Winter flu and cold season may soon be upon us! While we all hope that our children will be strong, happy, and healthy, it wouldn’t hurt to be prepared for those times when you may be forced to amuse a sick child or two. The more prepared you are, the less stressful this time can be for everyone involved.

Sick Children Belong in Bed

First off, set some basic rules. Will you keep your sick child in bed? This used to be standard procedure! Sick people should not get out of bed! They should not take their germs to work or preschool and infect others. Some parents don’t try to keep their sick child in bed, because they think he will be bored. But if you have more than one child, it really is the best option. The sick child should stay in bed, eat in bed, sleep in his bed, and then he is less likely to infect the rest of the family.

Keep to the Regular Routine

Secondly, try to stick to your child’s regular routine as much as possible. Have breakfast, snack, lunch, and dinner at the usual times, unless of course, your child is vomiting and shouldn’t eat anything. Insist on nap time. Your child won’t be able to go outside to play, but otherwise, you can have free play times, table games (which can also be done in bed) and story time, calendar time… whatever is part of your child’s normal day, whenever practical. The young child can get very agitated if his routine is altered! He’s already not feeling well, so help him out by keeping his sick day as normal as possible.

Fill a Sick Day Box

Finally, start to gather some unique, interesting quiet games and activities NOW. Keep these toys out of sight, and bring them out only on sick days. What follows are some suggestions.

1) Flannel Board stories. You can buy flannel/felt board sets, or make them yourself. If you have an older child, he or she can make their own felt characters for a story. Basically, you need to wrap a board with flannel, then cut out shapes from felt. The felt sticks to the flannel. Preschool and Sunday School Teachers have been using flannel boards to tell stories for ages! You can use paper figures cut from catalogs or magazines, and they will stick to the flannel board if you glue a square of felt to the back. Encourage your child to make up stories and use the felt shapes to tell them. This is great if you have two or more children, as well.

2) Paper Dolls. This is more of a girly-game, and paper dolls aren’t as popular as they once were. When you do find a pretty paper doll set, buy it and save it for the next time your little one needs to stay in bed. Take some time, and play with her, especially if she needs help cutting out the outfits. Some paper dolls now have magnetic outfits and come already punched out! In my store, you’ll find a zoo playset that may be appropriate for a boy, as well.

3) Colorforms. This is a classic toy of vinyl pieces that stick to a clean surface. They can also be fun in the car, as they stick to clean windows, but when the windows are cold the pieces will fall off. Younger children can create interesting designs and shapes. Older children may use the pieces to tell stories, much like flannel boards. There are a variety of Colorforms playsets, including Go, Diego Go!, and Thomas & Friends.

4) Sticky Wicks. These toys are like wax-coated pipe cleaners. They bend and stick and hold together, without glue. They are quiet, clean, ultimately reuseable, and a bit out of the ordinary. Keep them for special occasions – to keep them fun. Use them ONLY for bed-sick children, or maybe if you have to be on a plane or long car trip. There are a wide variety of wikki stix sets – you can get them for shapes, numbers, letters, or just a basic “make up your own game” set. Children will play with these for hours! But they are not recommended for under threes.

5) Tub Toys: Your child may enjoy a bath every day while he’s sick. Putting him in a tub of warm water can help loosen chest congestion, sooth irritated skin rashes, and cool down a fever. He probably has a bunch of tub toys already, but for those sick days, maybe you can bring out something extra special. In my store, I have searched through Amazon.com for a number of unique bath toys that may not be readily available in your local store, including a bathtub symphony, a set of chutes and wheels to create his own water cascade, a tub garden and a floating city. Other alternatives for tub play – measuring spoons and cups, funnels, empty containers, bathtub crayons, and bubble bath.

6) Books on tape. If you still have a cassette tape player, books on tape are a great bedtime activity. Your child can look at book after book, turning the pages when a bell on the tape tells him to. Now there are story books that come with CDs, but I haven’t yet found a child-friendly CD player that I’d recommend. You can also make your own audio books. Get a cassette recorder, some library books, and a bell (or any noise maker, even a New Year’s party horn, or bang two spoons together), and read the story into the microphone. Your child will love to listen to the story again and again – a lot more than you’d feel like reading it to him! For this, chose really special books. While I love Walt Disney cartoons, I find that the Disney story books tend to be very silly. Find classic books on tape, like Mike Mulligan’s Steam Shovel.

7) Special Movies: I’m not a big fan of letting preschoolers watch endless hours of television, but when they are sick, it can be a great tool. Depending on how irritable your child is, he may not be interested in watching the same-old, same-old shows. You could run out to rent something new, but that’s not easy if you’re stuck at home with a sick child! And then you have to return it tomorrow… so I’ve collected several interesting DVDs or Videos that may not be part of your normal repertoire. One is a collection of children’s classic tales in cartoon, that is eight hours long! If your child only ever sees this video when he’s sick in bed, he may enjoy it for years.

Here are some other quiet activities, perhaps when your child is starting to feel better, but still can’t go outside to play:

8.) Spray some shaving cream on the kitchen table. Let your child smear it around, write his name in it, play with it. It’s a very neat sensory experience, and it’s clean fun. When he is done, just wipe up with paper towels. Your kitchen will smell clean, and so will your child.

9) Playdough. Buy some new, or make up a batch. Buy a new playdough toy, or get out your rolling pin, cookie cutters, toy dishes, measuring cups and spoons, and whatever else you can think of. If you supervise, even a pair of children’s safety scissors can be great fun.

10) Scissors. You must supervise! And if your child has pretty hair, pin it up out of reach! Maybe put a hat on your child. For some unexplained reason, most children try to cut their hair in the preschool years. I like to set my preschooler inside a large cardboard box, hand her my junk mail, and a pair of children’s safety scissors. She will cut and snip for a long time, and when she’s done, all the little bits of paper remain inside the box! You can just let your child sit at the table. Save your junk mail for this. Young toddlers can just practice cutting. As your child develops coordination, you can make solid black lines on the junk mail with a sharpie marker and have him try to cut on the line. Later, he can cut out pictures from the advertisements in the Sunday paper.

