Following up on the problem solving activities for preschoolers that I posted last week, I’ve been thinking about how we can use problem solving when it comes to their own lives and discipline.

Kids love it when they’re given a chance to participate in discussions that are centered on them.  If you’ve been having a persistent problem with your preschooler- dawdling over her food, whining every morning before she has to get ready - see if you can involve her in the problem solving process, so both of you can come to an understanding.

Sit her down, and say, “What do you think we can do, so you’re not always late getting ready every morning.  Tell me. I want to know.” You might be surprised at the answers she comes up with.  In this case, there are plenty of ways you can solve the tardiness problem.

• She could choose her clothes the night before, and lay them out, so she saves time in the morning.
• She can go to bed a half hour earlier, so she feels fresh when she wakes up.
• She can go to bed with her clothes on (non wrinkly, of course) so she’s through with the getting dressed bit when she wakes up.
• She can set her dressing up and getting ready routine to a timer that she has to beat.
• She could also go to school in her night clothes to save time (but then, others would laugh at her - brainstorm all possible solutions, and all the consequences of the solution).

Maybe, you could try this with other problem areas - meal time fussiness, boredom in the car etc.   You might find that involving her gives her more control over her life, and therefore she might be more likely to stick with the solution you agree on.

I am not a big fan of pussy footing around your kids, and at some point, you’ll have to come up with more effective discipline measures than merely gritting your teeth, and suffering silently through it.   Personally, this method seems to work better for me as opposed to ” Eat up your dinner, or else…!” Punishment and nagging seem to have temporary results, if ever.

What do you think?  Do you try this with your own kids?

There are very few things that make people go Aww… like the sound of a little child at the other end of the phone speaking politely and calmly. Learning how to speak on the phone sets a pattern for kids as they get older. In these days of 6 year olds with their own cell phones, good old fashioned telephone manners are getting harder to come by. A mumbled ”Lo?” or “Yeah?” is getting to be the norm, even with adults.

Learning how to speak properly on the telephone is one of the most useful skills that you can teach your child. Telephone manners aren’t just about “Hello” and “May I ask who’s calling?”, but have a lot to do with proper message taking, and the correct way to pass on the telephone to the person who is needed at the phone.

In all probability, your child won’t be taking messages when you’re out of the house, since she’ll likely be with a sitter or other family member, but during bathroom breaks or when you’re busy elsewhere, it helps if your preschooler has some basic telephone manners in place.

Plus, telephone manners help her to learn voice control, since part of the process is learning to speak calmly and slowly over the phone. To help your child differentiate between the tones to be used in different situations, please read the basics of speech and manners for preschoolers.

Your preschooler is already quite familiar with telephones, and what they are used for, and has likely spent some time gurgling into her toy telephone as a baby. This makes your job easier because she is already familiar with the use of the instrument.

Use a toy telephone to begin teaching your child what to say on the phone. Begin by teaching her the proper way to answer the phone.

Hello, So and So’s residence.

Older kids can be taught to use their name (Lindsay speaking), but I wouldn’t recommend it for preschoolers. It’s just too easy for a stranger to find out her name, and use it as a chance to befriend her. A child is more likely to trust a person who uses her name. When she’s older and wiser, you can teach her to use her name, after the “Hello,” but for now a basic “Hello” or a “Hello” followed by the name of the family and residence will do just fine.

The second step to teach her is

May I know who’s calling?

This is harder to get. To make it easier for her, allow her to receive the telephone when it rings, stand in front of her and mouth the words when she begins to falter. You could ask your spouse or a friend to call for practice. This is one area where practice absolutely makes perfect.

Once she has the person’s name, teach her to go and call the person who’s needed at the phone. Many kids tend to hang up while they go call. Teach her to place the phone down on the table, and then go and call Mommy or Daddy– not to place it back on the set. Tell her to say “Just a moment, please” before she places the phone, so the caller knows she’s gone to fetch you.

Message taking is tricky among preschoolers – they’re too young to write anything down, or remember the names of whoever has called. You can use pretend telephone play to help her practice. Call the main phone from your cell phone, and pretend you’re some one calling for her mom or Daddy who isn’t at home. Teach her to ask

“I am sorry she’s not available at the moment. May I take a message?”

Again, this will take tons of practice.

Things to Watch Out For

I said this before and I’ll repeat it here – she must never give out her name to the caller at the other end.

