Author: Shelly

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Learning is NOT Linear: The Ebb and Flow of Learning & Growing, Retreating & Regressing

When I first began studying child development I thought things happened in a pretty linear fashion. First you learn to crawl, then you walk, after that you learn to talk and so on. And if you study information about ages and stages, you can come to the same misinformed conclusion.

But after 20 years of experience with young people, I can tell you for certain, learning is not linear. Children might learn and grow in one area and retreat and regress in another and they can do it all at the very same time. When we forget about the non-linear life experience of learning and growing, we set ourselves up for disappointment and we have unrealistic expectations of our children. read more

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“Back Off!” Empowering Young People to Claim Their Personal Space

Most of the stuff I write about is focused on peace, love, and compassion, but there’s a point where the best defense really is a good offense. Several weeks ago my daughter was at the library and a bigger kid ran over to her and pushed her down. His mother apologized profusely, Julia was dazed and confused, and I was left wondering, “How could I have prevented this?”

My daughter is often quiet and reserved, especially when she’s in a large group or if she’s feeling overwhelmed. And the library is usually teeming with both kids and adults when we go there for story time. So I thought about how I could empower her to stand up for herself in the face of a larger child intent on pushing, hitting, or biting her. read more

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Our new favorite geography game

Here’s a video of my daughter playing the new geography game  we invented:

A few months ago I found this National Geographic world map and decided to glue it to a foam board to see if my daughter was interested in learning the continents.

Then, on our recent airplane trips we brought a small ball/globe and she started to show a real interest in geography, learning the names and locations of several countries.

When we got home we started to play a new game with the world map. We put her toy animals on their countries of origin. She loves it! read more

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Taking a Tantrum as a Compliment?

OK, I know it sounds strange, but when my daughter has a meltdown I really do take it as a compliment. Her tears and upset are so rare, partly because she’s just an easy-going person and partly because she trusts all her caretakers to listen to her and work to help her meet her needs. But there are times when she’s just too tired, or too hungry to stave off the tears and then she cries, throws herself down, throws whatever is within her reach, and pushes large objects around.

After we returned from a recent trip to visit my family, Julia was just a bit unglued and prone to crying and tantrums for a couple of days while she readjusted to being home. At first I was annoyed. I kept thinking, “Why is she acting like this? Why can’t she just listen? What can I do to get her to stop?” But every time I approached her with that attitude, the tantrums just increased in severity. read more

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Testing the waters: How setting boundaries builds trust

I was on a family vacation to Hawaii last week (Happy Mother’s Day to me!) and we had a wonderful time. About half way through our trip we were in the kiddie pool and J was feeling hesitant at first. She wasn’t so sure that the water was such a fun place to be until two young boys started splashing, playing and having a great time. And then she was convinced. The boys’ parents were in the adjacent pool with a young baby and they kept calling out to the boys to settle down, stop splashing, and be nice. But I didn’t see anything at all wrong with the way the boys were behaving. They were just having fun and playing! read more

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