11) Sensory play. Get a small children’s splash pool (3 ft in diameter) and fill it with about 30 lbs of dry rice. You can color the rice or leave it white. Give your child measuring cups, spoons, funnels, toy cars and boats, etc, and let him play and play. Some rice may get on the carpet, but it vacuums up easily.

12) Art activities. Give your child a new box of markers, or crayons. Get a big sheet of paper, or a coloring book, or even more junk mail. Sit and color with him, or ask him to make a special picture you can send to his grandmother. Depending on the age and ability of the child, you might give him more scraps, some scissors, ribbons, glue, sequins, and any doodads you can find, and let him make a big, beautiful, sticky collage.

Don’t forget to celebrate your child’s “all better” day! We spend extra time with a sick child, and buy special games, or prepare special foods… and the child feels very special! He may not want to lose that! So, when he is finally well enough to play outside, make sure he’s still special. Put away the sick games, and do something fun – but not too strenuous, as he may not be quite one-hundred percent yet. Maybe make a trip to the library, or play in the sandbox with a friend. You might make a “got well cake” with candles!

Then, depending on how many days your child was ill, you might want to send him to a neighbor’s house or a drop-in day care for a few hours, and go get yourself a massage. You deserve it.

Related Reading:
Ten Rainy Day Activities
Calendar Activities
Growing With Crayons

Photo Credits:
Sick Child: by MollyPop
Shaving Cream Art: by Rdeetz
Mom’s Day Out: by Betsy Fletcher

“Hurry up!”
“Let’s go!”
“Stop dawdling!”

How often do our children hear these words, or similar phrases? We live in a busy society. We are often in a rush. We have deadlines- but young children do not understand time. We have responsibilities. The young child is ego-centric, caught up in his own little world with himself at the center. We are bigger, taller, with great long legs. Little children have short legs and little feet that are often quite clumsy. We are focused on our to-do lists. He has almost no attention span. And so, there is conflict.

Sometimes, we need to remember what childhood is all about. Sometimes, we need to slow down and enjoy the moment of discovery as our youngster spots a caterpillar on a leaf, or a rainbow inside a bubble, or any of the thousands of fascinating things that hold their interest when all we really want them to do is hurry up! But there are times when we just cannot afford the time. So, when you really do need your child to move faster, how can you motivate him?

Here are some suggestions:

1. Never repeat yourself. If you do, you are actually teaching your child to ignore you the first time. Give a command and then expect your child to obey. If your child obeys, don’t act too surprised! But you can praise him for being such a good listener. Our children really only want our attention. If you don’t give it to him when he’s being good, he’ll find other ways to get it.

2. Ask if she heard you. Ask if he understood you. This is NOT the same as repeating yourself. By asking him if he understood you, you can discover if he is exhibiting willful disobedience, or a simple misunderstanding is keeping him from doing as he should. Willful disobedience calls for an immediate time-out, or whatever discipline method you use in your family. However, if your child did not understand the order, then you can get down on your knees, gently hold his head in your hands, look him right in the eye, and tell him what you need him to do, clearly. Again, praise him when he listens to you. If your child still fails to obey, then this is not a dawdling issue, but a defiance behavior, and will be dealt with in a separate article.

3. Give your child a deadline.

Use a small, noisy timer. The child can hear it ticking away, and when the bell goes off, he knows time is up. You could use a large egg timer if your child is upset by noises (as some autistic children are). Using a timer is a great way to introduce the concept of time to a preschooler. You can use the timer for many things – from time-outs, to sharing toys.

4. Find a motivation. This can vary greatly from child to child. Some children are motivated by food. For example, “You may not eat breakfast until you have put on your clothes.” However, some children do not wake up hungry and wouldn’t get dressed until closer to lunch time! Some children will work for a penny or a sticker, or even a marble. You can let him collect the marbles or pennies in a clear container until a certain level has been reached – then he can “cash in” all the pennies or marbles (be careful not to let him swallow one!) for an extra-special reward, like a trip to the children’s museum, or the carousel, or a pizza party.

5. Losing a privilege. This is a more negative approach, and should be used only after other methods have failed. But find something the child really enjoys – like playing video games (I hope not!), or going fishing with grampa. If he fails to do the activity you need him to do in the time allotted, then he will lose the privilege.

6. Shaping behavior. This works better with younger children. Instead of expecting perfection right off the bat, you break the ultimate behavior down into smaller steps. Back to our example of getting dressed in the morning, first you might just expect your child to put on his or her own underwear. Tell your child that from now on, since he is such a big boy, and you know he can do it, you want him to take off his pajamas first thing in the morning and put on the clean pair of underwear that you will lay out for him. This is one, simple, easy task. You will reward him greatly for compliance. You ignore non-compliance for a few days, then use motivation and deadlines, etc, until he does come to breakfast dressed in his clean underwear. Then you celebrate! You announce to everyone how PROUD you are of him. That he is SO BIG, that he even put on his own underwear that morning! You kiss him and hug him, and you make SURE that when you reward him with the next small step of getting dressed – pulling on a tee shirt – that he’s going to really try hard to do it! (Just make sure that when he does, you praise him, and don’t make him turn it around when he puts it on backwards.)

7. Use natural consequences. Sometimes this works, sometimes it’s inappropriate. If your child dawdles at breakfast, and it’s time to go, then a natural consequence would be for him to miss the rest of his breakfast. Don’t take it with you for him to eat in the car. Don’t swing through McDonald’s on the way to work and school to get him a quick breakfast sandwich. Let his hunger provide the necessary lesson, and perhaps he will eat a little faster tomorrow. However, if your child dawdles in getting dressed, obviously, you cannot just let him go to school naked!

