the study showed that people who grew up in enriched environments during childhood had thinner cortexes later in life which correlates with a higher IQ. In a nutshell, this happens because their brains get used more.

One can’t help but wonder if it’s not simply a question of intelligent parents, but the study's finding held even after the researchers accounted for the parents' IQs. It seems fairly self-evident, but the early years of childhood are an important time for cognitive development. The research suggests that the overall environment is very important, and that it’s a worthwhile endeavor for parents to provide mental stimulation in the environment itself (such as children's books and toys for learning).

Implications:

1. Get some books! Great books for children are easy to come by. Run, don’t walk to the library. If you aren’t sure what to check out, ask a librarian, they know what kids read, and can help you find something good. Invest in a few of the best books out there (ask other parents what their kids read again and again). Hit the thriftstore or a yard sale, you don’t need to buy kids books new. Also be aware that many programs exist that provide free books to families with young children, you simply need to ask around to get connected with them. A good person to ask is your child’s pediatrician, or daycare workers. If you have friends with kids, consider having a book swap—kids get tired of books after a while, and you can trade for something new.

2. Toys: Developmental toys (toys for learning) are not to be confused with those shiny noisy flashy things that clutter up the toy aisle at your local store. We’re also not talking about “computers for kids” (e.g. Leapfrog). Real learning toys are toys that require the kid to do something to make something happen. In other words, the toy doesn’t entertain the child, the child entertains himself by using the toy to accomplish something. Examples of learning toys are puzzles, shape sorters, ring stackers, etc. Some of the best learning toys are not toys at all: they’re ordinary household objects that a child re-purposes. The beauty of learning toys is that most are very open-ended, meaning a child can use them in multiple ways. Because learning toys are fairly simple, they usually aren’t expensive, but sometimes can be harder to find than the flashy noisemakers. Best of all, they don’t require batteries.

3. How to set up the environment: You don’t have to do anything real fancy, or recreate a classroom in your living room: just make sure these two categories of items are accessible to your children so they can help themselves at appropriate times. Most children don’t need to be shown how to play with toys—but if you want to demonstrate how something works, go for it. For the most part though, it’s better to let the child explore toys by themselves. If they’re not ready to use the toy in the way it was designed, they’ll come up with their own way of using it, and that’s fine.

4. Books, of course, require a bit more modeling. The best model is reading to your children regularly—a short daily session is best. If you can do it more than once, even better. (It’s a good pre-bedtime ritual). Almost ALL kids enjoy being read to. If you do it enough, and provide the books, toddlers and young children will often take the books and “read” to themselves during play. Once you see them doing that, a good thing to do is have a set of books handy that they can read or at least look at on their own (without having to ask an adult for help). For most kids, a mix of stories and picture reference books works best. Feel free to let young kids explore books intended for older children-it won’t hurt them any.

How Books at Home May Affect Child's Brain Later, Rachael Rettner, My Health News Daily, 15 October 2012

http://www.livescience.com/23981-parenting-child-brain-development-reading.html

Some developmental updates

Now that Cedar’s almost 3, I feel like I’m starting to see the “language explosion” that people talk about toddlers having. It’s gratifying because he has a pretty serious speech delay, and I was really starting to worry big time this summer. It seems like in the past month or so, Cedar’s been doing a lot more talking than he had been up to this point—which was not a lot… Are we anywhere near the normal range of what toddlers normally do? No way, but I’m seeing a ton of great progress, and am hoping this means that he’s starting to catch up.

What it looks like is I’m noticing him imitating more of what we say (or things he hears in songs or on TV), and starting to attempt bigger words (with more syllabication). Still miles from talking like a normal kid this age, but we are getting a lot more intelligible speech, and the beginnings of syntax (sentence formation). Once he makes the leap from single word utterances to phrases and sentences, I think he’ll take right off.

Clear through August, I’d say he probably had about 10-15 words max and was mostly using sign language. Most of his speech was restricted to one-syllable words, and often just a single phoneme (sound).

