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!

Ideas to make Rainy Days more fun for preschoolers - A Project.

The rainy season brings with it exciting new learning opportunities for children. We took the opportunity of the showers in Bangalore to teach children concepts of measurement and estimation. We took inspiration from various sites and set out to do a bit of our own experiment.

Intention:

1. Understand children's extend of knowledge of rain and how the rainfall is measured.
2. Introduce measurement through measuring of rainfall.
3. Introduce estimation (for higher age groups) and compare estimates to actuals.
4. Integrate other concepts of rain and nature.
5. Have FUN!

Planning process:

All our teachers put their heads together and put together the props required to make this project successful. Since it is still the first month of school, teachers made the props themselves. We believe that in the future projects we can involve the children in the planning process too. Here are some pictures from the planning stage.

The project:

The children in Kindergarten levels were introduced to the concept of rainfall. They were asked questions about what they thought about rainfall. Teachers showed them the graph and explained how it would be used. Teacher also explained that rainfall would be measured in centimetres. The same was shown on the measuring containers meant to measure the rain. The steps were as follows:

1. Children were asked to 'Guesstimate' how much the rainfall would be. (For older children)
2. The containers were numbered as per the numbers assigned to the children. 
3. Children placed the measurement containers in the outdoor where they felt the rain drops would fall.
4. The next day the children took their glasses, looked at the rainwater collected in the container, and used the centimetre scale marked outside to understand the rainfall level.
5. The children used raindrops to mark on the graph their measurements of 1 / 2 / 3... centimetres of rain as per their observation.

Integrated learning:

Children also learnt about planting seeds and how to tend to them. After digging, and planting the seeds, they waited for the rain to see their little saplings grow. Children then documented their learning by way of drawing about it.

Overall, this has been a fantastic project. It allowed us to learn from the children quite a lot. Children showed that they had great levels of attention since this was an activity that they enjoyed doing. Their curiosity is awakened and we can see children applying their recent measurement skills in class. Their vocabulary about measurement has widened. Rain is no longer abstract and we have been able to translate their learning into concrete terms. What a great way to integrate math with nature!

We will keep updating this post with all the future observations in the days to come too!

Really happy with this project and we welcome ideas from all the readers too for more projects that we can take up. This project can easily be done at home too.

Enjoy learning in the rain!

Credits: Deborah J. Stewart from http://www.teachpreschool.org

Thinking with things - The hands on way to creativity

The one philosophy that guides me is 'Play is the work of childhood'. Different philosophers over time and great thinkers such as Maria Montessori, Friedrich Froebel, Loris Malaguzzi and many more who have explained the benefits of having materials in the child's environment that allow the child to develop the understanding of concepts and lay foundation for the real world experiences. As early childhood educators, none of us can escape the charm of the didactic Montessori equipment or the use of Froebel's Gifts to children. Research has proven that children learn complex science, math and literacy through manipulatives in a rich tactile environment. It is a proven fact that children who are exposed to hands on learning in the early years do better in later grades as the foundations are set solid. In this race for 'sooner the better' children nowadays are being exposed to more and more 'academic work in the earlier years. This trend is leaving very little time for children to play, let alone use THINGS. As educators and parents, there is an urgent need for us to push against this trend.

This being my beliefs (resonating with the beliefs of my school), I am fortunate to be part of the Think With Things Ambassadors program. This UK based company founded by two women, Julie Anne Gilleland and Isobel Demangeat, with the aim '... digital to real world experience transforms THINGS into learning tools in the hands of every child.' 

As an ambassador in this program, we were required to incorporate materials in our educational environment for a minimum of 6 weeks. The first pilot phase began in April with 50 ambassadors and the second will begin in September 2015 with all 200 educators from around the world.

This is the fifth week of the program and here are the top five things that have deeply inspired me:

1. Creativity: The program required children to work with circles, things that fit in their hands and things that would have otherwise been thrown away. With these clear objectives in mind, we set out close to six weeks ago, on a quest to discover 'loose parts' in our surroundings. I was amazed with the creativity that came out at every step of the way. 

The following is the conversation that happened when the facilitator and the children were on a quest to collect things. We were amazed at the acceptance of the environment and also the problem solving abilities.

Facilitator:  Why did you choose all these objects?

Children: Because these fit in our hands.