8. Create more time.

If you are always rushed in the morning, and your young child dawdles, then perhaps you need more time in the morning. The consequence would be that he will need to start going to bed earlier, so you can wake him up earlier. This is not a popular answer, but it may be the one that is most necessary. That would allow you the time to sit and eat breakfast with your child. To cuddle him on your lap while you help him get dressed. To read a picture book before running off to do errands or meet deadlines.

Childhood is precious. Every single moment of it! So when your child is dawdling, sometimes, you need to learn from him. Sit down. Relax. And enjoy the moment with your precious child.

Related Articles:
Reduce or eliminate tantrums
Children and Chores
Teaching Children to Clean

Photo Credits:
Serious Toddler: Benedict Francis
Getting Dressed: Abby Batchelder
Discovery: Woodley Wonderworks

Nap time is critical to your child’s health and well being. Children who do not take a nap tend to be smaller, hyperactive, and prone to frequent illness. Lack of sleep can cause aggressiveness, irritability, crying, whining, defiant or impulsive behavior, and a short attention span. A lack of sleep affects your child’s brain development, as well as his physical growth.

How Much Sleep Children Require

Young children need between 13 and 14 hours of sleep daily. Generally, this works into about 11 hours at night and a 2 hour nap. I have heard many parents claim that if their child takes a nap, then he will not sleep at bedtime. Other parents say their child simply will not sleep at naptime, and they give up trying. Ask to visit a large day care center shortly after lunch and see that nearly every child is sound asleep. What is the difference?

The secret ingredient is… (drumroll, please) ROUTINE!

Day care teachers could never get all those children to sleep if it weren’t for routine. The better the day care, the more they stick to their routine. A daily routine helps a child to be hungry when it’s time to eat, and to be tired when it’s time to sleep. Sticking to a routine requires that a parent be disciplined. Disciplined parents have disciplined children, and the opposite is also true. Children will learn whatever behavior we model for them.

Your daily routine should begin at the same time every day. Whether you get up at 6:00 am or 9:00 am doesn’t matter as long as you do it every single day. You cannot change your schedule on the weekend. If you let your young child stay up late on Friday and Saturday night, you are guaranteeing that Monday morning is going to be horrendous. There is a lot of research that claims sleep in the earlier hours of the evening is more beneficial than sleeping late in the morning. The old adage, ” early to bed, early to rise, makes a man healthy, wealthy and wise” may yet prove true.

Put Your Daily Routine Down on Paper

So get a pen and paper and start to work on your routine. Write what time you would like your child to be asleep by every night. 11 hours later will be your approximate time to begin your daily routine. If you would like your child to be asleep by 8:00 PM every night, then his daily wake up time is 7:00 AM. It might be even better to plan his go to sleep time at 7:00 PM, but that depends on a number of other factors, such as older children in the home. It is important to note that if you want your child to be asleep by 8:00 PM, then his bedtime is actually 7:30 PM.

Bedtime Routine

If you haven’t already created a bedtime routine, do it now. This is a series of events (usually five) that always take place every single evening right before bedtime. It generally takes about a half hour, and may include: bathtime, pajama time, story time, prayer time, and cuddles. For more on establishing a bedtime routine, read: Hassle-Free Bedtime.

Why am I stressing bedtime in an article about naps? Because the two go hand-in-hand. A child who is over-tired, over-stimulated, and resisting naps, is a child who needs more sleep at bedtime. To establish a good nap, you must also establish a consistent bedtime.

Children Need Fresh Air and Outdoor Exercise Daily

Okay, you have your ideal schedule, your bedtime routine, and when you would like your child to take a nap. Your child is eating regular, nutritious meals at about the same time every day. Now, you need to see that his morning includes a variety of activities, including some large-muscle activities outside. This does not mean that you have to amuse him! The young child has a fantastic imagination and a wealth of creative potential. You simply have to provide the tools and the time, and a safe environment. To see what sort of activities I do in the mornings with my granddaughter, you can read: Working with the Lesson Plans: Schedules

Your child went to sleep last night around 8:00 pm, and awoke full of energy this morning just before 7:00 am. He did some puzzles, ate breakfast, and colored a picture in his journal. He played with his toys for ninety minutes while you got some work done. Then you took him outside to ride his trike while you jogged along beside him. He came in, washed up, and ate a healthy lunch. It is time for the culmination of all your hard work- The Nap!

Establish a Naptime Routine

Again, this is easier with a routine. It doesn’t need to be as long as the bedtime routine. My granddaughter goes potty, washes hands, and brushes her teeth. Then she takes off her shoes (if they are still on!) and selects TWO books from the pile we previously checked out of the library. She grabs a toy and a blanket, usually her baby doll named Sarah, and a small, flannel baby receiving blanket. Then she scrambles up onto my bed. Sometimes I take her back to her house to sleep in her crib at naptime, but during the day I feel it is okay for her to sleep in a “big bed”. For one, I’m not sleeping. I am awake and alert, and she is not going to get up and get into trouble while my back is turned.

I crawl into bed beside her and read both books. One story isn’t long enough for her to unwind, and any more than two just takes too long. I read two picture books. Then I let her look at them on her own for ten minutes. I want her to love books! I want her to feel that books are like best friends. I lay down beside her and I read for ten minutes, too, modeling the behavior I want her to learn. Of course, I usually read a paperback romance, and I’d rather she read the encyclopedia when she’s older… but that’s another story!

I give her a few count-down warnings. “You may look at books for six more minutes…. You may look at your books for two more minutes…” etc. (See Eliminating Tantrums, the count-down method. )Then, I take away her books.

Sometimes she whimpers. More so if it’s Monday morning, and her schedule was hectic on the weekend with her mom. She is tired, relaxed, and fed. She’s had plenty of exercise both physically and mentally. She will fall asleep.

At first, while you are teaching your child to sleep at nap time, you may need to rub his back or gently stroke his forehead with a loving, gentle touch. Maybe the first day you have to rub his back for thirty minutes. The second day maybe only twenty-nine minutes. Within a few weeks, his body will have adjusted. Research claims that it takes 21 days to create a new habit.

