• Young babies (birth to 6 months):

Pictures are a worthy enough substitute for the words your baby cannot yet write. Snap photos of your adorable little one in her grandparent-funded layette.  Your sister-n-law will know that you (and baby) appreciate the cute and useful gift of a teething ring when she sees a pic of your infant happily gnawing away.  Tuck these precious moments into your thank-you notes.

• Older babies and toddlers (6 – 24 months):

More active babies might need a more active medium to convey their delight with a new gift or toy: video.  Smart phones and small recorders make it easy to capture a special moment and email it within minutes.  Older toddlers can talk enough and follow simple directions long enough to participate in the filming — you two can work together to produce a sincere, simple “thank you!” shout-out that will make the recipient’s day.

• Two and Three year olds:

Let the scribbling begin!  Really.  Your youngster can “ready, aim, scribble” on a piece of paper, so let her.  On the first try, a two year-old might approach this task with the grace of Norman Bates, turned loose on another shower curtain; but by age 3, many children will have the muscular control to grasp a kid-sized (washable!) marker  and copy the example circle that you draw.  When she adds eyes and a smile to that circle, she will have written a powerfully accurate chronicle of how someone’s generosity made her feel.

• Preschoolers:

If, at this stage of note-writing, your child asks you to be the scribe, it’s very helpful for you to go along. Just make sure the words are all hers. Kiddie thoughts move much faster than little fingers. Reading back the note you’ve written on behalf of your child reinforces the magical connection between ideas and the words that represent them.

We know that a kid this age isn’t often in touch with her “inner editor.”  And you know what?  She don’t need an external one right now.  Let her experiment with letter-like squiggles, random letters, crooked letters, and invented spellings. That stuff is all developmentally appropriate at this stage.

Thank you for reading.

Here’s how to make the experience less intimidating, and help your child enjoy Halloween on her own terms:

• Allow only non-threatening imagery for your family’s costumes.  Vampires are popular among teens, not toddlers.  Help older children to develop their empathy for a smaller sibling’s point of view.  Younger children sometimes just don’t understand that everything will be back to normal by morning — the here-and-now looms too large.
• Always accompany your children as they trick-or-treat.  Older siblings are too distracted to be entrusted with (burdened by) the care of an unpredictable novice on free candy night.  Ironically, the closer you are, the more independent the younger ones will feel.
• Provide authentic choices.  Some children participate by observing.  Some prefer to take small risks before fully trying out a new activity.  If that means she wants to wear the cat costume, sans tail — or the tail without the rest of the costume — so be it.  If the little lady wants to man the candy bowl, encourage that level of participation — she’ll have a front row seat to the show outside her door.

Yesterday’s blog post:  Emotional Safety At Halloween Time, Part I

Unlike talking, testing boundaries, or taming her impulses — falling in love won’t wait.  It’s the first thing she needs to be able to do.

You help your baby learn about love’s prerequisite — trust — when you:

• Provide an emotionally stable environment. If your infant’s human relationships are a source of comfort rather than stress, she learns life’s first love lesson.
• Create predictable care routines. A baby who knows how and when she will be cared for can use her mental energy for curiosity, exploring, smiling — not wondering what will happen next.
• Learn to recognize, then respond to, her cues and cries. For attachment to develop, baby needs protection from the emotional stress of disappointment or neglect.

You’ll know your are getting results from all your consistent, warm, nurturing interactions when you see the following mental and emotional responses:

• Your child begins to show a preference for you, and other familiar faces.
• She seeks out companionship — even before she can use words, she has other strategies for getting your attention.
• You feel connected to your baby when you talk, or play, and also during routine tasks like bathing and diapering.
• You and your baby focus attention together.  If you are engaging her in an activity, she is able to overcome a distraction and refocus on your shared activity.
• You and your baby focus attention on each other.  You make eye contact when you have a “conversation,” you giggle at the same things.

The process of loving and being loved begins with parents and other important people. Offer plenty of attention, and pay plenty of attention to baby’s responses.  Some children take longer to formulate a response, some children need less stimulation than others.

Falling in love truly is for the long-term. Someday you’ll know you have prepared your child well when you see her ability to make and keep friends; maintain a loyalty to herself when inevitable conflicts arise — yet continue to value her relationships; and find comfort in having companionship.