Facilitator: But does the chalk piece fit in your hand ? (It was a big piece of chalk)

Child: (Breaks into 2 pieces) Now it does : )

Facilitator: Any further observations (Hint : Shape)

Children: Natural things may or may not have a perfect shape like square, circle or triangle etc. but the man made things have more or less defined shapes like cylindrical, round, square.

Facilitator: So when natural things do not have perfect shape, whats the solution?

Children: We either cut those out with machines and give it a shape that we want or accept  and love it as the nature has provided us.

2. Expressing through things:  Through these last few weeks, the facilitators have been astonished with the expressiveness of the children. Maybe it is in our culture, but children are not as expressive and hold back their emotions. Our facilitators felt that using loose parts allowed children the necessary impetus to open up and express themselves. Since the activities were open ended, it encouraged the children to communicate. This is one of the reasons why loose parts is going to be a BIG part of our environment.

3. Focus and Attention:  We got to observe children engrossed in their exploration for longer periods of time. When the activities were unstructured, it allowed the children to pursue their interests. This was one of the reasons that the children spent more time on investigation and coming up with ideas and suggestions. Problem solving seemed to be an easy by product and a very welcome one. 

4. Sharing is natural:  We also were happily surprised to see children who were previously reluctant to share, did not mind another child taking a few of 'their' items. There somehow seemed to be a sense of 'enough for everyone to have'. Since we were finding things that were from the child's environment, it showed that nothing was as it seemed. Suddenly, everything had play value. We only needed to be opened up in the right direction. With this new found feeling of contentment, the children did not mind sharing their things.

5. Everyone needs inspiration: At the end of the program, what I have learnt most is that everyone needs inspiration. During these last few weeks I have been seeing the posts by the other ambassadors from around the world and am so inspired by them. These have been so helpful as sometimes we are limited in our ideas and our environment. Seeing these posts and being a part f this community has broadened my world and I am definitely looking to all of them for inspiration. 

I'd like to thank Ms. Sarika Manoj for helping me in this program and making sure I complete the given tasks in the given time!

I'm glad that we have the kind of technology today that made this program possible. In my quest for the perfect childhood, this has been a wonderful addition and I'm sure will shape all my future interactions with educators and children too. 

Happy Parenting!

Superhero Play : Hero or Villain?

As I walked in during lunch time at one of our centers, Pranshu, a boy all of 5 yrs, and wearing a Spiderman pajama set approached me. He said, ‘Ma’am, look I’m Spiderman.’ He struck a pose, folded two fingers and flung a pretend web at me. When you recognize the pretend play at work, you just love that the child is internalizing the character! This was followed by all the kids in the lunch-room picking to be a superhero of their choice. There were ninja hand chops that flew, followed by high in the air kicks, and some laser vision cutting the rest of us into two.

All in all, one single statement triggered a whole lot of play opportunity. Children love superhero play. It brings out their imagination, letting them take on many roles. Superhero play is often rambunctious and nearly always has violent content. Superheroes are vigilantes, they protect the society and hence children don the role of protectors who have to fight and break rules in order to protect. That raises the very pertinent question, does fighting for right mean fighting is right?

Chotta Bheem has become a hot favorite of many of the children. Don’t you ever wonder what are the lessons that children are taking back from this particular character? Are we promoting rowdiness in children by allowing superhero play? At what stage should we interfere and stop the impact of the superheroes on our children?

Before we set about answering these questions, let us understand a little bit more about superhero play. When a child pretends to be Wonderwoman, she is essentially thinking about good and bad. Children are applying rules and expanding their understanding of ‘right’ through superhero play. Children learn to regulate their behavior as they have to conform to a particular type of behavior to be a particular superhero. Acquiring self-regulatory skills is a desired outcome of any form of play.

Children learn to co-create and cooperate during superhero play. In an age when bullying is not uncommon, or when children are exposed to much more violence due to the media explosion, they need a medium to express it. The pretend violence opens up a dialogue about real-life violence and real life problem solving. It is important as adults for us to place this play in context. We need to be able to read the subtle signs that the children are giving us through this medium. If we do not allow superhero play, we lose an opportunity to understand our children better.

Many educators have consciously chosen not to allow superhero play in their classrooms and maybe they have good reason for it. While some other educators have acknowledged children’s desires to play superhero themed games, but they coach and guide the play into more peaceful play.

Superhero play is an important element of growing up. Whether children learn from it is left up to you, the great dictator of justice.

With great power comes great responsibility!