Naptime Can Be the Best Part of the Day

Love nap time! Your child can be most precious at this time of day. As you cuddle with him or her in those last moments before they drift off to sleep, you may hear the most amazing things come from their lips! One afternoon, my granddaughter patted my cheek with her plump little baby-girl fingers, and whispered, “You’re my best friend, gramma!”

Finally – don’t let nap time go on too long. There needs to be a time to get up! If you let your child sleep beyond the time you established in your schedule, you will make it harder for him to get to sleep at bedtime. Keep track of how much he sleeps. If he slept eleven hours last night, then he only needs between an hour and a half to two hours for nap. He may wake up sweetly with hugs and sunshine, or he may wake up crabby for a while. You need to let him establish this new routine, and then you can teach him “how to wake up.”

Mommies Can Enjoy Naptime, Too

So what will you do with your nap time? Whatever you want! Plan for it, treasure it. Use this time as “you” time. Taking care of young children can be exhausting. Find what you need to do to “recharge” your batteries. If you have several children under the age of five, you may need to take a nap yourself. Maybe you’d really love to have a long, luxurious bubble bath and read a novel-without being interrupted by your young child! Just don’t fall into the routine of doing housework at this time. For one, your little one isn’t going to sleep through the sound of the refrigerator opening or the vacuum cleaner gobbling up legos. For another, housework really isn’t going to rejuvenate you and refresh you, so that you will be at your best when your little one wakes up.

There are a few other tricks you can use to make nap time run more smoothly – these, I feel are “extras” and not part of the basic package. Some parents like to get a special “nap time” blanket or bedroll or cot. Some parents dim the lights, play soft music, and rock their child. Some like to use a large timer, and set it where the child can see it, but not touch it – when the timer goes off, then the child may get up. I would urge you NOT to put your child down watching the television. That will keep your child awake. Maybe he will eventually fall asleep, but it will take much longer than necessary, and turn his mind to mush in the process .

For further reading:
The No-cry Nap Solution by Elizabeth Pantley
The Sleepeasy Solution: The Exhausted Parents Guide to Getting Your Child To Sleep by Jennifer Waldburger and Jill Spivak
Healthy Sleep Habits, Happy Child by Marc Weissbluth

Related Articles:
Common Bedtime Mistakes Parents Make
Play Areas for Encourage Creativity

Photo Credits:
Top:sdminor01
Middle: Courage Knight
Bottom: Courage Knight

My baby sister was about two years old when my mom took her to see a doctor. Lennore was a pretty baby, with curly dark locks and eyes so brown you couldn’t see the pupil. The doctor sniffed disdainfully, and told mom to “take that thing out of her mouth”. Mom did. Lennore screamed with lungs worthy of an opera performance. The doctor shook his head and told her to go ahead and put it back in.

Pacifiers Do Not Cause Crooked Teeth

Nowadays pacifiers are usually made out of silicone, since so many children are developing allergies to latex. Most pacifiers are “orthodontically” shaped, even if they don’t have the ADA (American Dental Assosciation) label on them. You can buy them in a variety of colors, to coordinate them with your child’s wardrobe. You can even find pacifiers for various holidays and special occasions, or get them stamped with your child’s name or a cute saying, such as “mute button”. But are they good, or bad for you child?

The old belief that pacifiers will cause crooked teeth is not really true. Maybe the old-style ones that were round and shaped more like a breast nipple might have, but genetics and other factors play an important role in whether your child will one day need braces on his teeth. Just the fact that you can buy a pacifier with an ADA stamp on it should be somewhat reassuring.

Pacifier Use May Prevent SIDS in First Six Months

Now there is research to suggest that pacifier use may actually help prevent Sudden Infant Death Syndrome!
You can read this article if you want the word straight from the Pediatricics Researchers mouth – but skip all the way through the technical jargon down to the bottom of the article, where it says “conclusion”. There is a significant reduction of SIDS in infants who use a pacifier. The article suggests offering a pacifier to the infant for naps and bedtime, up through one year of age.

Of course, pacifiers can help fussy babies get to sleep – that’s reason we buy them in the first place. But then we start offering our infants a pacifier any time they fuss, whether or not we want them to go to sleep. It used to drive me nuts to see a mom or dad shoving a pacifier back into a child’s mouth every time the child spit it out. I felt like they were mis-using the tool, delaying their child’s speech, and not dealing with the root issue – the child’s unbalanced state of being, or the reason why the child is fussy in the first place. Well, I sing a different song these days!

My granddaughter is nearly two and a half years old, and still has temper tantrums. They are not as explosive as they used to be. Her mother and I have been working hard to help her develop the language skills she needs to be able to express herself before frustration pushes her over the edge into total meltdown. She has a set routine to her day – when to eat, when to sleep, and even when we take her to the bathroom. She goes down for nap pretty well, and rarely cries at that time. But you just never know when something is going to set her off. She is very strong-willed. She wants what she wants, and she does not like to hear the word “no”.

But tantrums aside, my daughter and I both noticed that she suddenly seems to crave anything baby. She wants to be rocked. She wants her cup with a sippy lid on it again, although she is perfectly capable of drinking from a glass. She started laying down, like she wanted us to put her underwear on her as though we were diapering her. And she wants to be carried everywhere. The more we tried to force her to grow up, (Big girls don’t need sippy lids. Big girls don’t need to lie down to pull on their underwear.) the more she fought us. My daughter struggles with feelings of inadequacy anyway, but having a two-year-old revert to previous baby ways even though there is NOT another baby on the horizon was something neither of us has ever encountered before.

One day I suggested to my daughter that she have a “baby day”. It was her day off, anyway. I said she could tell her daughter that that day she could have a lid on her cup, and a pacifier at nap time. She got lots of cuddling and babying, but that when the day was over, then she could be a big girl again. Well, it worked. Sort of. That day was very nice. My granddaughter didn’t go in to meltdown, and my daughter enjoyed some special bonding time. But the next day nothing had changed. Kay Lee still wasn’t ready to be a big girl.

