Teaching your Child a Second Language: Make it Fun!

It is never too soon to introduce your child to a new language. Even if you only know a few words yourself, get a book and begin the process with basic words. You will learn along with your child. But your child will only look forward to the lessons if they are fun and stimulating.
Parents are sometimes concerned that learning a second language at the same time a child is learning the first language would confuse them, but there is no evidence of long term confusion. Even if your child does not become fluent in another language, by hearing the sounds and becoming sensitized to the phonetics of other languages, it develops their brains in ways that will make them more receptive to learning new languages later in life.
Children learn their native language by saying words as they point to objects. Their brains do not have to translate from one word to another. They learn simply by attaching the new word to an object. Teaching young children another language is similar. I recently taught my granddaughters, aged 4 and 6, the French words for body parts. To make the lesson fun, I used washable markers and wrote the French word for feet on their feet, their legs on their legs, etc. The hit of the day was tummy because it tickles to write on it and derriere for obvious reasons.
To get started, here are some words:

Head – la tete Hair – les cheveux Bottom - derriere
Mouth – la bouche Hand – le main Tummy – le ventre
Eyes – les yeux Leg – la jambe Arm – le bras
Ears – les Oreilles Feet – les pieds
Nose – le nez Toes – les orteils

Bonjour!

Ending Sibling Rivalry

The following is an article submitted to Ezine and can be found by using the keyword: sibling rivalry or my name. Go to >http://www.ezine.com<.


The squabbles that young children engage in with their siblings are actually beneficial when the siblings also have the opportunity to recover from them. On their own, children will usually get distracted in the next activity and the squabble is temporarily ended only to break out a little while later. Eventually, fun activities that require cooperation overcome the dissension, but do not overcome the hurt feelings, which can linger for a long time. Children seldom find ways to overcome the hurt, especially if the insults are strong enough or frequent enough to be damaging to the child’s self-esteem.
Whenever there is discord between family members, people involved feel both angry and sad for the loss of connection. The same is true for young children. One way to help them recover is to have them sit facing each other and instruct them to take turns saying 5 nice things to each other. Research has shown that even in marriages, if the nice things outnumber the fights, even when fights are intense, the couple survives in a healthy way. By having the children do this, they are actually getting in touch with the part of them that cares about their sibling and, because the children alternate saying the five things, they also hear how special they are to their sibling. Thus it teaches children a way to heal relationships after the inevitable differences that will arise in the future. Expect their attempts at saying nice things will be weak at first as the child learns this new behavior. Although it is best to allow them to have this moment to themselves, at first the child may need some guidance to keep sarcasm out of it. A very young child, age 3-4, may need some prompts at first to come up with five things to say. Having the ability to recover when relationships are disrupted is one component of emotional intelligence.
More information on child development by Dr. Petersen can be found at >http://www.toyconnex.com

Baby Kisses

Let's build a collection of cute Baby Kisses pictures. Please post any you feel you want to share.

Toys That Call a Child Back - Good? or Bad?

Many toys on the market now call a child back to play after it has been ignored.

Do you think this is a good thing? Perhaps, it can increase attention span.

Or a bad thing? Perhaps, it is a marketing ploy to make parents think it is the child's favorite.

What do you, as a parent, think?

What Monkeys Tell Us About Love

When a baby is born it is essentially unattached emotionally despite the physical dependency that is all encompassing. The attachment begins as the baby's needs are provided for (warmth and food) in a nurturing environment. Early studies by Harlow on monkeys demonstrated the need for the nurturance beyond physical needs. He put baby monkeys in cages. Each had both a wire monkey-mother that dispensed milk and a cloth monkey-mother that did not. Both were on a heated pad. The babies were fed by the wire monkey, were free to roam around the cage and choose where to be. They spent increasing amount of time with cloth mother although she provided no milk. In another experiment, some baby monkeys were put in cages with only wire monkey who dispensed food and were heated, while others were put in cages with cloth mothers who dispensed the same food and were also heated. The babies in the cage with the cloth mothers thrived; those with the wire mother did poorly.
Ample evidence also exists for children raised in orphanages that provide only physical care without affection. These children are under-developed in every measurement and some do not survive. This is called failure-to-thrive and represents the critical importance of love and nurturance.
Of course, attachment is so much more than simply thriving physically. It is building a bond with a person that assists the child in its ability to build bonds in the future. For more on attachment, Dr. Bruce Perry has a website that describes how babies grow with attachment and how teachers can develop attachment with their students that aid in learning. For information on attachment go to: http://teacher.scholastic.com/professional/bruceperry/attachment.htm
For a subscription service that facilitates family members to form attachment with a baby in a distant location, see www.toyconnex.com.

Dr. Suni Petersen: Teaching a young child about his body

Dr. Suni Petersen: Teaching a young child about his body

Teaching a young child about his body

Who isn't fascinated by the body?
One kindergarten teacher in Raymore, MO introduced her students to the brain. She told each to take a really large page of a newspaper and crinkle it up into a ball. Each tiny pair of hands made these big paper balls and giggled as they squeezed them tight. Then the teacher told them that was about the size of their brains. The children were then instructed to open up the paper and try to smooth it out. Of course, that is not possible as the lines from the folds remain. The teacher told her students that is how big their brains were and everything they put into their brains is like the folds - it cannot escape. So if they have big brains and nothing ever escapes, think how smart they will become!
Another way to help a young child understand how the muscles move is for the child to trace an outline of themselves on paper or in chalk on a driveway. The child then uses string or yarn to trace how many nerves might be needed for the brain to make the body work.
Yet another way to teach the basic parts of a child's anatomy is take washable markers and draw the different parts on the child... this is where your lungs (draw 2 lungs in pink on the child's chest) and here is your heart (have him put his fist to his chest to obtain the right size and use the red marker to show it). Continue to draw the parts of the body the child is ready to learn. The lesson is also fun because you are bound to hit some tickle spots along the way