She must never say no one’s at home. If you’re leaving her with a sitter, make sure to put the phone on the answering machine. Remember, when a telemarketer calls, he has your address on his computer screen. Having a child say there’s no one at home can be fool hardy.

She must not carry on a conversation with a stranger at the other end. Besides the fact that the other person might not be in the mood to chit chat with a little person, it can also be dangerous if the caller intends to get personal information out of her.

Tell her it’s always better to say “Mommy is not available to speak at the moment.” Not “Mommy is in the toilet!”

Teach her to speak calmly and slowly.

It won’t happen overnight, but with a little practice your child can master the art of perfect telephone conversation!

So, does your preschooler answer the phone at home?

By the age of 3, your child has moved from beyond a high chair to a booster seat, and can start joining you at the dining table. Take her tender age into consideration when you begin teaching table manners – they don’t have a high attention span, their eye hand co ordination isn’t on adult levels which means a lot of spills, and they might not be able to sit through an entire meal without getting fidgety.

If it’s not possible to eat all meals a day together as a family, try to fit in at least one family meal to establish the basics of table manners.

Begin by teaching her the basics. She has to come to the table with clean and washed hands. Teach her to pull her chair out, and then sit on it. Once she begins chewing, she must do so with her mouth closed. They are a little young at this age to teach them not to place their elbows on the table, but it’s your call.

It’s easy for kids to move from a bib as a baby to a napkin as a child. Teach her how to dab at her mouth to clean a smear instead of wiping. Don’t make it seem like a terrible mistake if she doesn’t get into the perfect habits right away. Kids this age love to learn (as I never tire of saying). The trick is to make them think they are playing or having fun as they learn. Other easy manners you can teach a child this age are

• Not to talk with her mouth full
• Not to shove large portions of food into her mout
• Not to chew noisily
• Not to touch the food with her fingers. Don’t be discouraged if she does pick up foowith her fingers sometimes, though.

Use small sized plates and glasses to make it seem less daunting for your child. For water, use a shot glass – it doesn’t tip, and won’t spill water on the table. Get divider plates to help her keep each food separate from the other on the plate.

She might not want to stick around till the entire family is done. If she wants to leave after she’s finished, let her but teach her to say “May I be excused now?” before she leaves.

If you’d like to take your child with you when you eat out, she’ll need to have same basic table manners in place. Begin at home, right from the age of 3. Wait till she has her fundamentals in place, before you expose her to dining in social settings which is a whole different ball game.

Having said all this, don’t be disappointed if the reality of eating with your preschooler is a far cry from your vision of a refined and elegant family dining experience! But, she’ll never learn unless you begin exposing her to adult dining situations, so she’s better equipped when you begin eating out with her. If you have a hard time getting her to settle down in her seat and not talk loudly at the dinner table at home, it’s safe to assume you’ll find it harder in a restaurant, where there is a larger audience for her tantrums!

Preschoolers tend to talk at the top of their voice. It’s natural for their age since they haven’t learned the art of voice modulation. Not all kids get over the loud voice, though – in some, it continues till long after the child has left preschool.

Indoor Voices and Outdoor Voices

To help your child understand the difference in speech and tone required in various situations, start by telling her the difference between indoor voices and outdoor voices. You will need to set apart some time to do this.

Show her the two different tones of voice that people use when they are inside a house, (or restaurant, or at other’s houses), and outside.

Say, “When you’re inside a house, whether our own or at a friends’ place or at a restaurant, you don’t need to talk loudly, because it’s quiet, and we can hear what you’re saying. But when we step outside (take her outside the house) there’s plenty of noise because of the traffic, and you might need to raise your voice a little, so we can hear what you’re saying.”

Practice both kinds of voices over a course of weeks, until it becomes more firmly ingrained.

How to Wait for Your Turn While Others are Speaking

Being gentle and telling her how to wait her turn is the only way to teach her this. Scolding doesn’t help at all, and is bound to humiliate her in front of people, which is actually the worst possible thing you can do at this age.

Gently tell her (at home) that when people are talking, she must wait her turn, and she will get her chance to speak. Start by practicing this at home at the dinner table, or when your husband and you are having a conversation, and she wants to join in. If she’s restless as she waits for her turn to speak, hold her hand to let her know her turn is coming.

Don’t begin teaching her this skill by chiding her with a “Don’t interrupt,” when you are all in social company; she’ll end up feeling humiliated.

