I Did it All By Myself! An Age-by-Age Guide to Teaching Your Child Life Skills

Sometimes parents are unsure of when to add chores to their child’s daily routine. Parents also struggle with what chores to give their children and at what ages. FamilyEducation.com offers this age-by-age guide to chores that can teach your child life skills. Click here to read more.



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Kids Say the Darnedest Things

Every parent has had their child say something that isn’t nice. It makes you want to step behind a tree or hide behind playground equipment. Here are a few tips that could help your child learn and grow from the experience.

Experience: Your child yells “this is my toy” and grabs the toy away from another child.

The learning opportunity: This could be a great opportunity to reinforce sharing with others. Concentrate on the benefits of sharing. Correct your child and then go one to tell explain the benefits of sharing:

it helps others feel good about themselves
it helps to make new friends
new friends might share new toys with you

Experience: You ask your child to do something and they scream “it’s not fair”

The learning opportunity: Explain why you’re telling your child to do the task. Give them consequences for not completing the task. For example: if they don’t clean their room they can’t watch TV when they get home. This will help your child make the connection between actions and consequences.

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Homemade stickers

Kids love any stickers but they'll love making and designing their own. This activity won’t take you long to prepare and it will provide your child a lot of enjoyment.

Materials

• office labels
• colored markers
• crayons
• pens
• colored pencils

What you’ll need to start

Parents: start with standard office labels and cut them into interesting shapes.

Kids: can use pencils, pens, markers, stamps and more to decorate the office labels. Have them practice writing letters and words on the stickers to make the activity educational. Once the stickers are done, all you need to do is peel of the backing and presto, you have your own personal stickers.

I want it now!

You may remember that saying from Veruca Salt, in Charlie and the Chocolate factory and some days you may feel like she’s your child. What’s a parent to do? Here are a few tips to help you through these rough parenting waters.

Set Expectations

Children a very predictable. In most cases you know when you are going to the market that your child will ask for a treat in the check out line. So set expectations before you get their. Tell them they are not getting a treat and deal with the fall out at home. They may still act out when your checking out, but they may also simply accept the fact that they are not getting a treat and move on.

Stick to Your Guns

Children are experts at testing boundaries. Unfortunately, the more you give in, the more your child will push the limits of the word no. You can’t always say no but, when you do lay down the gauntlet, don’t give in. Let them know that the word no means no. If your children don’t expect flexibility in the word no, they will accept no for answer more easily.

Don’t Dwell

If your child has a tantrum don’t dwell on it. The more you make of the episode, the more your child get’s the wrong message. The extra attention may reinforce that bad behavior gets noticed.

Water Play

This week water is the focus of our lessons with the students and there are so many things your baby or toddler can learn through playing with water play at home.

Here are some ideas on how to blend fun with water with learning. Some things you might need are:

- different size pots and pans
- containers of different size and shape
- funnels
- scoops (use big plastic serving spoons. in fact, many kitchen utensils often come handy in child's play)
- wine corks (they float)
- a small water toy or an empty shampoo bottle
- food coloring added to liquids offer different colors (you can buy them in a baking section of your supermarket)
- tongs (try to find ones covered with plastic or rubber as the metal ones can be quite sharp)

Obviously, water is going to get messy with all the splashing, otherwise it wouldn't be so much fun! So, choose a play area carefully. During warm weather days setting up outside makes clean up easy. If you can’t go outside place the objects in the tub without filling the tub up and make a mess in there.

If your little one is a little older you can play with water using large pots and containers placed on a table and cover the floor under the table with a large plastic tablecloth.

Examples To work on your child’s coordination skills:
- "fish out" wine corks (or other floating objects) with a scoop, tongs or just fingers
- try counting them out loud when you place them into a container
- fill up and squirt water with a shampoo bottle, try aiming at some light weight objects that could fall when you hit them with the water, like toy soldiers or cars (or even those useful wine corks)
To work on your child’s color and observation skills
- fill up different-size containers with water to different levels and pour the water out into other containers through funnels.
- add some color to the water with food coloring and learn colors while you are playing. They will also be learning how fun and interesting it is to mix colors.
Imaginative play with water:
- play "fishing" in the tub
- give dolls a bath, washing their hair
- play wash the dishes
So go on, start splashing - water can be fun all year around!

Source: http://www.articlesbase.com/

Developmental Milestones -1-2 years

The ages of one and two, means increased mobility, increased awareness of self and surroundings. A toddler has an overwhelming urge to explore new objects and new people. They now can recognize themselves in pictures or mirrors. They are imitating the behavior of others, especially adults and older children. Your child is becoming more independent and even showing some defiant behavior.

