A Parenting Resource for Indy’s Christian Families

Never forget the nine most

important words of any family–

I love you.

You are beautiful.

Please forgive me.

H. Jackson Brown Jr.

If you can’t hold your children in your arms,

please hold them in your heart.

Mother Clara Hale

Each Day of our lives we make

deposits in the memory banks of our children.

Charles Swindoll

In the Q & A portion of his new Exchange book, Natural Playscapes: Creating Outdoor Play Environments for the Soul, Rusty Keeler talks about how messiness in outdoor play is important to learning and how to explain that to parents:

“Childhood is supposed to be messy and and natural playscapes [outdoor play areas] offer a kind of messiness that inspires learning and creativity. Children make mud pies out of mud; they pile up leaves and carry them around; sand and dirt are good for digging in. Two vital tricks are: having an extra set of ‘messy clothes’ on hand to change into and reminding parents to dress their children appropriately for play. If parents feel uncomfortable with the mess, tell them ‘the dirtier your child gets at school, the better reader they will become.’ When they scratch their heads, and look doubtful, explain that the experiences a young child has playing set up the foundation for future learning. The skills they learn on the playscape, such as having the confidence to try things they’ve never done before, will later translate to the school setting. For example, the world of reading — sounding out letters and words they’ve never seen — could seem daunting unless children have had positive experiences stretching themselves, gaining confidence, and growing through play. A natural playscape makes it easy for children to find challenging ways to dig, jump, stomp, and splash — and yes, get messy in the process — all on their way to becoming better readers.”

In her popular book, Intellectual Emergencies:  Some Reflections on Mothering and Teaching, Lilian Katz shares her views on what education is all about:

“…To me, it is about developing in the young certain dispositions.  These dispositions should include being reflective, inquisitive, inventive, resourceful, full of wonder (wonder-full), and perhaps puzzlement too.  These dispositions should also include the habits of searching for evidence; they should also include the dispositions to be tender, courageous, caring, compassionate and include some humor as well.”

Lilian Katz, in her book, Intellectual Emergencies: Some Reflections on Mothering and Teaching, offers these insights on professional development…

“Cultivate your own intellect and nourish the life of your own mind.  For teachers, the cultivation of our minds is as important as the cultivation of our capacities for understanding, compassion, and caring — not less, not more — but equally important.  In other words, see yourself as a developing professional; become a student of your own teaching — a career-long student of your own teaching.

“Always assume that the people you work with have the capacities for greatness, creativity, courage and insight.  Occasionally this assumption will be wrong, perhaps.  But if you always make it, you will be much more likely t o uncover, encourage, strengthen, and support these qualities.”

A new report makes a case for paying more attention to the critical role that out-of-school factors have on children’s school success.  Commenting on his report, “Poverty and Potential Out-of-School Factors and School Success“, author Henry C. Berliner, a professor of educational leadership at Arizona State University, observed, “As wonderful as some teachers and schools are, most cannot eliminate inequalities that have their roots outside their doors.”

Berliner’s research focuses on 7 out-of-school factors that influence student’s academic success and lead to inequalities among children:
•    prenatal care
•    health care
•    food insecurity
•    environmental pollutants
•    family stress
•    neighborhood characteristics
•    extended learning opportunities

The report calls for, among other things, the nation to provide high-quality preschools for all children and universal free medical care.

From Childcare Exchange - www.childcareexchange.com

1. Will my parents stay together?
2. What if my parents die or get in an accident?
3. How can I keep my mom or dad from getting angry with me?
4. Will people at school like me?
5. Will I be able to do well at school?
6. What if my friends don’t want to be my friends anymore?
7. Will my parents be able to pay all our bills?
8. Will I be safe today?
9. Do I look okay?
10. What if I get embarassed?
11. What if someone hurts me or my family?
12. What does the future hold for me?

Why is it difficult for us to understand the value of play?

