Posts in Child Development
Gift Giving with Development in Mind | How Kids Learn Series

In 2016, I wanted to keep it simple and do the theme, "want, need, wear, read" for Christmas presents. But I literally have enough books to start a library for the first five years of Charlie's life. He has plenty of clothes. In fact, too many. And want/need… I had a new thought… basing their gifts on what they WANT/LIKE and support the development they need in the upcoming year.

SOMETHING I REALLY VALUE IS CHILD DEVELOPMENT THROUGH PLAY.

So with toys and books this year, I am not going to look at the most popular toy. I'm going to start with the developmental areas… see what toys/experiences that support those areas.

Notice where my kids may need more support and get the toys that can help him develop those skills! This is my third year doing this and it’s been WONDERFUL.

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Anxious Kids, Anxious Parents

We can't just remove the hurdle when anxiety is happening. So Charlie doesn't like preschool, great, fine, you don't have to go to preschool this year or, oh you don't want to go to school, okay, fine, stay home today. So then they stay home one day and the next day they go to preschool and they're like, no, I don't want to go and so it's then a constant fight because when they're anxious one day you let them stay home. Obviously, there are situations where a child needs to stay home for whatever reason, we're not going to go into that. But more times than not when our child is anxious about something, we remove the hurdle.

"Don't remove the hurdle, teach them to jump over it." We need to help them learn the skills to jump over that hurdle and not get stuck in the content trap.

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Stop Ignoring the Junk

Consequential behaviors include any behavior that threatens life or health or injury to a child student or others. If behavior is consequential, then the parent or teacher needs to intervene. So, this is physical aggression. This is you know throwing pencils at the teacher. Whereas inconsequential behavior is behavior that is not harmful or damaging but it's simply annoying.

So, inconsequential behaviors would be things like whining, crying, tantrums, complaining, talking back, rolling your eyes, sarcasm, muttering under one's breath. All of these behaviors make up about 90% of inappropriate behaviors. That’s what research has found that most behaviors that we're dealing with each day are actually inconsequential. So, they do not need a consequence I agree with that. I agree that most of these behaviors do not need a consequence. So, the definitions of consequential and inconsequential behavior I’m on board with.

However, when people start to then say just ignore the inconsequential behavior and they call it junk behavior and they just say just ignore the junk behavior. Just ignore the junk behavior it's going to go away.

That is where I start to have a problem. Okay. Before I get super far into this I’m not going to go on this like 500 hour tangent but I do just want to say that positive reinforcement is such a powerful tool but that doesn't necessarily mean that you know you have to do everything else that ABA and positive parenting and behaviorism is. Okay. You don't have to just ignore the behavior. You don't have to change behavior shift behavior because when we just focus on behavior and we don't focus on the child and the child's needs and all of this. We're missing an opportunity to attach with our children. We’re missing an opportunity to really understand our child's sensory needs our child's temperament that kind of thing. So, I do think that it's a bigger picture than just oh this is our child we're going to teach it to sit-stay you know they're not dogs. They’re not pets. We want to create opportunities where we can create bonds with them. Where, we can understand their emotions, their feelings, that kind of thing.

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Creating a Consent Culture with Rosalia Rivera

I've decided recently that I actively want to work on creating a culture of consent in my home and family. If my kids don't like something they can say "I don't like it" and if the child doesn't respond then they can walk away and they don't have to feel any guilt about what that other child's feeling because it's okay to you know to create this space and have a break.

What consent is really understanding the concept of body autonomy.

Body Autonomy: My body belongs to me I get to do what I want with it and no one can tell me what to do with it

Find Rosalia

consentparenting.com
@consentparenting on IG + FB

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