Developmental Milestones

•Walks alone
•Pulls toys behind while walking
•Carries large toy or several toys while walking
•Begins to run
•Stands on tiptoes
•Kicks a ball
•Climbs onto and down from furniture unassisted
•Walks up and down stairs holding on to support
•Scribbles spontaneously
•Builds towers of four blocks or more
•Recognizes names of familiar people, objects, and body parts
•Says several single words (by fifteen to eighteen months)
•Uses simple phrases (by eighteen to twenty-four months)
•Demonstrates increasing independence
•Shows increasing episodes of separation anxiety toward midyear, that then will fade

If you have any questions or concerns about your child’s development, please contact your pediatrician or for more information please visit the American Academy Pediatrics website

Source: http://www.aap.org
www.medicinenet.com
www.education.com

Developmental Milestones 6 months to 1 year

Last week we talked about developmental milestones from birth to 6 months, this week we will talk about the milestones of babies 6 months to 1 year. The second half a baby’s first year is very busy and very fun. Developmental milestones get even more complex and challenging for your baby. Their aware of their environment, and they really want to begin to explore and become a little more mobile.

Development: Milestones 6 to 9 Months

Your baby is really beginning to move his body into different positions. Don't expect them to stay in one place for too long. Being able to move from place to place will give your child a sense of power and control and their first real taste of physical independence.

Here are some of the key milestones to look for:

•Gets to sitting position without assistance

•Crawls forward on belly by pulling with arms and pushing with legs

•Assumes hands-and-knees position

•Creeps on hands and knees supporting trunk on hands and knees

•Uses pincer grasp

•Bangs two cubes together

•Puts objects into container

•Takes objects out of container

•Responds to simple verbal requests

•Responds to “no”

•Uses simple gestures, such as shaking head for “no”

•Explores objects in many different ways (shaking, banging, throwing, dropping)

•Shy or anxious with strangers

Developmental Milestones: 9 to 12 Months

At this time your baby exhibits extreme curiosity about their surroundings. They can now pick up things that they could only look at before. One way to help avoid them getting into danger is to get down on their level. Get on your hands and knees and look around your home for safety risks. Look for small items and other choking hazards like cords for blinds or draperies. Lock cabinets and put safety plugs in electrical outlets.

Developmental milestones 9-12 months

•Pulls self up to stand

•Walks holding on to furniture

•Stands momentarily without support

•May walk two or three steps without support

•Lets objects go voluntarily

•Tries to imitate scribbling

•Says “dada” and “mama”

•Uses exclamations, such as “oh-oh!”

•Tries to imitate words

•May be fearful in some situations

•Finger-feeds himself

•Extends arm or leg to help when being dressed

•Begins to use objects correctly (drinking from cup, brushing hair, dialing phone, listening to receiver)

•Enjoys imitating people in play

•Shows specific preferences for certain people and toys

If you have any questions or concerns about your child’s development, please contact your pediatrician or for more information please visit the American Academy Pediatrics website

Source:

http://www.aap.org
http://www.emedtv.com/

Developmental Milestones: 6 month

Many parents worry about their child’s development. Parents hear what other parents are saying about their child’s development and worry that their child is behind. The truth is, although each milestone has an age level, the actual age when a normally developing child reaches that milestone can very quite a bit. Every child is unique.

What are developmental milestones?

Developmental milestones are a set of functional skills or age-specific tasks that are appropriate for most children at a certain age range. Today we are going to talk about developmental milestones from birth to 6 months. Please keep in mind that these are only guidelines and all children develop at their own pace so don’t get too concerned if your child lags in a certain skill.

Developmental Milestones for a One-Month Old

When you first bring you baby home it seems like all the do is eat and sleep. By the end of the first month your baby should become much more alert and responsive. Some milestones might include:

•Bringing hands within range of eyes and mouth
•Moving head from side to side during tummy time
•Flopping head backward if unsupported
•Keeping hands in a tight fist

Developmental Milestones for a Three-Month Old

Around 3 months of age your baby will become much more active and many newborn traits will begin to fade. Babies around this age often have more control over their body and can spend hour entertaining themselves discovering their hands.

Some milestones may include:

•Raising their head and chest during tummy time
•Grasping and shaking hand toys
•Beginning to babble
•Beginning to imitate some sounds
•Turning head toward direction of sound
•Beginning to develop a social smile
•Enjoying playing with other people and crying when playing stops

Developmental Milestones for a Seven-Month Old

Many important changes occur between 4 and 7 months of age. Your baby will learn to coordinate their motor skills and start to develop their senses like vision, touch and hearing.

Some milestones may include

•Rolling both ways (front to back, back to front)
•Sitting with, and then without, support of her hands
•Supporting his or her whole weight on their legs
•Reaching with one hand
•Tracking moving objects
•Responding to own name
•Beginning to respond to “no”
•Distinguishing emotions by tone of voice
•Enjoying social play

If you have any questions or concerns about you child’s development, please contact your pediatrician or for more information please visit the American Academy Pediatrics website

Source: http://www.aap.org