And I did something so totally out of character for me. I told my daughter to go ahead and give her back the pacifier.

Kay Lee how has about a dozen of them in varying colors, shapes, and sizes. She keeps one under her pillow for bedtime. There is one in the silverware drawer at Grandma’s House (Me) that she can help herself to when she needs it. We have one in each car, and in our purses. My granddaughter has given up all her other baby behaviors except this need to suck. She seems happier. I know I am. And I apologize to all those parents in the past, of whom I silently – but inappropriately – disapproved.

Pacifiers will probably always be an issue of heated debate, much like anything else surrounding the rearing of children, but whether your child uses one or not should be a matter only between you, your spouse, and your child.

For further reading, check out:
Why Two Year Olds Have Tantrums,
Children in Church,
and Feeding the Finicky Eater.

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Photo Credits
Top: photo by ff137
Middle: photo by Sylvar
bottom: photo by sovgunga

Last Sunday my husband and I sat near the front of the church right behind a couple with their two boys. The children appeared to be around 8 and 10 years old, although you could hardly tell by their behavior. The pair of them acted more like two year olds! In fact, it does a disservice to two-year-olds everywhere to even make that comparison.

The younger boy lay down on the pew and kicked his brother whenever his parents were standing. He reached around his mom and pinched the older one, sniggered, laughed, coughed, and picked his nose.

The older brother slid up and down the length of the pew, banging against my husband’s hands as we were kneeling. He punched his brother back. He slammed the hymnal and dropped it repeatedly, but when it was time to sing, he was not holding one.

None of them participated in the songs – not even the parents. The boys were loud, disruptive, inattentive, and disrespectful to each other, their parents, and the parish as a whole. And all I could think was, when those boys are young teenagers, they’ll be the ones to say, “I’m not going to church any more because I don’t get anything out of it. It’s just a waste of time”. Actually, I had two thoughts. The other one was, “I bet they behave like that in school, too.”

If you do not already take your children to church, then this article is not for you. I do not mean to proselytize, only to assist those who do practice a formal religion and wish to bring their young children with them. This type of behavior is just unacceptable. Anywhere, any time. I’m sure that your children are not as bad as the two boys I described, because you are reading this! That shows that you already take an active part in your role of parenting. Congratulations! Maybe you won’t win the Parent-of-the-Year award on earth, but you are laying up your treasures in Heaven.

Getting young children to behave well in church is challenging. It’s the ultimate test. Children can get away with more at home, and even in the grocery store. They may squeal inside a few times, as you patiently remind them to use an inside voice. They may pitch a fit in the grocery store, at which you have the choice to either take them straight home and finish your shopping later – alone, or ignore them and all the glares of the other shoppers. But in church it is not acceptable to let them squeal or scream or kick their feet. They need to be quiet and obedient for a full hour – sometimes more, depending on the church where you worship. Ultimately, your goal is to raise a good heart, a cheerful spirit, and a young adult with deep faith, but if that child is too unruly to even come to church, then it may prove difficult to achieve your goal. So here, then, are a few steps to help your child behave better in public.

• Dress for success: We all tend to behave according to how we are dressed.  If we are wearing comfortable play clothes, we are more likely to feel comfortable.  When we are dressed up in our best, we tend to be more aware of our behavior.  Teach children to respect Sunday and Church and the tenets of your faith by dressing them respectfully.  Pretty Sunday dresses, special socks and shoes, even a small patent leather purse and gloves for little girls.  Dress slacks, dark socks, dress shoes – not athletic shoes with blinking lights – clean dress shirts with or without a tie, a sweater vest in cooler weather, for boys.  Young children enjoy dressing up!  Let them!  Also – dress clothes are much easier to find in thrift stores than play clothes, if money is an issue.
• Advance preparation: Good behavior on Sunday morning begins Saturday night.  Do not let little children “stay up late”.  They need those precious hours of sleep.  Make sure they have a bath before bed, even if this is not part of your normal bedtime routine.  Tell them as you help them wash their hair that it is so they can be very clean for church.  Let them know they are getting ready for something special.  Help them lay out the special clothes they will wear in the morning.  Get them a soft, damp rag and let them “polish” their shoes, wiping off any dirt or scuff marks.
• Pack a church bag: They need to be quiet, but most little children will not be still.  It just isn’t in their nature, and God doesn’t really mind the wiggles.   A church bag should have quiet toys or activities (not all parents approve of toys in church.  That’s okay, if you feel that way, just skip this step and read on)  like coloring books and a few crayons.  You don’t need a box of 64 that will get dropped and spilled weekly.  Just a couple – three, maybe.  If the coloring book is on a religious theme, that’s even better.  For Catholics, you can pack large, wooden rosary beads.  Add a picture Bible storybook or prayer book.  Maybe a small Noah’s ark toy, or just a few animals from the set.  Only let them have the church bag while they are in church!  These toys are special, not to take to grandma’s, or the grocery store, or the doctor’s office.
• Snacks? Church is just not that long.  Some parents do not like to bring food, because of the mess it makes, and if the child had breakfast before, then he can certainly go for an hour without eating.  If your child is very noisy though, snacks are a way of getting him to be quiet.  Raisins are quieter and less messy than Cheerios.  Forget the chocolate – they’re in church clothes.
• Correct use of the Cry Room: Always start the service in church.  Let your child see this as an opportunity.  When he gets disruptive, take him, and only him – not the entire family – into the cry room.  Do not allow him to run around in the cry room.  The cry room is JUST LIKE CHURCH.  You still expect him to sit still and be quiet, but here he won’t disrupt others.  Only when he is ready to be quiet can he return to church and sit with the rest of the family.
• Be a role-model: if you want him to be quiet, so should you be.  Do not whisper unduly to your spouse or the people next to you.  Kneel when others kneel, stand when they stand, and sing when it is time to sing!  Don’t keep your voice to yourself, even if you think you sound like a frog.  If you aren’t happy with the voice God gave you, then here is the place to give it back to Him.  Be active in church.  Let your child see how happy you are to be here.  If there is something you don’t understand about your faith, learn it, so you can share it.
• Baby steps.  Try a behavior chart, like the one below.  Pick one inappropriate behavior to concentrate on first, and list the priviledges your child will lose for misbehavior.  Do reward positive results.  Ignore what you can.  Also, try sitting in the same pew every Sunday, at least for a while.  If other church members are irritated by your youngster, they will know where not to sit.  Most people realize that young children will wiggle and occasionally be disruptive.

