Learning Through Play

Children learn so much through their daily play.  We as parents can encourage their developmental growth by allowing them the freedom to play within our boundaries of safety.  Purchased toys are designed to stimulate in so many ways, so read the packaging to ensure it is safe and age appropriate for your child.  Educate yourself on the skills for which each toy is designed, and expand on that as you play with your child.

Toys are designed for use in the crib so when a child is put to bed on a schedule or when indicating the need for sleep, he can play until sleep takes over.  These toys are also there so when the child awakens and is not hungry or wet, he can occupy himself instead of needing instant attention.

And as the child grows, his skills are developed even further with the toys, games, and activities we do with our children.  Eye/hand coordination is one of the skills we want our children to master.  With this skill, a child can learn to get his food in his mouth, catch jack rocks, write and paint, put together puzzles, and hit and catch. Both fine and gross motor skills are used.

Gross motor skills involve using the large muscles.

Fingers and your smaller movements are involved with fine motor skills.

Children can be very independent in their playing when allowed the freedom to explore.

We routinely used our kitchen for child's play.  The sounds and sizes and shapes all begged for children to use for discovery.  Filling egg cartons with items teaches one to one correspondence.  Banging on different size pots and pans creates a multitude of sounds for creating songs and tunes.  Whether purchased like the piano or homemade like Raggedy Andy or multipurposed like kitchen utensils, anything can be used for teachable moments.  Climbing in drawers and under tables teach child about their body space and dimension.  As always, keeping the kitchen and other rooms child-safe is essential.

The outside offers another opportunity for learning.  Normal chores such as washing the car and cleaning up the yard can be fun and interactive.

Sandboxes were an essential play area for our sons because of the multitude of skills it encouraged.  The toy soldiers battling and being buried there, trucks wrecking and crashing, hills and houses being built and destroyed; creative play had no limits.  All muscles, body and mind, were activated.
When they outgrew one sandbox, Dad built another.  When cats became a problem, a lid was added.  Eventually, a tike-hut roof was added to keep out the rain and mangoes.

Play is so essential to a child's learning that we need to focus on letting it happen naturally and with our help.  What a fun task for a parent!
 


 

Why Our Children Behave As They Do

Having three sons close in age, I realized that they were each his own person, unique yet often similar.  I knew this came not only from birth position and heredity, but from their individual temperaments, rate of growth and milestone achievements, and desires for independence and feelings of trust.  Family atmosphere and values, exposure to good role models, and methods of parenting all have an influence on who our children become.

Respecting each child as he navigates his new world is important, and our setting boundaries and dealing appropriately with his efforts are very important.  When children have boundaries, they have all the freedom between those boundaries and know what is acceptable.  When we don't set boundaries, or the boundaries change with our moods, then children will have to test us to see what is okay at that moment.  This sense of uncertainty lends itself to insecurity on the part of the child who may become withdrawn or develop an "anything goes" attitude. Neither is what we would want for our child, especially because we are the cause of the behavior.  Just as we react to our children's behavior, they react to ours.  Let me give you some examples of things that worked for us:

     The first time we took our sons to the mall, we told them ahead of time what was expected
      in their behavior and informed them that we would take them back home if they did not
      follow these boundaries.  (We lined up a babysitter in case we needed to do that.)  After about
      fifteen minutes, they began testing the boundaries.  We got them together, took them back to
      the car and home, picking up the babysitter on the way.  Then we went back to the mall without
      them.  That was the only time we had to do that!

      At the movies, we would sit the children in the row in front of us.  That way we could quietly
      talk with each other if desired, and they still felt a sense of freedom.  Now as adults, they have
      often complained that other parents needed to control their children rather than let them run up
      and down the aisles and make noise. 

     At meal time, we had the rule that you taste everything on the table since your taste buds
     change over time, but you only had to eat more of each as you wanted.  If they chose not to
     eat, we would refrigerate the food for later that night, but no dessert if dinner was not eaten.
     There was no anger or degradation (like moving them to a different area until they were done.)

     For instance, I did not allow cussing, so I would call them "bathroom words" and told my
     sons that they could say them in the bathroom.  That took the excitement out of saying them
     and still gave them some sense of control within our boundaries.

     Physical fighting is something else I did not like. If they started fighting near me, I would
     leave the room.  Often, that stopped it, but if they followed me into another room, I told them
     to go outside, or use pillows, or go hit the bean bag toy made for "bopping."  Hitting each
     other was not acceptable.  I think that saying, "Boys will be boys" is just an excuse for
     allowing bad behavior.
   