Don’t ruin the whole thing by ignoring her once the adult conversation is done – you’ll convince her you don’t really mean what you say anyway. Give her a chance to have her say, and be patient through 10 minutes of Ummm…er… ahhh… and so on. If she’s restless as she waits for her turn to speak, hold her hand to let her know her turn is coming.

As a parent, there are many gifts that you will give your child – a great education, a healthy lifestyle and all the material things money can buy. But all of these pale in comparison to the gift of self esteem. None of the above mean a lot if a child grows up not feeling “very good about himself,” or not having confidence in his abilities to accomplish much.

The benefits of fostering self esteem and confidence in kids are virtually limitless. Confident kids tend to be more creative than shy kids who may have lowered self esteem levels. Children who are raised (unintentionally) to think poorly about themselves are the most at risk for poor performances in school, and later college.

None of this however, means that empty praise is the route to self esteem. In fact, we’ve seen a backlash against too much praise – a generation of kids raised to believe they were great just for picking up a glass, and placing it back on the table.

Inane praise doesn’t help your child. On the contrary, kids grow up with an inflated sense of self worth and worse, they fail to challenge themselves. When your doting parents are telling you everything you do is great, and not a word about how you could improve on your skills, it only prepares for a grand fall when you go out into the real world, and find people aren’t as impressed with you as your folks were.

Effective self esteem building in preschoolers has to focus on enthusiasm and energy for a task or activity, and not just the result. Praise the efforts that your child makes whether in a drawing or at school or a chore he completes around the house, but also remember to add a challenge at the end of it – “That was a great sea you drew, now let’s see how well you can do a house.”

Here are a few quick ways to get your preschooler to feel good about himself.

Enlist His Help

Give him chores to do around the house. For 5 year olds, it could be helping you set the table or washing veggies in the kitchen with you. It gives them a sense of accomplishment that they can be proud of. For younger kids, give them a chance to sort spoons and forks.

Create a Love Map

Make a list of 25 of his favorite things, and then fill them up together. Include everything you can think of – his favorite food, movie, song, cartoon character. You’re developing his sense of identity as an individual with firm likes.

Play the Body Part Game With Him

• Sit your child down, and sit opposite him. Point out different parts of his face and body, and tell him what he can do with them.
• Point to his eyes and say “You have eyes that see everything.” (Ask him to point out five things he can see in the room.)
• “You have two ears that hear many things.” (Use objects to create a sound or imitate noises yourself.
• “You have a nose to smell any thing.” (sniff in the air)
• “You have a mouth that can taste many things.” (Give him a sweet to put in his mouth and ask him what it tastes like.)

End with an affirmation of his abilities – “You can do so much with yourself.”

Play the Dinner Game

Create a story around your child and his favorite foods. It could go like this:

• (Child’s name) woke up early in the morning today. He brushed his teeth, put on his clothes and had (ask him to say what he had for breakfast here) for breakfast.He played with his toys, and then when it was time for lunch he ate (ask him to add whatever he had to eat for lunch).

Again, you’re developing a sense of self importance. He’s the star of the story!

Plus, you’re encouraging his language skills.More games like this, and he’ll find it easier to add things and activities that he’s completed during the day to the story. Encourage him to add as many activities as he wants to the story.

Compare Baby Pictures

Sit down with your child, and look through his baby pictures. Compare his facial features, hands and feet now with how they are in the pictures. Tell him how he’s grown, and list out all the things he can do now with his body that he couldn’t do when he was a baby. Again, you’re building a feeling of importance and pride.

Saying preschooler and manners in the same sentence can seem a bit much. Kids of this age are not known for their ability to say or do the right things. They want instant gratification, are stubborn and are prone to tantrums.

However, these years are also the most important to learn social skills and common courtesies, just as the preschool period is the most important period for intellectual development. Sadly, manners seem to be losing out to academics where preschooler parents are concerned. During my teaching days, most parents seemed more interested in how many words their preschooler could spell than whether he had learned to say “please” and “thank you.”

This is the first in a series of posts dealing with this much ignored facet of your child’s development. In later posts, we can talk about table manners, telephone skills and social skills, but for now, these basics are an absolute must if you have a preschooler at home.

Why Is This the Best Period in His Life to Learn Good manners?

Most of the social skills and manners your preschooler picks up will be well established by the time he is ready to leave preschool. In other words, you can’t wait until they are older to teach them fine manners. That nine year old kid you see in the fast food restaurant whining or raising his voice at his mother in public, is already beyond help. The mother simply missed the train as far as manners were concerned.

