Explorations Early Learning Enews

Enews	July 2010
	Volume 5
	Issue 7

Quote of the month

Again and again, children's need for play is exploited and redirected to serve commercial ends. All too often children's spontaneous active play has been transformed into passive audience participation

David Elkind, The Power of Play

Coming in 2011

I've been working with a great group of early learning trainers to offer a variety of new online webinar trainings beginning in January of 2011.

We are still working out the details, but the attached flier will give you some information and how to contact me to keep updated on this project as it unfolds. My goal is to make trainers I like to listen to and respect accessible to as many caregivers as possible. They all have great information, lots of real-world experience, and most importantly are not boring. Click Here for the flier.

The Attack of the Birds

This article was written by Denita Dinger and Jennifer Henson contributed to it. They are both family child care providers, bestest buddies, and will also be doing some webinar trainings next year (see the above article and flier for more info).

The (un)curriculum moments I am about to share with you are two different yet similar experiences that happened to my family child care buddy Jen and I.

While playing in the yard one day, my daycare children and I discovered a nest. Better yet, a robin’s nest, complete with a mama bird sitting firmly on her eggs (or so we assumed). We observed that nest every single day anxiously awaiting the arrival of “our” baby robins. Finally, the day arrived when the mama bird was not in her nest. I grabbed my camera (as the nest was up too high for me to see into on my own) and stuck it over the nest to get a photo of those beautiful robin blue eggs. To my sheer amazement, there were no eggs... there were babies; ugly, featherless baby robins. I showed the children the picture and we were SO excited! It was then that we discovered one of the baby birds was laying in the rocks beneath the tree. Still alive, this baby needed it’s mama...or us. Knowing that if a mama bird smells a human on their baby it will no longer care for it (myth? I don’t know, but I wasn’t willing to risk the rest of the baby’s lives), we made a nest in a plastic container complete with grass, yarn, twigs etc. I carefully placed the yellowish, featherless baby into our nest. At that point, Parker decided we really should dig for worms for this poor baby. So dig away we did! We put one of the worms we found up to the baby’s beak, of course it didn’t eat it, but we tried. It was then time to go inside for lunch.

Now...to compare this with Jen’s bird tale: her daycare children discovered a robin’s nest during the construction phase! So they got to observe the birds as they built their nest. As luck would have it, they built the nest on the underside of Jen’s deck. This is also where the sandbox is—so the children had a cozy spot to watch and see the outside of the nest. They could witness what was going on inside the nest by peering through the floorboards above. They saw the beautiful eggs and the mama bird sitting patiently waiting for the babies to hatch. The best opportunity came about once the babies had arrived. They could literally feed the birds worms through the floorboards! Jen’s son did this several times, and the mama bird happily accepted the worms each time.

Jen and I could have NEVER planned these (un)curriculum moments. We could anticipate such an opportunity, and have ideas in mind to enhance a bird nest discovery, but there is no way these moments could have been instigated by us. Each story has some more similarities. It is important to note that 1) baby robins grow up and fly very quickly...in my experience 2 ½ weeks, 2) no matter the trusting relationship you think you have established with the birds, it is a one-sided relationship.

mad birds I took photos of my baby robins every single day and the children and I were amazed at how quickly they grew. Jen’s son shared worms with the birds on a regular basis. The daycare children peered at them through the floorboards of the deck daily. These are all wonderful moments that surely a trusting relationship can be built on. Wrong. As I took, what ended up to be my last photo of our baby robins, they had this certain ticked off look in their eyes. Out of nowhere, they dove out of their nests chirping madly at me. I ducked and ran shouting some words I shouldn’t have. Did I mention the audience of 5 hot, shirtless landscaping guys that just stood there, and didn’t help a damsel in distress?

Jen’s son was attempting to share a worm, which was certainly an expected routine by this point, when the robins lashed out in anger and started swooping down on the daycare kids. Jen and the children quickly retreated to the front yard and the robins sat on the fence cawing madly as if to say “and don’t come back”.

We did not get the picture perfect endings to these beautiful lessons that we hoped for. They were not lessons that could be taught without the birds, the nests, or the worms. Nor were they lessons that could be found in a boxed up curriculum. Rather, we ended up with real learning experiences and several moments that the children will not soon forget. These real-life lessons left a lasting impression on the young minds of the children--and they resulted in lots of laughter shared between two friends brought together by a profession they both cherish.

