Secret to a H. A. P. P. Y Parent

A search for parenting yields the above results. Bright, shiny, happy, smiling faces! The reality, anyone who is a new parent can tell you, is far from this. The first few months can leave the new parents sleep deprived, confused, hormonal and basically exhausted. As the child learns to settle into a routine, so do the parents. When the clouds over your head have cleared, you realise that you have an intelligent being that you are responsible for. Though a stressful journey, it can be pretty satisfying if you follow these 5 simple strategies, to be a H. A. P. P. Y. parent.

1. Humour - It's an important skill to develop, in yourself as well as the children. Humour has tremendous benefits for the cognitive and social development of a child. But it has a greater benefit for a parent. If you can find the laughter in everyday chores and challenges, it becomes easier to tackle and fun to do. Your child spilt a glass of milk, first reaction should be to laugh it off! This eases the tension between you and your child and allows the child to show remorse. Children laugh an average of 200 times a day, whereas we adults laugh only 8-10 times a day. I do feel sad for ourselves. Laugh more, live more!

2. Adaptation - Heard about Darwin's theory of evolution? Species have to adapt or they perish. The same applies to parenting. Your parenting style has to evolve as your child grows. Life after a child is going to change, accept it. A parent needs to be proactive and be observant. Catch the changes and plan accordingly. Understand that you need to practice every habit that you want in your child. A calm parent raises a calm child.  It may seem like the task for a super hero, well, a parent is no less!

3. PLAY - Enough has been said about the importance of play and its benefits for the child. Play is extremely important for a parent too. In an era when gadgets are replacing face-time (not to be confused with the video calling app, please), you need to ensure that you are playing with your child. From simple peek-a-boos to playing catch, find different avenues to play with your child. It keeps the brain active and in the present, a happy distraction from whatever else (read work stress, in laws stress, etc.) is clamouring for your attention. This engagement with your child will help intensify the bond, teach you about your child's developing skills and to just have some fun. Go play!

4. Positive Reinforcement - Children never misbehave. Really, they do not. They are constantly experimenting the boundaries of what is acceptable socially. This is their way of understanding right from wrong. When you catch a child exhibiting a behaviour that is not acceptable, instead of telling them what not to do, it makes sense to tell them what they should do. It's easy to lose your cool and lash out. But it just damages the child's esteem and does no good for your own emotional wellbeing. Practice positive reinforcement. Every time you see the child do something right, praise that. This will teach you to recognise good in the child and not wait to catch a bad behaviour. You will train yourself to see only good. How peaceful is that!

5. Yourself - There is a profound message that every air hostess gives, 'wear the oxygen mask on yourself before helping others.' Parenting is the same. You need to take care of yourself first. If you are feeling frustrated, it manifests to anger and hasty decisions, that only leads to a downward spiral, emotionally. Whether you are working or a stay at home parent, it's important to give yourself and your spouse some alone time. Nurture other relationships too, for they will offer you the support that you need. Give guilt a break, we are all human and we do make mistakes. If you make sacrifices, you end up with nothing but pity for yourself and you become the 'victim'. That has never played down well. By taking care of your needs, you are taking charge.

Wishing you all a H.A.P.P.Y. parenting!

A Decade In Early Childhood Education - My best years!

It has been 10 years since I first entered into this fascinating field called Early Childhood Education. As a rookie, I was spell bound by the new world that was opened up to me. The spell has not yet been broken :) I have been an ardent learner and am sure will continue to do so in the years to come as well. 

As if to commemorate this decade in my life, I was given an opportunity like no other. My paper on 'Humour in Early Childhood' was accepted by NAEYC for presentation at their annual conference in Dallas, Tx. My presentation and the insight I gained at the conference is incomparable to anything I've experienced before. The people I've met have been wonderful; invigorating and all most of all inspiring.

Some of them have left a mark for life.

Learning about Leadership and revitalised with Holly Elissa Bruno

Perfecting my DAP training skills with Luis

With Legendary Dan Gartrell from Guidance Matters Column

Strong-willed Ketra became a dear friend and drive buddy :)

I've come back from the conference enlightened and with a greater ambition to make a difference in every child's life that I can influence.

My faith in Podar Jumbo Kids is reiterated through the conference. I believe that the education and atmosphere that we provide at Jumbo Kids is of international standards and following the latest research. 

Of the many things that have captured my attention, a few that I would like to list down are as below:

• Developmentally Appropriate practice - This is the cornerstone of the NAEYC philosophy. The most important ingredient in DAP is the intentionality of the teacher. As I learnt more about this, I am convinced that the traditional Indian schooling system was one of the best then and now. Such as that of the Gurukula or the system of education followed at schools like Rabindranath Tagore's Shantiniketan. I wonder if we can move away from the 'assembly line' schooling system towards our roots. If we can adopt DAP in the context of our culture, I believe that our children will benefit highly.

