preschool

Hitting, Smacking and Physical Violence...How Do I Discourage It In My Children?

Written by Lisa on Wednesday 19 July 2006

Over the last few weeks I have felt as though I am banging my head off a brick wall. Jake has always been more free with his hands than Rachel, but over the last six months or so, I have noticed that he rarely hits, kicks or pushes anymore.

Outside Influences On Children

Written by Lisa on Tuesday 13 June 2006

They say you can raise the perfect child, until they mix with other children. Over the last few weeks I have had some detailed insight into that topic.

Over the last month or so Rachel has been playing outside almost every hour that she isn't in nursery. She has become so sociable, and it is so funny to see her playing games like 'mummy and daddy' and hopscotch. She seems to have aged 4 years in just 4 short weeks.

I love seeing her interact in a large group, I love how confident she is, and how much she enjoys the company of other children, especially girls.

Activities For Children: Library Visits

Written by Lisa on Wednesday 10 May 2006

I love our local library. Its a fun, educational place to take the kids....and even better its free! 

We got Jake his first library card when he was only two months old and Rachel was just turned two and ever since we have been regular visitors. 

Our local library is very small, but the librarian knows everyone, and always has a smile and some kind words for the children. 

Night Time Toilet Training: We Did It!

Written by Lisa on Tuesday 9 May 2006

Last week I told you that we had decided to take Jake out of night time nappies (diapers) and were anticipating a few weeks of wet sheets and blankets before he got the hang of it.

Once again we had underestimated our child and a week and a half later, he has had one very small accident and is now dry at night.

I am one very proud mummy!

Carnival of Homeschooling Week 19

Written by Lisa on Monday 8 May 2006

For anyone interested in homeschooling, why not jump over and have a look at the Carnival of Homeschooling.

Its really informative and contains some very high quality links (including one to us of course).

A great one for any current homeschoolers or anyone interested in starting.

I Got A Job Offer

Written by Lisa on Saturday 8 April 2006

What makes this story even more strange is the fact that I'm not even looking for a job!

A few years ago I was asked to sit on the Advisory Group for our local Parenting Forum. I gladly accepted and up until I had Baby D I attented almost all of the meetings and enjoyed being part of such a proactive organisation who tirelessly worked to give parents a voice in our community.

However with the birth of baby number three and with Ray starting preschool I have found it almost impossible to attend any of the meetings this year as it is so akward to get the three children looked after and get Ray ferried back and forward to school.

I was surprised to receive a phone call last week from the Regional Manager of the forum. She is currently carrying out some research on parents views towards physical punishment and wanted me to complete a questionairre for her. I agreed and on Wednesday she arrived at my door bearing gifts in the shape of delicious chocolate buns.

The questionairre took a mere 10 minutes, and we spent the rest of the hour catching up and gossiping. During this time she revealed that her current administrator is due to go on maternity leave during the summer, and she asked if I would like to step into the role for 3 months. I was so chuffed to be asked and told her I would think it over and get back to her.

After weighing it up in my mind and discussing it with Gerard I have decided not to accept the offer. Jay will hopefully be starting playschool next year and Ray will begin Primary One. I don't know anyone that could look after all three kids and also do the school runs, and the cost of private childcare would be too high to justify me working.

However it really did my self esteem the world of good even to be considered for the position. Its nice to know that someone thinks that I am capable of stepping into a role like this and that someone sees me as more than a mum.

Reducing Negative Attention, Rewarding Positive Behaviour.

Written by Lisa on Thursday 6 April 2006

Last year Gerard and I both attended a positive parenting course. Not because we were having any great problems or difficulties with our children, but just in a bid to educate ourselves and hopefully improve our parenting technique.

One area we looked at in great detail was that of discipline. Gerard and I were both smacked (spanked) as children, not very often and never very hard, but it was a part of our upbringing. We were both in agreement that we did not want to go down the path of physical punishment with our own children, but really wanted to work on what alternative approaches we could adopt.

After finishing the parenting programme we both decided that we wanted to enforce positive discipline within our family. Very often our daughter would act up and throw tantrums merely because she knew it would get our attention. We began to introduce the naughty stair, where our daughter had to sit for three minutes if she misbehaved. We also tried to not respond to her tantrums in the way she wanted, by yelling and shouting or telling her off, but merely by removing her from the room and placing her on the stair.