On The Road

There may not be a August Enews because we will be spending some time away on an Island beach while I finish a book manuscript.

NAFCC Webinar Trainings

NAFCC Logo These live 90 minute webinar trainings are designed for professional child care providers and parents. All sessions begin at 7:30 Central Time and cost $25 for NAFCC members. NAFCC emails training certificates soon after each event. Here is a list of session titles and dates. Clicking a date will link you to the session registration page on the NAFCC website where you can read a description.

Promoting Manipulative Play on 8/19/2010
Understanding Caregiver Stress and Burnout on 9/2/2010
Caregiver Self-Care on 9/16/2010
Promoting Block Play on 9/30/2010
Promoting Play-Based Language Development on 10/14/2010
Promoting Manipulative Play on 10/28/2010
Understanding Caregiver Stress and Burnout on 11/11/2010
Caregiver Self-Care on 11/23/2010

Stuff To Know

Here are some articles we found while scouring the internet for interesting stuff:

Book Recommendation

Taking back Childhood by Nancy Carlsson-Paige is full of good information about how to address many of the issues forcing children to grow up fast. One online review says, "This is an excellent book. Well written, easy read... and gives very clear, specific suggestions for handling children's behavior. I highly recommend it for parents or anyone else working with children! " The author does a good job addressing the issues, uses lots of real-world examples. Her research is also top notch. It was well worth the read.

Living With Children

John Rosemond

Q: My husband and I have five kids ages 11, 10, 7, 5, and 22 months. I would love to keep activities to a minimum to give the kids more time to be kids, but I am finding that to be difficult. The two oldest are boys, and both are involved in scouting as well as music lessons. The girls, ages 7 and 5, are both involved in one dance class each, and the 7-year-old will start piano lessons in the Fall, along with girl scouts once a month and a church group that meets twice a month. They all attend a charter school which does not have a bus and is 20 minutes from our house, so I feel like I am constantly dragging the baby in the car to and from school and activities. Individually, I don't think any one of them has an excess of activities. But collectively it's overwhelming at times. It is rare to have a day when we are not running to something. I want them to have opportunities to learn new skills, but it seems to come at a high cost. What would you recommend?

A: If I may be so bold, I think you've lost perspective on what's truly important here. You're thinking in terms of one child at a time, but you're not considering the impact all of this running around is having on the needs of your family as a unit.

I happen to believe that a family is more important than any one person in it. There are certainly times when the needs of a certain member of the family trump all other considerations, as when someone becomes dangerously ill, but those situations are exceptional, not the rule.

If you can find the time to think in terms of that big picture, I think you'll have to conclude that the children's activities schedule is taking a toll on your family's quality of life. In the final analysis, that's not good for anyone. It's not good for you to be so consumed by kids' activities that you have no time for yourself. It's not good for your marriage that you are probably in a state of near-constant exhaustion by the end of the day. It's not good for your toddler to be dragged around so much. It's not even good for your older children to be the focus of so much parental energy. They aren't learning to put themselves into proper perspective. They're learning that what they want to do, they deserve to do. That attitude is certainly not conducive to give-and-take in relationships.

Worst of all, your family is slowly fading into non-existence. You have Susie time and Billy time and so on, but you've all but admitted that you have no truly family time, which is the most important time of all. In my estimation, you'd do well to cancel most of these activities and use the time to go on picnics, take trips to museums, and the like.

I recommend that you begin your family's rehabilitation by sitting down with the kids-both you and your husband should be present-and simply present them with the facts: Their activities have become too much. You need to take a permanent breather from being a chauffeur. You need to have some time for yourself, and you and their father need time for just the two of you.

Then set the limit. For example, you'll drive a maximum of four hours a week (including wait time). That's one hour for each child. That's gracious plenty! Then have them help you work out what stays and what goes. There's bound to be some complaining, so you're probably going to have to make the final decisions. Keep in mind that none of these activities is going to make much difference when your children are adults. But putting your family first now may help them do the same when they have children.

Family psychologist John Rosemond's website: www.rosemond.com

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