• Passion towards Early Childhood Education - My passion has been my driving force. I have also been blessed that I'm surrounded by people who are equally passionate. However, over these years, I've come to understand that teaching young children is not a first choice profession. Many times when I've interviewed people for various roles, I've had people tell that they are engineers and since they have a setback at home they want to teach. I find it appalling that everyone finds it perfectly fine to choose this profession as a compromise. At the conference, I was delighted to see that 30% of the delegates were students. This meant that in  US, as a country, there is awareness and passion for being in this profession. Similarly, I found many matured (don't want to label them as aged) women taking an active part in the proceedings of the conference. Can we work towards creating a better culture for ourselves and our teachers, after all we added the word 'GURU' to the dictionary.

• STREAM Vs STEM - There is huge importance that we give to academics as a culture. Schools have now gone ahead to incorporate STEM, i.e. Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics. This is all great. We now need to add two more letter R and A to make it STREAM which stand additionally for Relationships and Art. This is a holistic approach to child development. Brain research indicates that without the context of loving relationships, no learning is meaningful. This is gaining momentum worldwide. Once again, I'm awed at how these are already a part of Jumbo Kids since inception and we have the Director of Jumbo Kids Ms. Swati Popat Vats (my mentor) to thank for this.

• Equal Opportunities - I was part of many sessions that delved into creating equal opportunities. This encompassed gender equality, inclusive education, anti-bias education, and more. I have been crusading against portraying of stereotypes to children in their gender roles. I am now armed with more ammunition for this war. In terms of creating equal opportunity to the differently abled, we need to learn a lot and go a long way. The facilities that were made available for them ensured that they were independent and were never pitied upon. This is one culture that we should emulate. Anti-bias is a strong movement taking place with the intention of supporting children's full development in our multicultural, multiracial, multilingual world and to give them the tools to stand up to prejudice, stereotyping, bias and eventually to institutional 'isms'. It's time we lend our support.

• Humour In Early Childhood - This was the topic of my presentation. I do believe strongly that the benefits of humour are worth the effort of conditioning ourselves to use it. The presentation was very well received (even if I say so myself). I am very conscious that I represent a great brand Podar Jumbo Kids, and am glad that I have been able to do justice to this honour bestowed upon me.

I seek all your support to keep this fire within me burning, for it is with all of you that we will be able to see the change one drop at a time.

Humour in Early Childhood

I am fascinated with my son's laughter. He throws his head back and laughs out loud. I can give anything to keep that going.  I'm lucky that my husband has the greatest wit matching my son's sense of humour. I see them together and it warms me inside. This led me to think about humour and it's usage in early childhood. The following is a paper that I presented at the NAEYC annual conference in Dallas, Tx. 

The last decade has seen a rise in the study of impact of emotions to memory and learning. Researchers believe that positive emotions enhance memory. With this knowledge, parents and early childhood care providers, have to better prepare themselves to provide not just a conducive environment but also work on providing opportunities for positive emotions. Using humor effectively in the classroom and at home, plays an important part in reducing the stress in the child. As brain research findings indicate, reduced stress levels increase the ability to learn and retain new information.

Developmental Changes in Children’s Humor

If children were to gain from the obvious benefits of humor, it is important that parents and early childhood care providers understand the development of humor in children.

Taking a cue from Piaget’s cognitive stages, leading humor researcher Paul McGhee, first proposed a comprehensive stage-model of children’s humor in 1979. This model, last revised in 2002, maps the type of humor the child is likely fascinated with to underlying changes in her ability to perceive and make sense of her world.

Adapted from P. McGhee, Understanding and Promoting the Development of Children’s Humor, Published by Kendall/Hunt. 

Table 1 0f 1

Sr. No	Stage	Ages	Description
1	Laughter at the Attachment Figure	6 to 12 or 15 months	By the age of six or seven months, you can find infants laughing at any unusual behavior of a parent.  This might include something like: waddling like a penguin, making silly faces, sticking half a banana out of the mouth, making exaggerated animal sounds (barking, mooing, etc.), sucking on a baby bottle, and so forth.
2	Treating an Object as a Different Object	12 or 15 months to 3, 4 or 5 years	For the first time, they start treating objects as if the objects were something else.  Not all pretend play at this or any other age is humor, but it is this capacity for pretend that paves the way for the earliest humor created by the child.
3	Misnaming Objects or Actions	2 to 3 or 4 years	Once children achieve this insight—that it’s hilarious to call something a name you know is wrong—every object or person is fair game.  Cats will be called dogs, mommy will be called daddy, daddy will be called the child’s own name, and so on.  It’s all just too funny!
4A	Playing with Word Sounds	3 to 5 years	Children become very attuned to the way words sound, and begin playing with the sounds themselves.  This often takes the form of repeating variations of a familiar word over and over, such as “daddy, faddy, paddy,” or “silly, dilly, willy, squilly.”
4B	Nonsense Real-Word Combinations	3 to 5 years	These combinations appear to simply be another way of distorting the known properties of objects.  The following are typical of this kind of humor: “I want more tree milk.”  “I have a mail box flower.”
4C	Distortion of Features of Objects, People or Animals	3 to 5 years	The examples below illustrate the most common forms of humor at this stage, although they are not exhaustive. a)  Adding features that don’t belong: a dog’s head on a man’s body b)  Removing features that do belong: a cat with no tail or legs c)  Changing the shape, size, location, color, length, etc. of familiar things—a person with a square head d)  Exaggerated features such as a long neck, big ears, enormous or very pointy nose—and misplaced features such as eyes and ears in reversed places.  e)  Incongruous or impossible behavior—a cow on roller skates
5	Riddles and Jokes	6yrs onward	Complex riddles and jokes capture the interest of the children and they are ready to explore books and other content containing these.