Towards the end of September, we started hearing a couple of 2-word noun phrases. Then in late September, he started counting from 1-10 (he doesn’t like to say “seven” so he says “eight” twice. He also added a few words.

Then in October, he was able to read along with the ABCs in Chicka Chicka Boom Boom (he skips W and X—something about those letters doesn’t work for him). Towards the end of October, he was able to do it without any verbal prompting at all. And he started saying some of the things he was only signing before (although he still signs when he says them). He also added some new words.

Now in November, he is counting away (pointing out things in the environment that interest him), and has added 11-20 (although he skips a few when he gets over 10, but he clearly has the basic idea). He’s also approximating a lot more words (for things that he can see in the immediate environment), and if you read a familiar repetitive book, will often supply the missing word. He also is attempting to read a long with books he’s heard me read numerous times. He’s also pointing out numbers/letters that he sees in the environment, and starting to take notice of the clocks (and counts down with the microwave).

I’ve known for quite a while that he “knew” all this stuff—he was able to prove that when he was totally non-verbal by pointing, that he could identify colors/objects/numbers/letters, but it’s wonderful to hear him actually SAYING these things now. I’ve got an IFSP (IEP) meeting coming up next week, and there’s going to be a lot to talk about since a lot has changed since this summer. I’m hoping by continuing speech services, he’ll be able to catch up by the time he starts school, and his early lack of speech will no longer present so many barriers.

Oregon City Rambles

I had fairly ambitious plans for the summer—I was going to take the babe and do all kinds of exploring of the “new territory”. It’s a shame then, that I spent so much of the first trimester feeling like crap. I missed out on a glorious season for wandering around and exploring our nearby sister city across the river—Oregon City.

When I lived in Portland, I did not even know Oregon City existed. That’s a common enough consequence of living in a place like Portland, where there’s not much incentive to go anywhere else. I probably lived there for 4 or 5 years before I know where Oregon City was, much less that there was a reason to go there.

In the summer, we took the free trolley that goes through Oregon City, and discovered all kinds of things to check out later. A trolley ride, in and of itself is fairly entertaining for a toddler, but I’ve always wanted to come back and just walk around the city more.

Now that I live out in Clackamas County, and have a toddler who needs entertainment, fresh air, and exercise, I’m starting to appreciate the possibilities presented by the small towns around here. Quite unlike places like Beaverton, Hillsboro, or Happy Valley, that are all “NEW”, these older river towns like Gladstone and Oregon City are all built on a much smaller scale, so they’re much more walkable, and make for good pedestrian adventures. Conceived of and built in the days long before automobiles ruled supreme, these two towns have great parks, low speed limits, compact “main street” style downtowns, and lots of sightseeing in manageable sized areas.

A Year of Books

Reading to your Child: What a Reading Teacher Recommends

While I don’t consider myself an “expert” per se, as a Reading/English teacher, it would surprise no one that I think reading is mighty important. Never mind the numerous studies that extol the virtues and rewards of reading aloud to kids. I find it to be a particularly relaxing and pleasant way to spend some quality time with my toddler. Reading with mama is probably my son’s favorite activity, second only to eating! We climb in bed, pile on the pillows and blankets, and grab a stack of books.

I have quite a few books at home, but we go through so many that the vast majority come from the local library. Having a library is such a godsend, let me tell you… Here we are closing in on the end of another year, so here’s a partial list some of the things we’ve read together (this is probably only half of the things we’ve read at most). If you’re wondering what on earth to read to a 2-year-old boy, these are all things that worked well for us:

(* recommended , ** strongly recommended—it was a favorite)