It’s always a little surprising when we realize how wild our babies really are.

I don’t mean the “prefers to go barefoot” version of untamed. Not even the rather cute “my child really likes nuts and berries” kind of wild.

Nope, I mean the poop-whenevah-wherevah-you-want wildness. The snatch or be snatched toy ethics, and the take a nap any-dang-where mode of savagery. Survival of the stubbornest, child bite child.

You’ve seen playgroup. It’s a jungle in there.

Your backyard is probably more of a wildlife sanctuary than you realize.

With a few simple additions (bird feeder and water source) to what your backyard offers, your family can enjoy the regular company of bird visitors. Your children will see that animal companions need food, clean water, and safety — just like the rest of us. Kids will also develop their empathy instinct as they see birds busy with their survival tasks: finding food, flocking together, flying away from danger.

Not much backyard? Even one side of a fence will accept a passionfruit vine. Butterflies and other pollinators will visit often. For a more purposeful butterfly garden, plant herbs that you might want for your own use, then resolve to share. Offer sweet fennel, parsley, and dill for the caterpillars (the larvae that will turn into a butterfly), as well as food sources for adult butterflies. They like to dine on mustard greens, garlic chives, oregano, thyme, among many others.

Developmental benefits

Infants gain visually interesting and cognitively stimulating life experiences when they spend time outside with family members who are tending to the bird feeder or refilling the water source. Babies always see those type activities inside the home. To observe outdoor living and caretaking will expand their horizons.

Toddlers and preschoolers who help support backyard wildlife gain a sense of their roles in the world beyond their home. Responding to the needs of creatures who peacefully share our space with us will add meaning to the important concept of responsibility.

Boost your young learner’s organization skills by helping her to:

• Make a schedule of tasks.
• Conduct a butterfly count.
• Track bird sightings on a chart.
• Learn the names of the butterfly host plants.

Children who interact with creatures even wilder than they are learn responsibility, compassion, organizing skills, and most importantly, respect for needs beyond their own.

It hardly seems fair.

Every week, the moon has her own day: “Monday” in English; in Spanish “lunes” reminds us of lunar events.

But Mother Earth gets just one day per year? Well, let’s make the most of it.  We declare it Earth Day all week at MommyGarten.com.

We’ll tell you tips to help your baby, toddler, or preschooler grow and play outdoors — and the developmental benefits for doing so.

Infants

It’s easy to forget how unknown each new experience is to a baby. A baby born above the equator in the cold months (November to February, usually) has probably been carefully shielded from outdoor breezes. Within a few months postpartum, she will be ready to catch an outdoor wave of fresh air. When the wind taps her on the shoulder, ruffles Mommy’s hair, or dislodges dandelion seeds, baby will be interested and observant.  That means she’s thinking and noticing (cognitive development).

Toddlers

So she has mastered your cool tiles and wooden floors, eh?  Walking around, chasing siblings, bouncing up like a rubber band whenever her footing fails her. But does she know what a back yard really is?  Has she felt the silky tickle of blades of grass between her toes, or felt how Mother Nature’s carpet pads the thud of her tentative feet? I think it’s time, Mommy. Now, in the spring, before the stickers hatch in the summer heat. Learning more about her body and how it feels when she goes outdoors will not only enhance her motor development today, but that body awareness will help her enjoy sports later in life.

Preschool-age

God made dirt and dirt don’t hurt. That’s what your kid thinks, anyway. Don’t fight it, Mommy. Save your energy for the “Mudpies are not really pies so you shouldn’t try to eat them” debate. Dirt and water offer a rudimentary chemistry lab lesson. Children will adjust the “recipe” until their mudpies are the texture, size, and shape they desire. Making their own prop for pretend play shows great resourcefulness.  Please encourage it – let them make pie!  Then let them hose off before coming inside.

It’s Earth Day all week at MommyGarten.com!  Check back tomorrow for more child development tips and research-based information.

It usually comes at me like this:  ”She’s growing so fast!” or  ”Does she look different to you?”  Sometimes a mom just sighs and says, “Ohh, he’s losing all his baby fat since he started walking.”

