All posts by rightfromthestart

parenting

The Happiness Project

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mother kissing babyThis week Kate at Kate Takes 5 has been asking the question

What makes you happy?

As adults this is often a difficult question to answer so Kate asked her children.  She has requested that other bloggers do likewise and share their responses over on her blog.

I asked my 7 year old and 3 year old.  I would have deliberated over this question for some time, analysing the true nature of happiness.  When I asked the girls their immediate responses surprised me .

My 7 year old replied

I’m happy when I know that there is someone there who loves me .

My 3 year olds response was

I’m happy when someone kisses me.

Appropriately there seems to be a bit of a Valentine’s theme to my girls measure of happiness.  No mention of material possessions or fun things to do; happiness is about being loved.  They are probably right – life without love is a pretty miserable existence.

I’ll be interested to read what other children think, perhaps it will make us take a step back to re-evaluate what is important in life.

early education & play, parenting, Uncategorized

Monsters and Imaginary Friends – Back with a Vengeance.

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imaginary friends

A while ago I wrote about my middle daughter’s pre-occupation with monsters in Monsters and Imaginary Friends.

The monsters haven’t gone away.  In fact we have more monsters now, her sister has her own monsters that sometimes come out at night to steal her things.  There are monsters that come if we can’t leave the big light on in her bedroom.  Sometimes there are nice monsters who help people , they are called names like fluffy and softy.

The imaginary friends have also developed to become a permanent fixture in our house.  It began with Emily.  Emily would regularly come for a sleepover and often it is Emily’s birthday. Emily’s story has become more elaborate, she now has a brother called Jack who often visits too and today we were introduced to a host of pets (3 dogs and 5 cats).  In the car a few days ago I was told that Emily’s mum and dad were dead and so she lives with her nanny and grandad.

I love the way that the stories are evolving, it shows how her imagination is developing and that she is beginning to understand the conventions of storytelling. Interestingly she sometimes tells me that Emily is just pretend.

A new study into imaginary friends at the University of Durham cited that children with imaginary friends are usually aware that others can’t see them and it is  the child’s behaviour  that makes other people  aware of their existence.   The imaginary friend  helps children to know that their knowledge is privileged.

The researchers presented children aged 4 -8 years with cards on which they wrote their own name, mum or dad and their teachers name. They then had 3 boxes, a large one labelled knows a lot, medium sized box labelled knows a little and a small box labelled doesn’t know anything.  The children were given questions such as

When you are ill how much does your mum know about you being ill?

When you are ill how much do you know about being ill?

The children with imaginary friends were most likely to describe themselves as having the most knowledge.  Having an imaginary friend gives children opportunities for self-examination.  The children with imaginary friends saw themselves as an authority on interior aspects of self such as dreaming and on those which adults could judge (illness, hunger and having fun). It could be that imaginary friends help children to understand that their internal world is private. (Davis,Paige, Elizabeth 2011).

If this is the case then how much more is going on in her little head that she decides not to share? A wonderful reason to get 3 year olds to start telling and recording stories.

parenting, Uncategorized

Dads Don’t Do Housework

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I have a new post for the Huffington Post Dads Don’t Do Housework.

This is a quote from my 7 year old daughter – I’d like to change her perception of what men and women do so I’d love some comments about dads that do housework.

Comments welcome here or on the Huffington Post site.

early education & play, parenting, Special Educational Needs

How to Encourage your Child to Wear an Eye Patch

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child with eye patchMy 3 year old has been wearing glasses for a couple of months.  She is long sighted and has a turn.  We were told some time ago that she may have to wear an eye patch and at our latest hospital appointment this was confirmed.

Since we were aware that she may have to wear a patch, we have been preparing her by reading the book The Pirate of Kindergarten (Richard Jackson Books (Atheneum Hardcover))

In the book the main character Ginny wears a cool, black Pirate eye patch.  My daughter has taken this book to pre-school and the childminder and liked the idea of being  a Pirate.  When the ophthalmologist put a patch on her eye it wasn’t like this at all, it was white, adhesive backed and she has to wear it under her glasses.