• Parents perspectives on play vary and are largely based on their own educational experience
• Skeptical of educational innovations that appear trendy or lacking in substance.
  • School is for work; and if you work hard, it can help you get ahead
  • School, in this value system is not for playing around it isn’t viewed as part of the learning process
• In an increasing hostile nations, parents are suspicious of anything that may reduce their child’s competitiveness in the job market.
• Parents have difficulty trusting a teacher from a different background (that they may not have their child’s best interest at heart.

Play contributes to advances in:

• Verbalization
• Vocabulary
• Language comprehension
• Attention span
• Imagination
• Concentration
• Impulse control
• Curiosity
• Problem-solving strategies, cooperation, empathy
• Group participation
• Recent research provides additional evidence of the strong connections between quality of play in preschool years and children’s readiness for school instruction (bowman, Donovan, & Burns, 2000; Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation, 2002; Shonkoff & Phillips, 2000).
• Research directly links play to children’s ability to master such academic content as literacy and numeracy. Fore example children’s engagement in pretend pay was found to be positively and significantly correlated with such competencies as text comprehension an understanding of the purpose of reading and writing (Roskos & Christie, 2000)

How Play Evolves

1. initially, children are more focused on the actual objects
2. then they focus on the people who use the objects
3. then they develop more complex play with multiple roles and symbolic use of props

Characteristics of mature play

• Imaginary situations
• Multiple role plays
• Clearly defined rules
• Flexible themes
• Language development
• Length of play

“Everyone is born creative;  everyone is given a box of crayons in kindergarten,” writes Hugh MacLeod in Ignore Everybody And 39 Other Keys to Creativity (New York: Portfolio, 2009).  He continues…

“Then when you hit puberty they take away the crayons away and replace them with dry, uninspiring books on algebra, history, etc.  Being suddenly hit years later with the ‘creativity bug’ is just a wee voice telling you, ‘I’d like my crayons back please.’

“So you’ve got the itch to do something.  Write a screenplay, start a painting, write a book, turn your recipe for fudge brownies into a proper business, build a better mousetrap, whatever.  You don’t know where the itch came from, it’s almost like it just arrived on your doorstep, uninvited.  Until now you were quite happy holding down a real job, being a regular person.

“…. That wee voice didn’t show up because you decided you need more money, or need to hang out with movie stars.   Your wee voice came back because your soul somehow depends on it.  There’s something you haven’t said, something you haven’t done, some light that needs to be switched on, and it needs to be taken care of.  Now.

“So you have to listen to the wee voice or it will die… taking a big chunk of you along with it.  They’re only crayons.  You didn’t fear them in kindergarten, why fear them now?”

Common Sense Media is dedicated to improving the media and entertainment lives of kids and families.  Among other things this organization provides handouts for parents on the impact of the media on children that can be downloaded for free. In the handout:

• 61% of babies under 2 years old spend time in front of a screen (and 14% of babies are in front of a television or computer for two or more hours a day).
• 19% of children 1 year or younger have a TV in the bedroom.
• Each hour of viewing baby DVDs/videos is associated with lower vocabulary development for infants.

The handout’s introduction points out:

“The program ming is adorable. The packaging conjures up famous thinkers and composers.  All of this baby media is part of a multimillion-dollar business — a good thing to think about when tempted to buy or use them.   After all, you are your baby’s best teacher.  So when it comes to trying new ways to help your child think, you may want to start by putting that baby program on pause.

Determination.  ”Stick with it, regardless.”

Honesty.  “Speak and live the truth–always.”

Responsibility. “Be dependable, be trustworthy.”

Thoughtfulness. “Think of others before yourself.”

Confidentiality. “Don’t tell secrets.  Seal your lips.”

Punctuality. “Be on time.”

Self-control. “When under stress, stay calm.”

Patience. “Fight irritability.  Be willing to wait.”

Purity. “Reject anything that lowers your standards.”

Compassion. “When another hurts, feel it with him”

Diligence. “Work hard.  Tough it out.”

by Charles R. Swindoll from Growing Strong in the Seasons of Life