Sunday behavior chart

Name:_____________________

Date:_____________________

Warning	Warning	Warning	_______
_______	_______	_______	_______

*Rule of the week: ________________________________________________________________

Good job last Sunday on: ________________________________________________________________

This chart is taken from Dr. Koenig’s book, “Smart Discipline” which you can order from here.

Some possible behaviors to work on:

• Sits quietly for _______ minutes
  (begin with ten, then fifteen, etc.)
• folds hands to pray
• sings along
• shakes hands with neighbors
• whispers to mommy to go potty
• picks up toys
• add your own

One final word: You should always feel welcome in your church, regardless of how your children behave! Jesus welcomed the little children, and admonished the adults for wanting to push them away. There may be one or two grumpy members who scowl at you when your kids are acting like kids, but if you feel that you truly are not welcome, then it’s time to find a new place to worship. Your children cannot possibly learn how to behave in church if they never go. How can they learn that God loves them, if they don’t know who God is? Some churches now have one service that is geared more towards children, with a youth choir, or a special children’s church with stories and activities based on the Scripture readings. Find out what is available in your neighborhood.
May God bless you and yours!

Related Reading:
Building Family Through Tradition
Easter Gifts
Egg-Laying Rabbits and Other Nonsense

Photo Credits:
Infant Baptism: by Rachyl McDowell
Infant Praying: by Igotphotos

A big part of this blog are the lesson plans I provide. My degree is in Early Childhood Education, and I have many years of experience working with preschoolers. When I decided to homeschool my own children, I was suddenly writing lesson plans and teaching four different ages.  If only I had saved copies of all the preschool lesson plans I had written over the years!  But I hadn’t.  So now  that I’m teaching only one preschooler – my granddaughter – I will take the time to do just that. I prepare my lesson plans to share with other parents, whether you homeschool a bunch, or just one. Whether you are a full-time, stay-home parent, or a working parent who can only utilize a portion of the activities. And perhaps if you have a relative caregiver who could benefit from these suggested activities, you might show them this website.

Getting Started

The first step in using my lesson plan is to adapt the schedule to fit your needs. I cannot anticipate other family situations, only what works for me. My daughter leaves for work before my granddaughter is awake, so I go to her house. We do many of the morning activities at her house, but somewhere during the day we usually walk over to mine, then. I have about a half an hour in the morning to work on my blog and make coffee before my granddaughter awakes.

I have learned that if she sleeps past seven, her whole day is thrown off schedule. So I wake her up at the same time every morning. Toddlers are often more dependent on a regular schedule than preschoolers. They don’t read a clock yet, but they understand routines. They know that breakfast comes before lunch, that bath comes before bedtime. If you try to alter their routine, you might be in for a major temper tantrum. Toddlers perceive changes in their routines as frightening, and they don’t know how else to respond. So whether you begin your day at seven, at eight, or at nine doesn’t matter as much as that you begin your day with your young child at the same time every day.

Calendar Activities

Right after waking, dressing, and hair fixing, I have “calendar activities”. I do this because my granddaughter is never hungry when she wakes up. So we spend about half an hour on this activity. I have a large calendar on the wall in the hallway outside her bedroom. We go over the name of the month, the day of the week, and then tape a new number on the calendar. We count all the days from the first to the current date. We talk about the weather, which means running to look out the window. If she’s having fun, we sing a song or two, or go over some vocabulary words. Sometimes I have large posters purchased from a school supply taped to this wall, other times I make my own vocabulary charts. Helping a toddler develop a good vocabulary is the first most important activity! More so than potty training. A toddler who can express her needs and wants is less likely to go into “melt down mode” than one who is wearing “big girl panties” but still babbles incoherently.

If your child wakes up very hungry, switch calendar and breakfast around on the schedule. Or move Calendar Time to right after coming in from outside play. Just pick a time that works for you, and stick with it.

Next I schedule breakfast, then “Table Activities”. Some toys and games are best played at a table, rather than in the playroom.  Things like crayons, puzzles, board games, lacing cards or stringing beads – small toys with pieces that can get lost.  If I keep these toys in the kitchen, and let my granddaughter only play with them at specified times, then she’s usually quite interested in playing with them.  While she’s busy with her puzzles, I can get the breakfast things put away, and do any lunch-prep work necessary.  I unload the dishwasher, and then take a second cup of coffee to the table and join her.  We color together, or work on puzzles together.   If your youngster is full of energy immediately following breakfast, you might want to switch to free play first, and move this quiet table time to before or after snack.

Free play can be the best time of day.  A young child should be allowed to entertain himself for at least an hour a day, every day.  No television.  If he won’t stay in his playroom, it is fine to set up a baby gate over the door.  Keep an eye on him, but do not interfere.  Until he are used to the routine, you might step inside and get him started in play.  Set up the tea table with dishes and dolls, or put the wooden train track together.  Then step out, and let your child play.  The child who can amuse himself is free to develop his imagination.  A child who relies on the television or Game Cube to amuse him will often be bored.

I like to do Free Play right away in the morning, after table time.  My granddaughter is full of energy then.  She’s usually in a pretty good mood.  And so am I!  I use this time to work on my blog, or catch up on housework.  Families who are homeschooling can find dozens of things to do with this hour!  Then, if you need to extend the hour into two, you could assign an older sibling to amuse your toddler or preschool child in the playroom a little while longer.

