Vroom Your Child's Brain Building!

Science tells us that the more we engage with our children, especially ages 0-5, the better they'll do later on in school and in life.  That's why SINGING, TALKING, READING, WRITING, and PLAYING with your child is so important to build early literacy skills.  Needing some extra suggestions to go along with these five early literacy practices?  Vroom is a mobile app you can download onto your phone that provides you with daily activities that you can do with your child to help build their brain!  You are the number one teacher in your child's life...and Vroom will help give you easy ideas and suggestions that you can incorporate into your daily schedule.  Go to http://www.joinvroom.org/ to sign-up for the FREE app today! 

Developing Problem Sovling Skills

As adults, we have come across many problems throughout our lifetime and have developed skills to deal with them.  What about children who face a problem for the first time?  This can be difficult for us adults as we see a child we love struggle.  How do we help kids overcome this challenge?  The Search Institute has developed a list of useful tips when dealing with children who face a problem.  Use these tips to help you think about how you support youngsters in solving challenges they encounter.  To learn more about the Search Institute, visit this link.

1. Encourage "playing with" the problem. Encourage young people to throw out lots of ideas, make conjectures, and consider many different possibilities--even some that are outlandish. Look at the problem from many perspectives. This flexible thinking is an important skill for forming better solutions than the first that come to mind.
    
2. Guide the young person to break a big problem into its parts. Then focus on aspects of the problem that the young person doesn't understand or that seem like they have more potential to be solved.
    
3. Ask the young person to work through the problem out loud. Not only does this help you coach the young person, but it also slows down the thinking process.
4. Model and talk about the problem solving process, rather than focusing on getting the right answer. Talk through the steps you take and ask the young person to do the same so that it's easier to learn.
    
5. Have the student work through the problem on her or his own. Give only as much assistance as you need to when the young person is really stuck. And when you do so, limit your guidance to questions or suggestions that will help the young person move through a specific issue without solving the whole problem for her or him.
    
6. Ask open-ended questions. Instead of, "Do you think that will fit in there?" you might ask a more open-ended question, such as, "What do you think it will take to get everything to fit inside?" Ask follow-up questions that encourage the young person to articulate their problem-solving process. This not only helps you learn and guide, but it reinforces the skills.
        
7. Give positive reinforcement when young people overcome an obstacle or master a new problem-solving skill. Be specific in highlighting what they have done or learned.

Becoming Nicole

Wayne Maines was a man's man who was raised in a rural community with conservative, moral values. His wife, Kelly, came from a similar background. After multiple miscarriages, the opportunity to adopt fell into their laps. And when they found out they were having twins, they couldn't have been happier.

Wayne dreamed of the day when his identical twin sons, Jonas and Wyatt, would be old enough to experience the male bonding that goes along with hunting and fishing. Jonas seemed right on track to help him fulfill this dream. But from the age of 2, Wyatt began to show signs that the dream may never come true. As the years passed, it became apparent that Wyatt was not like most boys. Though Kelly followed Wyatt's lead and supported him every step of the way, Wayne just could not bring himself to terms with the idea that one of his sons may actually be his daughter. Until he realized that he really had no choice.

Through bullying, discrimination, court orders, lawsuits, counseling, medical interventions and family growth, Wyatt became Nicole, the girl she had always been.

In my opinion, the one weakness of the book is the way the author refers to Nicole as being "born a boy." She never was a boy. She was assigned male at birth but was always a girl. Becoming Nicole, by Amy Ellis Nutt, is a look at the transformation of a family, and in a way, a community and even a country. It also is a great source of information regarding the science of being transgender and the way the American culture and other cultures view transgender people.

October is Anti-Bullying Month

October is a very important time because it's National Anti-bullying month. Horton the Elephant wants to remind you to "Dare to Care". Because after all "A person's a person no matter how small!"

Stop by the children's desk at the library and we would be more than happy to show you books on the topic of bullying for children and for parents.

Here's a couple of website resources too:

 STOMP Out Bullying™  To encourage communities to work together to stop bullying and cyberbullying by increasing awareness of the prevalence and impact of bullying on all children of all ages.

Stop Bullying.gov Help stop bullying at school, online, and in the community.

Pacer.org National Bullying Prevention Center Make bullying prevention a movement that touches every community. Share information about the event through website updates; posts on social media channels; articles in newspapers, magazines, and online publications; or just connecting with someone in person.

National Child Traumatic Stress Network
National Child Traumatic Stress Network (NCTSN) collection of resources for families, teens, educators, clinicians, mental health professionals, and law enforcement personnel on how to recognize, deal with, and prevent bullying

Last Chance for Early Literacy Workshop

There is still time to register for the early literacy workshop from 6:30 to 8:30 on February 2, but not much. Call 503-718-2673 now if you are interested in attending, and don't forget to get a babysitter, because this is a grown-ups only kind of night. I will make an exception for non-mobile babies.

Early Literacy Workshop

Do you have kids under 6? Would you like to help prepare them to read? Then leave the kids with a babysitter on Monday, February 2 and join me from 6:30 to 8:30 in the Puett Room for a workshop on early literacy.

Early literacy does not mean that your young child should already be reading. In fact, I most certainly will not be teaching you how to teach your baby or your 2-year-old to read. Early literacy is the set of skills your children will need to develop in order to learn how to read once they are a little older.