I tell parents that just as babies grow across diverse developmental domains, they also grow up in several observable ways.

Because I believe that parents are the real experts about their own babies, years ago I started asking parents themselves to help me solve the babyhood demarcation question.  There has always been a fascinating pattern to the answers.

Pre-parents (especially pregnant couples) give a definitive answer.  They tend to think that babyhood ends around the time of the first birthday.  But on-the-job parents (especially moms) who may or may not have already answered my question previously, describe the end of babyhood in terms of milestones, often physical ones like walking.  Hands-on parents also see changes in body type as a gauge of emerging toddler-ness.  When Moms and Dads do specify a time frame as the end of babyhood, they usually say 18 months or later.

The following developmental milestones begin to emerge around the time baby is 12 months old, and most children display nearly all of them by 18 months — exactly the time frame bounded by my terribly unscientific, yet excruciatingly accurate, longitudinal-ish survey.  Once again, parents know best.

You will know your infant is making a big move from the very needy first year of life, to the external world of multiple relationships, complex interactions, and asserting a separate identity when you observe the following milestones:

1. Imitation.  Your child will mimic simple actions, like talking on the telephone, or applying mascara (have we talked about safety-proofing yet?).  This isn’t the same as pretending.  Pretending involves an awareness of the unreality of the scenario.  When a 12-month old decides to rummage through your purse to use your cell phone, he’s not kidding.
2. Shaking head side-to-side.  We all know what that means.
3. Wanting to help when you put his clothes on.  He knows the routine, and he knows he can participate, so he does.  Quite charming.
4. Walks without help.  This time frame varies much more than new parents realize.  What really matters is the year-long sequence of body development that leads to walking.
5. Playing with others.  I didn’t say “sharing,” did I?  I didn’t even say “taking turns.”  That, too will have to be learned.
6. Purposefully uses a writing tool.  I can’t remember, so I have to imagine how empowering it must feel to go from needing a big person for almost everything in life, to being able to leave a mark on an otherwise blank surface.  Then another one!  And another! Why is mommy running toward me?  Oh, she wants to color, too — she doesn’t like clean bare walls, either.  Yay!
7. Will hand you an object when you ask.  If you ask nicely.  Unless it’s the marker he’s using to spiff up those boring walls of yours.
8. Wanting to control his own eating.  This is a prime time for power struggles around food and finickiness to begin.  Avoid them by knowing when he’s ready and capable of feeding himself.  He’ll certainly know.
9. Skills.  Social skills, to be precise.  Your growing baby enjoys saying “Hi” — at the appropriate time.  This feat is quite advanced beyond the stage of waving “bye-bye” on command.  That’s so 9-months old.  When your baby greets someone, he shows that he understands how people are to treat one another, and when to do so.
10. Often says ”No.”  Often says it when you interrupt his coloring, or anything else he thinks needs to be done at that moment.  But who can blame him?  He’s been hearing that word a lot lately.

Moms and Dads instinctively understand what it means to be a baby: Dependence.  And what it means to grow up: Independence.  Moving from needing others to wanting to function independently is something that babies instinctively know they’re ready for.  It’s something they are eager to announce to the world.

My mother noticed her at about the same time I did, and said, “Oh, there’s Mrs. Evans!” and took a step in my teacher’s direction, yanking my hand along with hers.  I stiffened, then melted.  Mom quickly abandoned her plans to say “hi” to my teacher, her plans to buy scotch tape, and her plans to make a dignified exit from the store.

When I regained my composure in the car, Mom was able to sort out what had just happened.  She explained a few things to me:

1. Yes, Mrs. Evans is not just a teacher, she’s also a mommy.
2. No, Mrs. Evans does not live at the school, she just gets there before the children do, and leaves after the children go to their own homes.
3. Mrs. Evans takes care of me and my friends on school days, but she takes care of her own family every day.
4. There would come a time when I would have leave my Kindergarten teacher and her classroom, to go to First Grade. Other children needed a chance to learn from Mrs. Evans, listen to her stories, and play with her blocks.