Morning snack is a requirement in licensed day care homes and centers.  I don’t get it – we were told not to feed our infants more frequently than at four hour intervals, but then we’re told to feed our toddlers and preschoolers every two to two and a half hours!  Maybe because toddlers are more active, but most pediatricians tell young moms not to worry about what their fussy youngsters eat, because they will eat when they are hungry.  Maybe the pediatricians and legislators should get together and come up with guidelines that don’t conflict.

I happen to feel that it is best to have mealtimes at about the same time every day, and never allow snacking in between.  I don’t mean to eliminate the morning and afternoon snack.  Only that these snacks be part of the structured routine, offered at the table, at the same time every day, and not spur-of-the-moment empty calorie fillers purchased at the checkout counter or fast-food drive-through.  Keep snacks small and nutritious, so your child will be hungry at meal times.

I schedule outside playtime from 10:15 to 11:15 a.m., and again in the afternoon from 3:30 to 4:30.  I find that two one-hour play times are better than one long play time for younger children, but if you have older children too, you might find one longer playtime fits your family.  I choose later in the morning, so the dew is off the grass, and later afternoon, so she isn’t playing outside at the heat of the day and risk sun burn.  Later, when the swimming pool is open, I won’t have to change playtime to fit the pool schedule.

We have naptime immediately following lunch.  This is a fairly common time for naps among day cares and kindergartens.  All young children need nap time, even if they don’t sleep.  They are so active, and their bodies are growing.  They need some “down time” to rest, and so do you! Allow them a book or two, but they must remain on their bed until you give them permission to get up.  If your child isn’t used to this yet, you may rub his back, rock him in a rocking chair to help calm him down, or sing a lullaby.  But do not stay with him for the entire nap time.  Go get a cup of coffee, put your feet up, and take fifteen minutes minimum just for yourself.

Then, after nap, snack, and the second playtime, I have another project.  I think it gives kids something to look forward to.  The hours between 4:00 and 6:00 are often called “the witching hour” in homes with young children.  They are cranky, hungry and demanding when moms are equally cranky, tired, and busy.  Not a happy picture.  And into this time frame, husbands and school-aged children are coming home, the phone starts ringing off the hook, the dog needs to be walked and fed – anything you can find to break this cycle would be its weight in salt!   So I plan a project.  I get it ready during naptime, so I don’t have anything more to do except oversee it, and work on getting dinner ready at the same time.  My granddaughter is in the kitchen where I can keep an eye on her, and she is happily involved.  It works for me.  If it doesn’t work for your family, move this second project to another time slot, or skip it entirely.

My granddaughter has clean-up, then free play until dinner.  About this time my daughter gets home from work and I’m no longer needed.  She helped me develop her daughter’s schedule though, so she knows that next follows dinner and clean-up, then quiet playtime together, followed by a bath, stories, and bedtime.  She’s a single parent with no other children.  In your situation, you may need to make changes.  Maybe you can’t fit in a nightly bath time.  Or maybe you need to cart older children to soccer practices or ballet lessons.  If you’re a single parent, then you can’t put your toddler to bed until all the older kids are home.  Maybe you’ll need to allow your toddler two naps in the day, with a later bedtime.  That’s okay, too!  Just find out what works for you, re-arrange the schedule to fit your needs, and then, stick with it!

I hope you’ll find these lesson plans helpful.  If so, please leave a comment at the end of this post, or send me an email.  Let me know what sorts of things you’d like to see covered in an article or lesson in the future.  And thanks for reading!

Related Reading:
Bedtime Routine: Hassle-Free Bedtime
Naptime Routine: Mastering the Nap
 

Photo credits:

Girl reading by Roy Costello
Table Toys by author
Train Wreck by Woolley Wonder Works
Bubbles by Clarity

If you are using the lesson plans provided in this blog, you’ll see a half hour set aside for calendar activities before breakfast. When you do this isn’t important. Some families may prefer to add this to their bedtime routine, focusing on recapping the day’s events with their child. If you want to know the what, why, and how of calendar time, that is what this post is about.

The Preschool calendar is fairly large and prominently located. The numbers should be two inches minimum. They can attach to the calendar with hook-and-loop closures, magnets, masking tape, or you can purchase a pocket calendar from a teacher supply store, and the numbers slip into clear plastic pockets. You can periodically change the cards that the numbers are printed on. In the fall, you could use apple-shaped cards. For December, use cards cut in green pine tree shapes. Have special cards for birthdays, vacations, and other activities your child will look forward to.

The purposes of the calendar activity changes with the age of the child. For very young children, it is mostly another language lesson. They won’t really grasp the concept of time, of yesterday, today, and tomorrow. They won’t understand number concepts even when they learn to recite the numbers. But they can learn routines and words. They can learn to say “February” and “Wednesday” and “25″. They might learn to say them altogether – “Today is Wednesday, February 25th”. They can learn to place the square with “25″ on it to the calendar, right after the square with “24″. And if you forget to do the calendar, they will remind you!

Older preschoolers can learn the words “yesterday”, “today” and “tomorrow”. Your calendar time may take a little longer now. You’ll start by asking your child what month it is, pointing to a large name tag with the word “February” on it (substitute the correct month). You can point out the letters, if your child is ready to begin letter recognition. Then talk about yesterday. Yesterday it was “Tuesday”, “February 23rd” (again, of course, substitute the correct dates!). What did we do yesterday? Help your child to remember some things that happened yesterday. Did you go to the park and play on the swings? Did Grampa come over to eat pizza for dinner? Continue the discussion of yesterday for a few minutes, or until you sense your child is losing interest. Then talk about today. Teach the child to pronounce the word correctly if he doesn’t already. Wednesday is a hard word to say when you’re little! Discuss a few things that might happen today, or that did happen, if you do calendar at bedtime instead of before breakfast. Let the child post the date to the calendar. Practice saying the date together.