1,2,3 to the Zoo (Eric Carle)** 10 Little Rubber Ducks (Eric Carle) A color of his own ** Ants Baby Bug (magazine) Big and small Big book of transporation Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What do you see? (Eric Carle)** Bumblebees Child’s garden of verses* Color Farm Crickets Dig! Lift! Push! Farm machinery Gallop! Garbage Trucks Go, dog, go! (P.D. Eastman) *condensed version ** Have you seen my cat? How Kind! I love trucks!* I spy little bunnies I spy little hearts I went walking Long and short Moo, baa, la la My first book of food My food /Mi comida* Oops! Plant ABC Richard Scarry’s Shapes and Opposites* Richard Scarry’s Word Book* Tap, tap, tap, what’s hatching? That’s not my train (Usborne)** The airport The baby goes beep The five trucks * The Foot Book (Dr. Seuss)** The Itsy Bitsy Spider The Mixed up Chameleon (Eric Carle) The very quiet cricket (Eric Carle)** Time for Bed Tonka trucks Tools Tow trucks Tractors Trains Trucks Usborne book of trucks Very hungry caterpillar** Waddle! Wheels on the bus Where does Maisy live?** While you were sleeping

Commentary: Here’s a few observations and reflections about some of the things we read this year:

Eric Carle books are generally well-liked by kids. His books span the early childhood spectrum, and he has titles that appeal to babies, toddlers, preschoolers, and elementary-aged children. They are glorious picture books, full of bright colorful illustrations. Some sample titles are: “1,2,3 to the Zoo” (this was good to teach about counting and animals), 10 Little Rubber Ducks, Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What do you see? (good for teaching colors/animals), The Mixed up Chameleon, Have you seen my cat?, The very quiet cricket (this was a poignant read for me because my son has a speech delay and the story is about a cricket who can’t chirp), Very hungry caterpillar (a classic, probably read in every kindergarten classroom in the country), Draw Me a Star.

I work with teenagers, and boys in particular seem to enjoy non-fiction, and will happily read that when nothing else seems to attract their interest. So it would behoove a reading teacher to keep plenty of non-fiction around in the classroom. As a parent, it’s not that practical to acquire tons of non-fiction titles, although DK reference books are a good resource for a non-fiction collection in the home. Fortunately, the library is a good resource for introducing non-fiction books to kids. Most are aimed at elementary-age readers, but there’s no reason you can’t read them to toddlers (who are just as curious about the world as older children). A few examples of these short, easy books are: Ants, Bumblebees, Big and small, and Tap, tap, tap, what’s hatching?

Baby Bug (magazine) is a poetry magazine aimed at toddlers. My son isn’t crazy about this publication as a whole (I think it probably works better for girls), but he did like certain selections from it.

“Transportation Books”: Boys tend to eat this stuff up. There’s usually tons of these in the library, from board books, to more exhaustive encyclopedic compendiums of different modes of transportation. You have stories about trucks like “Dig! Lift! Push!” and “I love trucks” to straightforward easy-readers about trucks like “Garbage Trucks”, to the “Usborne Book of Trucks”. A similar genre is books about trains. When you’re sick to death of reading books with cartoon characters (like Thomas books/Cars) give these non-fiction books a go.

Child’s garden of verses* Written long ago by Robert Louis Stevenson, this is a childhood classic. While some of it is quite dated by now, some of the poems are still quite enjoyable. Technically better for older children, there’s no reason not to introduce poetry earlier.

“Gallop!” and “Waddle!” are visual special effects books that show animals running/moving when you turn the pages. Small children love these things to pieces. Literally. It’s hard to find one in a library that hasn’t been taped back together.

P.D. Eastman books are another crowd pleaser. “Where’s my mother” is probably the most famous, but no less deserving is “Go, dog, go!” The condensed version is a bit better for toddlers than the original which is rather lengthy.

I spy books: These are fun when your kid reaches the “matching” stage. I used these to informally teach about numbers and shapes and colors.

“My food /Mi comida” is one of a delightful series of bilingual books for babies/toddlers. I love the simple pictures (made of paper cutouts) and large text. They’re great for teaching vocabulary, and print awareness.

Richard Scarry Books. I loved these growing up, and my son seems to love them too. I’m glad they’re still around. Most of them are huge, and unwieldy for a toddler, but they do make condensed board book versions of some of the longer books, such as “Shapes and Opposites” and Richard Scarry’s “Word Book”.

Usborne “Touch and Feel Books”. Usborne put out a series of “touch and feel” board books on a number of topics. They all have a title that starts with “That’s not my…” You can start these in infancy, but toddlers enjoy them as well.