I’m having a flashback to the day my Kindergarten teacher left me to go “home”.  Or to the discount store, or whatever.  You see, Niki Brown has come to the end of designing my company’s identity, designing my website, platforming my blog, pressin’ my words, and sharing her virtual crayons with me.  I feel confident that I will not begrudge those who come after me their fair share of Niki’s time and attention.  I won’t, I won’t, I won’t!

Instead, I’ll remember that:

1. Yes, Niki Brown is not just my designer, she’s an emerging leader in her industry.  Her classroom is already quite large.
2. No, Niki doesn’t live at her computer.  She just starts work earlier and stops working later than her clients or her competition.
3. Niki didn’t assign me a special ringtone, just to be sure to catch my special calls — she’s a consummate professional who showers all of her clients with answers, returned phone calls, courtesy, respect.  I know because I checked before asking her to work with me.
4. It’s time for another graduation — from the design phase to the implementation of my website.  And time to make room for others.

Those new clients are going to learn a lot from Niki Brown.

His glare dispersed part-time villains as a light breeze and healthy imagination buoyed his invisible, yet fluttering, red cape.

Elsewhere on the playground, a village of miniature mamacitas sporadically nurtured their plastic babies.  While fending off occasional interlopers who had strayed from their villain duties, these mini-mamas prepared a feast of mud pies, dandelion salads, and murky beverages garnished with grass.  Their suspiciously compliant doll babies coincidentally awakened from their naps just in time to share the morning’s bounty.

Other denizens of the park that day: mothers, fathers, grandparents, and nannies.  Some of the adults busied themselves with newspapers or knitting; others tended squirming infants too small to play along with older siblings, but old enough to know something exciting was happening.  An occasional sincere shriek or a hard landing commanded the attention of the guardians, but beyond their supporting roles, few of the adults watched the kids at play.  That is because few adults know how to observe kids at play or what to look for.  Any parent who wonders about a child’s social development can perform an instant reality check by watching the child interact with the tools of play:  other children, adults, toys, household items, and the home itself.

During pretend play, children master several developmental milestones.  Playground negotiations use communication skills; the resulting compromises and turn taking increase the social (and emotional) repertoire of the participants.  The challenges of gravity and physics encourage thinking skills.  And teamwork helps kids to meet almost any playtime challenge.  Feats of imagined strength and bravery serve as antidotes to prior episodes of fear or powerlessness.  Children direct energy into the endless footsteps required to run, slide, hop, wiggle and climb.  Their daring ideas rely on natural creativity and the freedom to explore.  New teachable moments captivate young minds only if there was freedom to indulge in previous curiosity.  Even the rough and tumble of shifting social alliances will eventually reward the players by helping them discover the emotional resilience that lies within them.

Tips for older siblings:

By age 5 or 6, children will become capable of cooperating with each other to develop a plan for playing:

• assigning roles,
• loosely scripting the action, and
• infusing characters with specific traits that reveal personality.
• older children can create more definite beginnings, middles, and endings to their play plans.
• Although the play date might end for the day, the 5 and 6 year-olds can recapture the same theme from one play date to the next.

One of our family’s favorite photographs shows my Army veteran dad in his new uniform: pajamas and bathrobe.  The photo shows Dad perched at the edge of the sofa that dominated our den, as he dutifully fed a baby doll.

He had barely awakened and poured his coffee one Thanksgiving morning when a higher-ranking officer, my toddler daughter Nia, gave him his orders.

Having served as designated doll sitter on a previous occasion, he knew the drill.  Nia allowed Gramps to carry on with his joke telling and bonding with grandsons, as long as he tended to her doll.  If a burst of laughter or a raucous knee slap threatened to displace “Baby,” Nia approached and righted the bottle’s aim at her doll’s perpetually parted lips. If voices rose at the delivery of a punch line, my daughter admonished Gramps by pressing a dimpled index finger to her pursed lips that had only recently abandoned their own pacifier.  My dad always responded to her supervision with a good-natured smile, and by renewing his attention to doll duty.

Gramps might not have known how to explain the child development theory at work that morning, but he knew the importance of participating.  By playing along with his grandaughter, he clearly conveyed that her ideas were worthy of his efforts.  Joining in pretend play gives parents and other important people an opportunity to practice narration techniques like parallel talk.  When my mother offered Nia a running commentary on her activities by saying, “You wrapped your baby so carefully in her blanket,” or “You carry your baby on your hip like your mother carries you around,” she gave even more validation to the importance of the pretend play scenario.