To help me understand what is and isn't misbehavior, I took parenting courses and read a lot of parenting books, back before blogs!  One of my parenting lifesavers was a book of helpful strategies called Parenting Young Children.  It was based on Systematic Training for Effective Parenting (STEP) for parents of children under six. The text and course are products of Don Dinkmeyer, Ph.D., Gary D. McKay, Ph.D., and James S. Dinkmeyer, M.A. and guided parents in many aspects of understanding young children and why they behave as they do.  Through their research, I came to recognize the goals of misbehavior and how to help my sons gain their goals in positive ways. I will share my perspective of the wonderful knowledge provided in the book.

Children tend to misbehave for one of four reasons:  attention, power, revenge, or as a display of inadequacy.  This can usually be recognized by how it effects you, the parent.  Simplistically put, if you are annoyed, it is probably attention. If anger is your emotion, then the child is likely going for power.  Revenge makes us feel emotionally (and possibly physically) hurt.  Whereas, with display of inadequacy, we feel despair.  The last action involves passive behavior  since the child does nothing.  The first three can be passive, but usually involve active behavior on the child's part.

Here is an example:

In this set of pictures, the newspaper photographer labels my son's actions as defiance.  I had told my son to leave my sunglasses alone, and he chose to take them out, put them on, and stick out his tongue at me.  I was annoyed at the action, and did get angry when I couldn't find my class ring in the beach bag when we got home.  (I went back to that spot on the weekend and found my ring sticking up in the sand!) Now, was his behavior one for attention or power or revenge?  Or was he just being a two-year-old with a desire to put on my glasses?  I believe the latter - just part of being a preschooler, although we did discuss the use of his tongue toward me and that he needs to listen to what I say!

But when the behavior is misbehavior, we as a parent can follow some general guidelines for dealing with it, based on the goal.  We can avoid acting the expected way, thus not reinforcing the goal.  If the expected payoff isn't there, the child may change his or her perspective. If the child is seeking attention, ignore the behavior at that time, but provide attention at another appropriate time. This involves changing both our behavior and our feelings.  We can't act hurt or react to the child, or it will negate our goal of stopping the misbehavior. As you redirect the misbehavior, strive to find a positive goal to encourage.  As the STEP authors wrote,  "Encouraging helpfulness and social interest can help refocus that drive for attention in a way that is useful to both the child and others."  Involve them in some way to give them attention when possible.  Mine seemed to want attention when I was busy in the kitchen.  Therefore, I let them peel carrots, pick the potatoes, wash items I didn't need to use anymore, set the table, and even lick the icing out of the pan!

If the child is seeking power, withdrawal from the conflict and try to stay calm. Let the child experience the consequences of his actions, whether these consequences happen naturally or are logical consequences you have put in place.  If the child throws his food on the floor because he doesn't want to eat it, don't send him to his room without dinner.  Have him clean up the mess he made.  The hunger would be a natural consequence.  Having to clean up the mess he made would be a logical consequence as it is related to correcting the misbehavior.  One mother had trouble getting her child dressed for school in time because the child deliberately delayed his actions.  The mother gathered the child's remaining articles of clothing (shoes, socks, jacket) and had the child finish dressing in the car on the way to school. However, giving children a sense of power can often lessen the negative behavior.  Showing the child three outfits and asking him to chose which outfit he wished to wear empowers him.  All the outfits are acceptable to you and he still gets to chose. This works well with eating vegetables and other foods.  Power can be used positively by developing a sense of responsibility in your child for his own behavior and decisions, a sense of independence and capability in his own skills.

Revenge is a more difficult misbehavior to deal with as you are often hurt and extremely angry, but to stop the cycle, you must not show how badly you are feeling. You need to develop trust and mutual respect in an effort to curtail further negative action. What is the reason for the revenge?  Is it something that can be explained?  Discussing the situation can often shed light on the cause that led to this effect.  Was a promise made that had to be broken because of something over which you had no control?  Explain that and acknowledge how you know it must make your child feel.  Good communication in a respectful manner can reveal a lot about the issue and how best to deal with the revenge and prevent further episodes.  The STEP authors suggest a more useful direction would be to encourage the child's probable strong desire for justice and fairness.  Learning to play and share equally encourages this.

If the misbehavior is recognized as a display of inadequacy, encourage any area of strength and focus on the child's slightest effort or improvement.  Avoid criticism.  Instead, help the child determine what he feels the problem is, and work on small goals as steps to reach the goal that will void the display of inadequacy where possible.  Just as we put training wheels on bicycles until the child has the sense of balance to ride without them, we can walk children through the skills or tasks that are causing the feeling of inadequacy, refocus them in a more positive direction.  Often, withdrawal until another time can often help relieve the sense of frustration.  The authors of STEP state, "...it is important to learn appropriate times to show courage by withdrawing from conflict or dangerous situations." Help your child learn when that is the best choice.

We need to recognize that what works with one child may not work with another since all children are not the same!  But developing a parenting plan, one that both parents can agree on when parenting together, can help in the presenting of a united front that can help us understand our children and guide them in their journey to adulthood.  Enjoy every stage!