If your preschooler is restless, end the activity. You don’t want him to associate Calendar time with boredom. This is a fun time, a private moment with mom. Stretch it out as long as you can, but end while the child is still enjoying it. You may have to miss a day or two once in a while, or really abbreviate calendar time to only a few moments, but that’s okay. They do that in public school, too!

As your child progresses, Calendar time will include counting. If the child doesn’t immediately guess that “24″ comes after “23″, then start at 1 and count to 24. Later, you can teach skip-counting. Count by twos, missing every other date. Or by threes, saying a number, then skip two. Skip counting is a more advanced activity, your child may not be ready for that until age five or more. But learning to skip count makes memorizing the multiplication table a snap!

I chose a narrow wall in the hallway for our calendar. It is about 40 inches wide, and from floor to ceiling. I bought a bright Dr. Seuss border, and taped it all around the wall. Then I bought a blank calendar, and a pack of numbers from a school supply house. You could also make yours from poster board. My numbers are black, printed on red apples with a yellow background. The opposite side is green, with yellow books on them, and the numbers, for a little variety. I also bought the month cards, which are bright and colorful. All the numbers get taped to the wall scattered around the blank calendar, and day by day get transferred on to the calendar.

Below the calendar I tape large posters that fit with the unit we’re studying. For foods week, we taped a poster of fruits and a poster of vegetables. My granddaughter sits in my lap and we point to the foods. I say the name, she tries to say it, and we talk. Some days she points to a vegetable, and asks “whasthat?” I answer. Some days I point to the pictures, and ask her “what’s that?” The more words your young child learns, the better able he is able to communicate his wants and needs. The better young children communicate, the less frequently they go into “melt down” mode – temper tantrums. It must be awfully frustrating when you know what you want but no one understands you!

The wall space above the calendar is where I post my granddaughter’s art work. This gets rotated frequently, as she makes a new picture every day and there is room for only about four pictures.

If your child is really snuggly, and not in a hurry for breakfast, you might use calendar time to teach a new song or fingerplay, or to sing the ones he already knows. If not, you can cover new songs after breakfast, perhaps while your child is still in his highchair. Again, the schedule is yours to rearrange in whatever way best suits you and your child.

Photo Credits:
Top:http://www.flickr.com/photos/myklroventine/ / CC BY 2.0
Middle:http://www.flickr.com/photos/geeksrule/ / CC BY 2.0
Bottom:http://www.flickr.com/photos/mymollypop/ / CC BY 2.0

If babies came with instruction books, one of the main chapters would surely include family mealtimes. Eat with your children! Eat breakfast with them, lunch whenever possible, and every dinner. Talk to them. Listen to them. Share bits of your day, and ask them about theirs. Develop strong communication habits, and maintain them as your child grows and matures.

Eat Together at Every Meal

Many families today claim they are just too busy to eat together, but I’d have to ask, too busy compared to what? Surely our grandparents were much busier than we are. We do not have to milk the cow or gather eggs from the hens before we can fix breakfast. We don’t have to prime the pump, or start a fire in the stove before we can cook. Never has food been more plentiful. We have freezers and refrigerators and cabinets bursting with options that may have been raised all over the globe. We can easily serve fish from Alaska, blueberries from Maine, potatoes from Idaho, with horseradish from Poland, all at the same meal.

We all have the same amount of time in our day. We just have different ways we chose to spend that time. I would suggest that having a family mealtime is so important, that we should take a second and even a third look at our schedules, and see what we may have to eliminate or rearrange to make family mealtimes happen.

Plan Time for Meal Times

When my children were little, I had one in boy scouts, one in gymnastics, one taking horse-back-riding lessons, and one involved in a Mom & Tots play program. They had religion classes, but because the parish didn’t have enough space, the third graders met Sunday afternoons, the second graders met Tuesday after school, and some met on Saturdays, and if parents wanted to continue their learning, that was at another time, as well. I had homeschool meetings once a month with the homeschooling support group, and my four children were all involved in the Suzuki music program. Suzuki is a GREAT program! It is “talent education” and not simply music lessons. But our program was very organized, and each student had three classes a week. Their individual lesson, a group lesson, and a music theory group lesson. Times four kids, that meant twelve classes a week for me. I didn’t live far from the church where these classes met, but it was still a lot of running around.

I saw a bumper sticker one day, that read, “If I’m a housewife, why do I spend so much time in the car?” It made me laugh, but later in the evening, as I was folding yet another load of laundry, I felt closer to tears. I was a car-wife! I felt married to my Ford Econoline conversion van. That relevation propelled me to write the article “Coming home, Staying home” for The Teaching Home magazine. And after I deposited the paycheck, I realized it was time to take my own advice.

Prune Extra-Curricular Activities

We eliminated most of our extra-curricular activities. They are called “extra” for a reason and should not become the main focus of your family. We returned to eating family dinners, as it had been our practice in the past, and I started preparing family breakfasts as well. We say a simple grace before meals (actually, we sing it), and no one starts eating until after the “amen”. Now when we visit relatives, we’re usually asked to sing the table grace, and some of our relatives have learned the words to join in.

Find the time to eat together! And do it daily! Some studies have suggested that when families eat together, the children are less likely to do drugs, do better in school, and are more likely to build solid relationships. I’d suggest that such studies aren’t even necessary. Spend time with your kids, and they’ll learn from you. Don’t spend time with your kids, and they’ll learn from their peers.

Isn’t that reason enough to return to the family dinner table?

As a side note… when I went searching for photos of families eating dinner together – families with children – I could not find any! The only family dinner pictures I found were extended family holiday celebrations. Don’t let this become your tradition. Make family meals a daily activity. It will mean more to your child in the long run than soccer, tee ball, gymnastics or music lessons.

Related Reading:
Mealtime Battles
Feeding the Finicky Eater
Stocking Up

Photo Credits:
Top: photo by Oakley Originals
Middle: photo by Rob n Amy C
Bottom: photo by Megrje