While we were using this method of discipline we also tried to really enforce any positive behaviour that Ray displayed. We made more time to focus on and play with her, made a big fuss when she helped us out, and constantly praised her while she was behaving well.

Ray responded brilliantly. Her tantrums decreased dramatically, she thrived on all the positive attention she was receiving and we felt that our new appraoch was very successful.

So why therefore did we not follow the same path with Jay? I often think that we should do a refresher parenting course each year, as without a wake up call we begin to slip back into our old habits.

For the last while we have noticed that Jay's behaviour has been detiriorating slightly. He doesn't throw tantrums in the way Ray would have but he can sulk.......and sulk and sulk and sulk. We had no idea why, and were giving him so much attention every time he did it, therefore reinforcing his behaviour without realising. He has also been ignoring us quite a bit and openly disobeying us repeatedly. If Ray had done this she would have been sent straight to the stair, but Jay was getting told off and I am ashamed to admit yelled at on occasion.

Last week Gerard and I had a discussion about how we could improve upon Jay's behaviour and general mood, and of course realised that we had been making the same mistakes all over again. So this week we have made a concerted effort to adopt a more positive approach.

Once again the results have been almost instant. Each time he sulks or misbehaves he has to sit on the stair for a few minutes. This was hard to manage for the first few days he refused to stay and so we were constantly putting him back. But he seems to be getting the idea.

We are tring to be calmer with him, and explain to him why he must work with us. Instead of yelling at him for lying on top of Baby D, I am trying to tell him that he will hurt the baby, and encourage him to interact with him in other ways.

Gerard and I have also been encouraging him to help out more around the house, which he loves. We have spent the last two evenings shelling peanuts with him, he helps set the table and even helps to hoover the floor. All the time being praised for being "such a good boy!"

This last few days we have a much happier wee boy in our house. He is thriving on the extra attention and time he is getting and beginning to realise that throwing himself on the floor and sulking will not get him what he wants. He is more cheerful, more chatty, and so affectionate, something is obviously working.

I bet that in another year and a half when Baby D reaches two we will be rediscovering all these methods again, and wondering how we forgot the really important lessons that our other two children taught us.

Free iPod-ready stories for kids

Written by Lisa on Monday 3 April 2006

Ray just loves story CDs. But she only has a few and they can be quite expensive to buy, so i was thrilled to come across this link to websites with free downloadable mp3 stories perfect for the iPod.

I am going to download a few tonight and let her listen to them in the car on the way to mother and toddler group in the morning.

The Horrible Side To being A Parent.

Written by Lisa on Friday 24 March 2006

I just read this post on Lucky Mom about child safety. She summarises a child safety programme which she recently attended and reminds us that when it comes to child abuse, 70-90% of abusers are aquaintances of the child.

This topic terrorises me. It gives me sleepless nights and plagues my mind during the day. I so want to protect my children , while still allowing them enough freedom to live. If my daughter is invited to a friends house, and I know her parents, should I let her go? Will she be safe?

I hate being suspicious of people, I hate even thinking that people can be capable of such a horrible act. But if I bury my head in the sand I will only be putting my children at risk.

I am probably most concerned about my four year old who is getting to the stage where I can't watch over her 24/7. Although she is most always with me, she attends preschool, dance class and is starting to get invited on 'play dates' at her friends houses. I know that I need to make her aware of safety issues, but I don't know how to broach the subject without scaring her.

I don't want to cause her any worry, but don't want to be irresponsible and leave her unprepared.

Hubby thinks that I worry too much about this one and he is probably right. In my head I know that the chances of anything like this happening to one of my children are slim. Especially as I trust so few people with my kids. I would only leave them with one of my sisters or my mum, all of whom I trust implicitly.

But I can't help myself. Each time I hear an abuse story on the news I worry. I wonder what I can do to protect my brood. I want to do something proactive instead of just worrying, which in the end solves nothing. i just can't work out what to do.

This has turned into a bit of a ramble. Thanks to anyone who is still with me and didn't give up after the first paragraph. I would be grateful for any suggestions or stories of how other mums have coped with this. In the meantime I think I will have a word with Rays teacher and ask if they will be covering this topic at all in school, or see if she has any advice on how to broach the subject without terrifying her.

Wish me luck!

Fussy Eaters, What You Definately Shouldn't Do!

Written by Lisa on Monday 20 March 2006

Ray has been a fussy eater from the word go. I'm not sure whether she was born that way, or if it is because she was our first child and I was very cautious and unimaginative in what I fed her in her early months.