Call the Children's Desk at 503-718-2673 to register. Grown-ups only, please, but I will make an exception for babies that are not moving around on their own yet.

More on Screen Time

Can you tell we liked the presentation by journalist-turned-author, Lisa Guernsey? First Janet, and now I am blogging about it! And I have to admit, my first reaction when I saw we were hosting an author to talk about screen time, was "Great. Now I have another person to make me feel guilty about letting my under-2-year-old watch TV." And it was not that way at all. Lisa focuses more on the quality of TV, apps and video games than the quantity (even for kids under 2), and she offers a pneumonic to help you remember: SPLERN. "SPLERN???" you may ask, "How am I going to remember a nonsense word like that?" That's what I said to myself. But I remembered it without even taking notes, so the acronym did it's job!

• Straight-time story line (the story goes from beginning to end without things like dream sequences, flashbacks, memories, side plots, etc)
• Participation (Dora or Blue's Clues are good examples of this where the kids are actually asked a question and given time to answer, but anything that encourages participation like songs, movement, etc.)
• Labeling (When unfamiliar words or items are shown, they are labeled or defined within the context of the show)
• Engagement (Do the kids like it?)
• Repetition (Speaks for itself)
• Non-Violence (I should probably stop letting Coby watch even the 1981 Spiderman cartoon *cringe*)

So glad I got the opportunity to see her in person, and I highly recommend her book Screen Time: How Electronic Media--From Baby Videos to Educational Software--Affects Your Young Child.

Screen Time: Growing Readers in a Digital World

Parents and Caregivers: Join early education expert and author Lisa Guernsey for an overview of screen time research and discover reasonable ways to incorporate technology into your family life.  After the presentation, Lisa will sign copies of her book Screen Time: How Electronic Media--From Baby Videos to Educational Software--Affects Your Young Child.

This very informative session will be held on Wednesday February 26th from 7-8 p.m. in the Burgess Community Room.  REGISTRATION FOR CHILD CARE DURING THE EVENT IS REQUIRED!  Please stop by the Children's Desk or call 503-718-2656 to ensure child care for your child.

National Parent's Day is July 28th

In honor of National Parent’s Day on Sunday, July 28^th, the U.S. Government Printing Office is promoting one of their parenting publications.  The 32-page PDF booklet is available for free on Internet in English and in Spanish.

The booklet give tips on teaching you (the parent) to be responsible, committed, positive, patient, attentive, precise, diligent, results-oriented, and innovative with your child.  For example: “Your responsibility for your child’s education begins with modeling at home. If your kids see you reading, they will want to read. If you drag your kid to every Civil War battle site because you are a Civil War buff, your child may ace his or her American history exams. When you volunteer at your child’s school, your kids are going to see how important their education is to you.”

·    The authors also recommend a large number of parent-child and pro-school activities. Some of the examples are reading aloud to your child each day starting at birth, playing games with your child, contacting his or her teachers, visiting his or her school, AND taking your child to the library!!!

To learn more about this booklet, see this article: http://govbooktalk.gpo.gov/2013/07/25/parent-power-the-power-to-make-a-difference/.

More Resources to Help Your Child

On Friday December 14th we posted a blog about resources to help you help your child during the wake of tragedy.  Today marks one week since the tragic shooting at the Clackamas Town Center.  We would like to offer you some additional resources that may be helpful to you when speaking to your child regarding tragic events.

American Academy of Pediatrics
Resources to Help Parents, Children and Others Cope in the Aftermath of School Shootings

PBS
How Do You Explain the Newtown Shooting to Kids

National Education Association
School Crisis Guide

Connecticut Education Association
Talking to Children About Violence

Save The Children
How to Help Children Cope with a Crisis

Talking to your kids about tragedy

While we have observed some unfortunage tragedies in the news this week, perhaps your child may be asking you questions that may be difficult to answer.  We would like to help you share two websites that offer tips in talking to your kids:

PBS Parents: Mister Roger's Neighbor Hood, Helping Children with Scary News:

http://www.pbs.org/parents/rogers/special/scarynews-thoughts.html

Addresses issues such as helping children feel secure, limiting your own television veiwing, talking and listening to your child, and helpful hints.

University of Minnesota Extension Service:

http://www.extension.umn.edu/distribution/youthdevelopment/components/7414-05.html

Offers pointers on how to talk to your children about violence against kids.  This is from their Preventing Violence in Our Scools Webpage. 

Scream Free Parenting

I have found myself losing my temper with my 4-year-old recently, and I do NOT want to get into the pattern of yelling at him. A friend recommended Scream Free Parenting: The Revolutionary Approach to Raising Your Kids By Keeping Your Cool, by Hal Edward Runkel. And now I recommend it to you.

A more appropriate title would probably be "Emotionally Reactive-Free Parenting" but that doesn't quite roll off the tongue as well as "Scream Free." Basically, Runkel uses the word "scream" to represent any kind of uncalm reaction toward your child, be it screaming, avoiding, overcompensating, giving in, etc.

 

He posits that by focusing on yourself, you can become a better parent. Focusing on yourself means looking at how you can change your behavior to remain calm in a situation with your child that would normally cause you to scream. It also means creating space for yourself, separate from your child. It also means taking care of your own mental and physical health.

 

Within this framework, he gives tips for how to set and enforce consequences but use empathy at the same time. He uses a few personal examples and lots of examples from families he has worked with in his counseling practice.

 

Very helpful and very practical.