Questions serve the same supportive purpose —  they stimulate more thinking, more creating. Extend the possibilities of playtime by asking your little one to tell you her baby’s name, which car can go faster, or why the lion is so quiet.  The spontaneity you add will demonstrate your attunement .  She knows you are paying attention when you wonder out loud where the pirates have hidden the marshmallows or why the teddy bear needs a Band-Aid.  When important adults become part of the setting for pretend play, they make it easier for children to immerse themselves in it.

Ways to boost the developmental benefits of pretend play:

• Add music.  Regular exposure to music has been correlated higher SAT scores, higher reading scores, elevating the mood of children, and even reducing misbehavior on school buses!

• Add dance.  Your kinesthetic learner will thank you.

• Add costumes (more on that in part 3 of this series on Sociodramatic Play).

• Add food.  The Very Hungry Caterpillar by Eric Carle is a terrific multi-age book that promotes healthy snacking — until day 6, that is!

• Add art.  The Snowy Day by Ezra Jack Keats’ is a lovely starting point for making paper snowflakes and watercolor painting.

• Snap pictures for later discussion and memory enhancement.  Make a book of them.

• Ask your child for instructions on how to participate, or play a role.  Talk about planning skills!

Remember:

• Dramatic play strengthens every area of development.
• Pretend play empowers children to re-visit (and re-write the ending to) difficult or challenging events.
• Pretend play supports every area of future learning such as language and literacy; abstract thinking skills that convert into math and science ability; the bodily awareness that promotes physical fitness; and social skills.
• Adults and siblings participate in the play when they accept invitations to join in

One day a boy might be a tough guy – a man of few words who walks with a swagger; the next he’s a lost explorer trusting his hero friends to follow his cries for help.  Every child can be an Olympic champion – if Mom remembers to save the lids from the frozen orange juice for the medal ceremony.   For very little expenditure of money or time, parents can set the stage for the sociodramatic play that will benefit children for a lifetime.

You will greatly enhance their play time if you:

• Maintain an alert eye for props like real clothing, costumes, hats, purses, scarves, stethoscopes, or discarded keys on a real keychain.

• Always safety-test your finds.  Check for lead content and toy recalls.  Keep choking hazards away from children under 3, or children over 3 who still mouth explore.  Throw away broken toys, flimsy toys or  items with loose parts.  Keep in mind a time frame for the usefulness of the props.

• Conduct your searches at thrift stores, garage sales, and grandparents’ attics for interesting finds with built-in history lessons.

• Organize and store the supplies around themes.  Grocery store, or post office, for example.

• Securely tape a snapshot of items to storage shelves to encourage a fast, fun matching game at cleanup time.

• Color or decorate the boxes in which supplies are stored.  That will give a pre-reader as much information as a sign or label will give an adult.

• Label storage shelves and boxes with words.  Children with an emerging curiosity about reading and writing will be able have their intellectual needs met as soon as they realize they are interested — without having to ask (or wait for) an adult.

• Cheerfully expect to perform an opera of animal sounds when your living room becomes a petting zoo for the day.

• Change the pace at the end of the playtime with a calming, well-illustrated book related to the play theme.

• Save coupons, sale ads, paper bags, and empty cereal boxes to set up an excursion to a make-believe grocery store.

• Provide child-safe, age-appropriate, writing tools and paper for all the love letters, grocery lists, warning signs, parking tickets, etc., children will want to write.

• Provide adult supervision at all times.

Remember:

• Older children (by age 5 or 6) can plan their play episodes, and can sustain the plot from session to session.
• Cardboard boxes can be covered with contact paper to create makeshift desks, grocery store shelves, and checkout counters.
• An old microphone will spur some young children to sing a song or deliver a sermon.
• Stuffed animals do double duty as friends, audience members, characters, and oh yes, wildlife.
• Books and environmental print introduce valuable vocabulary words that sustain pretend play schemes.
• Worn-out or broken toys frustrate and endanger children.
• Adults affirm dramatic play by supplying props, costumes, and a safe space for exploration.