Role of Humor in the Learning Process

Research suggests that humorous episodes enjoyed or created by children are not simply a source of entertainment but are also a means of cognitive stimulation. The origins and development of humor depend on the development of general thought processes. The role that humor plays in the process of development is receiving increased research attention, and is of special interest to early childhood educators.

This material was adapted from Klein, Amelia J. (1987). Children's Humor: A Cognitive-Developmental Perspective. In L. Katz (Ed.), Current Topics in Early Childhood Education, Vol. VII.

a.     Humor is a form of play and is a natural medium through which young children can expand their understanding of the world.

b.     Humor is highly pleasurable and is associated with cognitive mastery.

c.     Humor provides children with problems to solve. In a joke, riddle, funny story, or cartoon, children must resolve incongruity in order to establish the joke.

d.     Humor promotes divergent thinking, a characteristic of creativity; in order to establish a joking relationship, the child must discover or create unique associations among ideas.

e.     Humor provides the child with an opportunity to learn rules. Humor has a basic structure that children discover when "playing jokes" on others (humor based on the element of surprise) or telling riddles (a punch line logically related to the body of the joke).

Role of Humor in Social and Emotional Development

Under the premise that humor does play an important role in the development of social skills, McGhee outlines four general functions of humor in social interaction. Briefly, they are:

a.     Facilitation of social interaction - Among both children and adults, humor is now understood to be one component of interpersonal competence. 

b.     Popularity and friendship - Kids who initiate humor more often are also seen by other children as being more likeable. 

c.     Socially acceptable expression of aggression - humor provides children with a socially acceptable means of expressing anger.  This will facilitate the handling of conflicts in social situations throughout the developmental years. 

d.     Softening an assertive/dominating style of interaction - mastery of humor in social situations is related to social competence.

Having read about humor, it’s time to ‘Walk the Talk’

WALK THE TALK – Bring humor into your home and classroom with these simple yet fun ways.

Silly Vanilly is my name!

Try making up silly sounding rhymes to crack up the toddlers.

Comedian of the month!

Feature different comedians each month, those that children can enjoy watching and learning about.

Try tongue twisters!

She sells sea shells on the sea shore

Shake up the routine!

‘Twinkle Twinkle Little Car’

Be absurd!!

‘What time is it?’ ‘It is 10 past spaceship’

Dramatic play area!

Wear a funny hat or a shirt on backward, pretend to order ice cream pizza!

Reading time can be hilarious!

Let’s watch B.J. Novak’s The book with no pictures. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cREyQJO9EPs

Silly face contest

The aim is to get the other one to laugh while making silly faces.

Have JOKE FRIDAY

Have children look forward to being the ‘JOKESTER’

Mismatch Day!

Have children dress up in mismatched socks or shoes or hats or just about anything that is out there.

Let the children see you laughing!

- And remember to laugh at yourself

Humor is no laughing matter! The silliness and the gaiety in the classroom can prove to be beneficial to the children to develop multiple skills sub-consciously and to retain them better. Mr. Paul McGhee suggests that humor in children's literature may be a pale substitute for the jokes children tell each other, and points out the need for definitive studies in this field of research.

Acknowledgement

Reprinted with permission of the Center for Early Education and Development (CEED), College of Education and Human Development, University of Minnesota, 1954 Buford Avenue, Suite 425, St. Paul, MN, 55108; phone: 612-625-2898; fax: 612-625-2093; http://cehd.umn.edu/ceed/.

References

Humor Development in Children by Alice Honig in Young Children, May 1988

Humor and Children's Development: A Guide to Practical Applications, 1989

This material was adapted from Klein, Amelia J. (1987). Children's Humor: A Cognitive-Developmental Perspective. In L. Katz (Ed.), Current Topics in Early Childhood Education, Vol. VII.