It’s easy to fall into the trap of thinking, “Well, my child already has so much going on in his life. He already has to learn the alphabet and numerals, words, motor skills and imaginative play – why burden him with learning the P s and Qs of social graces?”

Don’t make this mistake. Kids of this age have an infinite capacity to learn and absorb, if you’re willing to sit down and teach them through patience. Think of it this way – years from now, his social skills could be the difference that helps him stand cut and shoulders above the rest.

What Kind of Social Skills Could You Teach a PreSchooler?

We’re not talking Victorian style Ps and Qs here, just the very basics of human courtesy. By the time your child is three, she should have learned to say “Please” and Thank you.” (If your child is older, and not yet certain of the situations that call for these words, don’t delay further. Begin today).

Positive reinforcement works very well to teach kids the importance of “Please,” “Sorry,” ” Thank You,” and “Excuse Me.” Don’t make it seem like the learning of manners is something that he has to do only to make Mommy happy. Teach him that using these words makes it more likely that adults will respond positively to him. For instance, if he adds a “Please” when he’s asking for something, adults are always more inclined to give him what he wants rather than if he just yells out his desires.

Similarly, with “Sorry,” it helps if he sees that saying it actually helps fix whatever it was he did wrong. Or when he bumps into someone and says “Excuse Me” and the other person is only too willing to give him room to pass, he sees that manners are pretty cool!

When they learn how beneficial it can be to them, they are more likely to incorporate these skills into their everyday lives.

Of course, just using these words, doesn’t guarantee that their desires will be met. Don’t fall into the trap of “Well, I said please, didn’t I? So where’s my new train?” Pad the disappointment of not getting what he wants by praising his use of the words. Be liberal with praise and encouragement – this is true for just about every facet of your preschooler’s development.

Be a role model with your behavior. Practice these words yourself. If your interaction with your child is restricted to a military style barking of orders, then that’s exactly what he learns. Make “Please”, “Thank You” and “Sorry“ important words in your vocabulary in your interactions with him. Your child imitates you much more than you know.

Other possible sources of picking up bad behavior are his friends and playmates. Choose his playmates wisely. Try to keep him away from other kids who could be a bad influence on his habits. Use your discretion. Preschoolers are just noisy, dirty and careless, and you won’t find a bunch of kids in the same room behaving like angels. But if something about the behavior of one of his playmates disturbs you (you’ll know it if something seems to be a bigger problem than just the typical behavior for his age) don’t hesitate to cut down the amount of time your child spends with that kid.

You don’t have to judge other children’s behavior. But you are ultimately responsible for your own child. Do whatever’s best for him.

Let your child create his own personalized New Year’s cards this year.

You’ll Need:

Thick card stock sheet

Different colors of paint

Pencils with erasers at one end

Small sized containers to hold the paints

Prints of your favorite picture of your child

What You Can Do:

Cut the card stock into separate pieces depending on the size you want the card to be. Fold each piece into two.

Then, use a paper cutter to cut out a 3 ½ “ x 3 ½ “ square at the top of the card. You might want to change the size of the cut out depending on the size of your picture.

What Your Child Can Do:

Dip the eraser end of the pencil into the paint, and press against the card to create a little polka dot.

Continue doing this one color at a time, until the front and back of the card are covered in little colorful dots.

Remember to leave the top half of the card front untouched.

Open the card and stick the picture using cello tape, so the picture is visible from the outside.

If your child is able to write alphabets, make her write a message to the person receiving the card.

Remember to help your child mark these gifts with his name as the sender. These are his own personalized greeting cards, and will make him feel all grown up!

Relax! This doesn’t mean you’ll be stuck over the New Years’ managing a bunch of unruly kids while the rest of the world is bringing in 2008 in style.

If you’re having a party at home, ask all your guests to bring their kids along.

• Designate a separate room in the house as the kids’ party area.

• Don’t be lazy about it – do it up with festive streamers and balloons. Get your children to help – they’ll love the chance to plan a party.

• Choose easy eats – finger foods, pizza, juice, and cupcakes for dessert. For a really easy cupcake dessert, just grab a batch of ready to eat cupcakes, and decorate each with frosted chocolate icing. Garnish with little marzipan animals.

• Make sure they ring in the New Years’ too. Give the oldest of the kids a small timer, or a watch to keep count of the last seconds.

• Have little gifts for each child.

This is a great way to encourage kids, especially shy ones to socialize with their peers.