Dr. Seuss books are wonderful, but most are written for slightly older children (who are around kindergarten age/emergent readers). Two that are short enough and work well for toddlers are The Foot Book (Dr. Seuss), and the ABC book.

Maisy books: Very simple with colorful illustrations, these are gender-neutral and appealing to babies and toddlers. Some of them are lift-flap books which toddlers love.

Young Children Think Like Scientists

Scientists analyze statistical patterns in data, they do experiments, and they learn from other scientists. Growing research indicates that young children learn about the world around them in similar ways…”

Have you ever watched a young child absorbed in play for an extended period of time? I love to secretly watch my toddler as he plays by himself. It’s not easy to catch him in that mode when he forgets you’re there, and focuses intensely on what’s he’s doing. In my opinion, he’s always played in a rather quirky way—very engineer-like. He has a long attention span for a kid, and will focus on what he’s doing intensely for fairly long periods of time. It always seemed like he was trying to figure things out, more than entertain himself. In other words, watching him play always reminded me more of watching a scientist at work, than anything.

Apparently, I’m not the only one who’s ever wondered about this aspect of play. Alison Gopnick, who studies childhood learning and development at the University of California at Berkeley, recently published a study on this very topic.

According to Gopnick’s research, a lot of what looks like play (to adults) is actually a child’s experimentation. She claims that what children are doing during play is a bunch of “experiments” that give them the information they need to figure out how things work. (In other words, children are engaged in hands-on learning when they’re “playing”). I call this, “testing the laws of physics”. Perhaps when kids go through that annoying stage where they like to throw everything on the floor, they’re just testing a hypothesis about gravity.

The difficult thing sometimes for parents is knowing when to jump in and “help” and when to back off and let children do their own problem solving. As an adult, it can be very hard to resist the urge to show a child how to do something. “Being shown how to do something has advantages, for both young children and for scientists, as well as disadvantages.” On one hand, there’s occasions when children genuinely want you to show them how to do something. However, parents (and teachers) often err on the side of jumping in too soon, and providing too much instruction. Often it’s better to let a child try to work something out for herself, than to automatically assume she needs help. “Being taught something instead of exploring it for oneself discourages exploration…” (Gopnick).

Gopnick's findings come at a time when the focus in early childhood education seems to an increasing emphasis on increasing the time spent on direct instruction of academic skills in reading and math. If you’ve been in a kindergarten classroom since NCLB, you’ve probably noticed that it’s almost indistinguishable from a first grade classroom. Kids now receive way more formal reading and math instruction in kindergarten than they used to.

As well intentioned as this may be, it directly flies in the face of what is known about how very young children learn. The urge to capitalize on the period when children undergo amazing cognitive growth is understandable, but the effectiveness of increasing formal academic instruction at the expense of allowing children to develop in a more typical and age-appropriate way: through direct experiences, imaginative play, experimentation, and exploring the world around them.

Unstructured play and daily life provide an experiential base that children need to have in place before they can fully benefit from more abstract academic instruction (Basically it builds a “context” for everything that will follow). The push to make preschool more structured and academic (more school-like) forgets that experiential hands-on learning is the major avenue of learning for children and is how children learn how to engage in critical thinking. Kids learn a great deal from watching and interacting in the world, and this is very difficult to replicate in basal reading series.

The Preschool Laboratory: Young Children Think Like Scientists, Wynne Parry, LiveScience.com, 27 September 2012

http://www.livescience.com/23522-young-children-think-like-scientists.html

Fifty to Zero, stepping off the treadmill of teaching for awhile

It's truly bizarre to go from full-time teaching to stay-at-home mom.

To go from working about 50 hours a week to zero,

To go from the constant classroom noise and bustle of teenagers,

To the near silence of a day spent with a non-verbal child,

To go from structured days, to open-ended eternity,

To go from papers and pencils, to toys and blocks,

To go from the daily commute, to daily walks,

To go from homework, to house cleaning,

To go from test grading, to story reading,

To go from grumpy teenagers to whiny toddlers…oh, so maybe that one has stayed about the same.

