Friendships are such a wonderful and special part of life. From memory making to going through the highs and lows with your peers makes life so much richer. As a child, learning social skills and how friendships fit is a huge learning curve as they go through their childhood and find their ‘people’. As a parent, how do you connect and how do you teach your kids basic social skills and about what a great friendship can be?
Today Janine is joined by Caroline Maguire and in this episode they discuss:
How do we teach our children social and emotional awareness in a fun and play filled way? Eventually our children will become adults so when they walk out into the world, we want them to step into their lives as aware and in control of their emotions as possible.
In this episode we discuss:
The transition to preschool to elementary school can be such an anxious time for both parents and for the children. There’s a lot of unknowns to get them ready for and sometimes we think there’s lots we have to do to prepare them for starting. Today we discuss what you can do to help reduce anxiety for your little one with nursery practitioner, Caroline Allen.
In this episode they discuss:
One of the first more elaborate projects I remember doing with my daughter was making a puppet theater. We took a cardboard box (our favorite toy around here) and painted it and made curtains from scraps of cloth. She had a blast using her finger puppets for the show, and later setting up toy figures. However, the box got old and tattered, so we got rid of it.
I love our neighborhood. We moved here 14 years ago, and we knew immediately that we lucked out with our entire neighborhood. When moved to the suburbs, we were just a couple of city kids; we used black trash bags to bag our leaves; we didn’t know that wasn’t how it’s done in the suburbs ;-) I think every single one of our neighbors gently set us on the right path. That’s how it is here. We look out for each other: we watch each other’s houses when we’re away on vacation, we water each other’s gardens and we even have block parties together.
I recently read a great article about 4 things kids don’t need (and some things they do). This article is exactly what I’ve been trying to focus on with my family. My new year’s resolution was to rotate toys more regularly, and I wanted to make sure the toys we’re rotating through were ideal for open ended, creative play. I made a list of the toys we do have and tried to focus on ones that would meet those criteria. Here’s some of what we have:
Family time is can be awesome, AND is a great way to connect with your kids. I've talked about the importance of a family game night before and even starting a family book club. I wanted to talk about another way families can hang out together and interact - during Family Movie Night!
One of my New Year’s Resolutions for my family was to do some random acts of kindness. I want my kids to understand the importance of being kind and helping others. I also want them to learn to be contributing and thoughtful members of society.
I was invited to join a group of wonderful bloggers to write for the series Happy New Year, Healthy Kids. This series is focused on ways we can help our kids be happy and healthy in this new year. But what do social skills and friendship have to do with health?
Think for a minute about the positive friendships in your life. Healthy friendships provide support, make you feel connected with others, reduce your stress and increase your happiness. It’s so wonderful to have these people around you! In order for kids to start and maintain friendships so they can experience these benefits too, kids need to learn social skills and how to interact positively with others.
It’s that time of year when people are making New Year’s Resolutions. I’ve been thinking about some of the basics (organize my house, clean up my eating habits, etc) but I’ve also been thinking about what I can do encourage playing and friendships in my own home. Here are some New Year’s Resolutions to make 2015 a great year!!
I originally posted this back in September. I created a free printable to make implementing a kindness wall easier, see below!!
Our kids tend to get along pretty well, and even when there’s an argument, they can get past it pretty quickly. However, at the end of the summer and for the first week of the school year, our kids seemed to be more cranky and less patient with each other than normal. I’m not sure if it was because their bodies hadn’t adjusted to the new schedule or if they were just tired of going all day. All I knew was that I wanted to change how they were acting toward one another. I wanted them to focus on showing kindness to one another. When I was a School Counselor, I helped start a Kindness Wall of Fame at my school. Every time any adult saw a child do something kind, the adult could choose to give that child a star for being a kind member of our school. I decided to implement our own Kindness Wall at home.
It’s that time of year when people start thinking about gifts to buy. I really love the idea of getting and giving games, especially those that can be played on a playdate with just two kids. Last year, I wrote a post where I listed five games that would be ideal to play on a small playdate, which is perfect for kids who are working on their social skills. Here are 5 MORE games that would be great to have on hand for a small playdate. They’re also great games for families too. You can practice and play together and have fun!
October is National Bullying Prevention Month so I thought it would be a great time to talk about kindness. Recently I posted about creating a kindness wall in my home to promote kind acts. Today’s activity helps kids think about how your words and actions impact other people. I did this activity with my own kids to help them understand the long lasting effect their words can have, even after they say sorry.
I’m a big proponent of having a family game night. I’ve even written two posts about great games for families - one focused on elementary school and one focused on preschool. But you might be wondering how game night can benefit your kids. It’s a great weekly habit that can promote a lot of positive behavioral growth. Here are four reasons to fit it into your weekly schedule.
My kids tend to get along pretty well, and even when there’s an argument, they can get past it pretty quickly. However, at the end of the summer and for the first week of the school year, our kids seemed to be more cranky and less patient with each other than normal. I’m not sure if it was because their bodies hadn’t adjusted to the new schedule or if they were just tired of going all day. All I knew was that I wanted to change how they were acting toward one another. I wanted them to focus on showing kindness to one another. When I was a School Counselor, I helped start a Kindness Wall of Fame at my school. Every time any adult saw a child do something kind, the adult could choose to give that child a star for being a kind member of our school. I decided to implement our own Kindness Wall at home.
Sometimes parents will say they have a hard time getting their kids to open up or talk with them about things. I think a great way to connect with your own children is to create a family book club. Reading a book together shows that you think reading is important and an enjoyable past time and, while you’re discussing the book, your child can practice conversation skills and potentially talk about things that are happening in their own lives. Here are 3 strategies you can use to help start your own book club:
Spending time together as a family is such an important thing to do, especially in this day and age when family time can be so limited and fractured. It’s a great way for families to connect, to get to know one another and for adults to model good social skills for the kids. Kids who have a hard time connecting socially benefit from learning how to play games, how to set them up and how to manage winning and losing in a gracious way. Our family loves to play games whenever we get a chance (which is almost daily), and we’re really enjoying them, so I thought it would be a good idea to blog about 5 more family games. I wrote this blog post a few months ago about family games for older kids, these games are aimed at preschool and early elementary school aged children.