She eats the same dinner almost every night: Potatoes with vegetables such as broccoli, cauliflower or carrots mashed in. They must be mashed well, with no lumps and plenty of butter and even then she takes ages to finish each night. Breakfast consists of weetabix with warm milk. She won't eat pasta, rice, meat, beans (unless they are of the tinned and baked variety and even then they must be well mashed into her spuds) or even add sauce or gravy to her meal.

This has resulted in a lot of tense dinner times. In a bid to increase her variety of foods we have tried many approaches. Most of these should never be tried by any parent, but we were desperate and looking back now I feel bad at how we conveyed this to Ray.

We have tried restraining her and putting food in her mouth (this was when she was going through a phase of barely eating at all and I was at my wits end!), making her sit at the table for over an hour until she ate everything on her plate (she rarely did), coaxing, cajoling and chastising her for an hour each night as she messed with her food and putting her to the stair or her room when she wouldn't eat.

I can honestly say that none of these approaches worked. There may have been short term victories, for instance the time when she got so sick of us going on and on that she took a bite of fish finger, only to hold it in her mouth for 50 minutes before gagging and throwing up all over the floor.

We realised last year that we were probably really negatively influencing her eating habits by making such a big deal of them. We noticed that she used it to get attention, and had got to the stage where she would never even hold a new food in case we tried to force her to eat it. We realised that if we didn't change the way we approached mealtimes that not only would Ray have a lot of food issues, but that we ran the risk of Jay following in her footsteps.

So we backed right off. We read up on the subject and these were the steps we took to improve the situation ( The green headers are links to sites and articles that helped us plan our way forward)

1) Family Mealtimes: We realised that we rarely ate together as a family, generally Ray ate first and we had dinner after she finished. This meant that she wasn't watching what we ate, and watching us enjoy new foods that she wasn't familiar with. She was used to eating dinner in front of the TV as we used this to distract her. It was hard to tear her away at first but now as soon as dinner is ready Ray will come to the dining room, lay the table and get into her chair.

2) No Pressure!: Dr Paul recommends avoiding power struggles, and there have been a lot of these at our dinner table. So we stopped. We tried to give Ray her dinner each night and if she didn't eat it we took it away denying any other food or treats. We would offer it to her an hour later and often she would eat it then.

3) Don't Offer Alternatives: I would often have done this if Ray didn't eat her food. In a bid to get her to eat something healthy I would often offer her toast, yoghurt or fruit if she refused the dinner I had made. Now if she doesn't eat what is put in front of her, she gets nothing.

4) Gently Introduce New Foods: This was a tough one. At first if we put anything on Rays plate that she didn't like she would go into a hysterical fit of crying until it was removed. But we kept telling her that she didn't have to eat it, but it had to stay on her plate. She had a huge mental problem with new food and we felt if she could even get used to looking at it we may make some progress. We also offered her tastes of food from our plate. She always said no so imagine our surprise the first time she took a bite of hubbys pizza!

5) Positive Encourgment: This included praising her higly for trying a new food, making reward charts and adding stars each time a new food was eaten, giving her non food related treats (such as a trip to the swimming pool) when she ate well.

The first time Ray took a bite of fish finger there was almost a party in the kitchen and every distant relative was phoned with the news.

Ray will now eat fish fingers, chicken nuggets, other breakfast cereals and will tolerate her vegetables mixed with but not mashed into her potatoes. She is much more willing to try new foods, very often she will only lick them, but thats a huge step forward.

I can't say that we had a magical turn around. Even tonight Ray sat while we ate dinner and didn't take a bite. We took it away and refused treats or other food when she asked, later she asked to have her dinner and ate it all.

We have a long way to go, I still need to calm down and stop panicking. Sometimes we still get uptight, sometimes we still yell, but in all, mealtimes have become better.

I hope that as Ray grows older she will grow more adventurous, more willing to try new foods. I now realise that even if I wasn't the original cause of Ray's bad eating habits, I certainly made them worse. I hope that I have learned from my mistakes and do a better job with Jay and Baby D. 

The one thing I intend to improve on is my cooking skills, now that Ray will eat pizza I am going to have a go at letting her help to make her own, smiley face and all!I have such a bad imagination when it comes to cooking, so if anyone has a recipe for a meal or tasty treat that their child enjoys I'd love to hear it.