Cedar's 23 months old today

Cedar is 23 months old today
Cedar is 23 months old today, next month, he’ll be two.

Thankfully teething is in abeyance at the moment. Since he's not teething, he's been less cranky/bitey.

He's getting better at using a spoon these days. He’s never been that interested in using utensils or even feeding himself, but he’s finally starting to want to do it himself. Using his hands is still more efficient though.

He still likes his stackable cups, jar lids, and coffee cans. He spends a lot of time building things. He’s also taken more of an interest in his colored blocks and duplos, and sometimes can put them together on his own. Other toys he likes are balls. The other day I had a flashlight out and he was chasing the light like a cat would.

He's as passionate about reading as ever—I’ve noticed he’s starting to recognize individual letters. He’s been pointing at them for a month or two, but it didn’t appear that they had any specific importance to him—just another object in the environment. Now it’s clear that he recognizes them as having a distinct print function, and he appears to remember a few (o, b, t, y, c). He's still interested in and getting good at recognizing colors. Now I definitely wish I had access to DT cards! I need to get some flash cards pronto.

He still takes the huge afternoon nap that lasts a couple of hours, but it’s definitely getting harder to get him to settle down for naps/bedtime. He plays by himself in the room for awhile before he falls asleep. He also seems to do a lot of babbling to himself, so we assume he’s practicing talking in there.

He still thinks everything's funny. The sound of his laugh is changing a little bit and he sounds less like a baby all the time. Now it’s starting to sound like a little boy laugh.

He's still very easy to take places. His behavior is good in public, and even when he’s down out of the shopping cart, he stays with you.

He’s getting more affectionate all the time. He has always let you know when he wants a little emotional refueling—drive by snuggles; for example, he runs over to you because he wants to be picked up and held (then he snuggles into you for a minute, then off he goes again). Then he started doing what I call “forehead kiss” where he comes up to you and rubs his forehead on your forehead. Now he’s decided he likes kisses too (merely tolerated them before), so he’ll come over and collect kisses several times a day. It’s cute. He also constantly climbs in and out of your lap. I still love how he comes running up to the door when he hears my keys in the lock when I come home from work. We have this ritual where he shows me his toy, and then off he goes, but then a minute later (once I’ve put all my teaching crud down), he wants me to pick him up and hold him.

Lately I get home after dark, so we can’t do beach walks like we had been. Between the shorter days, and return of winter weather on the coast, outdoor activities on weekdays are pretty much done for awhile. So we hang out in the living room and play until it's time for bath and bedtime. He still goes to bed around 8pm, and although he doesn’t necessarily fall asleep until 9pm, that seems to work well.

He's usually a happy mellow kid, but when he doesn't get something he wants, he cries like all get out. Preview of the terrible twos??? He does NOT enjoy the word “No”.

He's still not talking. He makes some random noises, but other than dada and mama isn't talking, just babbling a bit. The other day, he said “hi” but that was an isolated incident. His repertoire of sounds is getting bigger, but he’s still not producing much in terms of actual words. He definitely doesn’t have 20 words, or produce phrases/sentences. When he “pretends” to read his books, he just makes a random sound for each picture/word. In other words, he might have a speech delay. I waffle between being overly concerned (a relic of my time in SPED), and not (we both had speech delays), and since he does do a lot of the communication things that kids normally do otherwise that show signs of receptive language acquisition (points at things of interest, makes a variety of sounds, responds to directions, imitates your behavior, points at the correct pictures in a book, etc. I’ve decided that whatever the cause is, it can only be but so bad.)

He was slow to sit up, slow to crawl, and slow to walk, but he did all of those eventually. I guess speaking is going to continue along the same lines. He does not show any signs of intellectual impairment, and isn’t oblivious to people/situations in a way that suggests autism. So most of the time, I don’t worry about it.

It’s been an interesting journey so far. And it gets a little easier all the time as we leave infancy and the needs become less intense/more predictable.