She has to wear it for 2 hours a day but was very scared when I  first tried to encourage her to wear it.

But I don’t like it.  I won’t be able to see properly if I wear an eye patch.

On the first day we managed 15 minutes with a lot of encouragement.  First port of call bribery,

If you wear it for a whole week I will buy you a special treat.

This helped us through the first hurdle of getting it on.

Secondly, reassurance; we sat together watching her favourite programme and had cuddles whilst I told her how brave she was.  After 15 minutes we removed it.

I have a friend whose daughter wears an eye patch, I asked her advice.  She said that she always reinforced the idea that by wearing the eye patch the other eye would get really strong.

I tried this and lo and behold it worked.  On day 2 she managed to wear it for an hour. When she removed it she said

My eye is really strong now.

Other tips 

  • Use a timer or set the duration of an activity or television programme as the point at which the patch is removed.
  • Do something that the child really enjoys when wearing the eye patch.  We have watched favourite programmes whilst having a cuddle, read stories and made a farm from cardboard boxes.  I ask ‘what would you like to do when you have your eye patch on?’
  • Decorate the patch.  The ophthalmologist gave us a book that featured children wearing patterned patches. Our patches are not patterned but they include stickers to decorate them .  Some of these are white for the children to colour in. I suggested my daughter decorate the patch with felt pens when she was colouring the sticker. Next time we are shopping I am going to let her choose stickers for the patch, some sparkly gemstones might go down well.
  • Keep reinforcing how brave they are, we all give her lots of attention when she is wearing it which she loves and constantly remind her that she is making the other eye really strong.
  • Let them choose when they want to wear it.

By day 3 she kept it on for 3 hours and wore it to her friend’s house.  On day 4 she woke up and said

Shall I put my eye patch on?

Do you want to?

Yes

She decorated her patch put it on before the school run and kept it on all morning which included a visit to softplay.  She isn’t worried about other children’s reactions (possibly helped by the book) and hasn’t had a negative reaction yet. I think if we customise it to the limit other children might even be jealous.

parenting, review, Uncategorized

Butlins Minehead Resort

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In my previous post I reviewed Christmas at Butlins.  Our wonderful family break at Butlins involved lots of activities that were not unique to Christmas.  Here I will explain what made Butlins such a great family holiday.

parenting, review, risk taking, UK

Climbing the Walls at Butlins

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On our recent visit to Butlins Minehead Resort, climbing seemed to be a recurrent theme.

My eldest daughter went on the zip wire and climbed the climbing wall with her dad. She had been very excited about climbing the climbing wall since she had seen it in the brochure. This was a real challenge but the instructors were excellent and with a bit of help from dad she made it to the top. The climbing wall, rope course and zip wire incur an additional charge but worth it for adventurous kids.

Not to be outdone by her sister my 3 year old climbed the tree climb.  She had been asking to have a go throughout the whole break and we finally relented.  The children have 3 attempts at reaching the top and ringing the bell and the fastest time of the day wins a cuddly parrot.  My eldest reached the top all 3 times.  We were howevever, disappointed that it didn’t appear that her time was being recorded anywhere. I didn’t think my 3 year old would get very far but I think you’ll agree that she did brilliantly.

In fact I think if she hadn’t have looked down she would have made it to the top.

Butlin’s climbing wall is suitable for children and adults aged 8+, the tree climb located in the Skyline Pavilion is suitable for any age.

parenting

The Tattooed Babies

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Me the Man and the Baby are currently running a competition entitled ‘the messiest kids’.  I couldn’t resist entering knowing that I have this amazing picture.

 This is my entry to the Appliances Online messiest kids competition, check out all the other entries over on Me, The Man & The Baby‘.

My 7 year old likes to draw tattoos on her legs with gel pens, some of them are very intricate and beautiful sketches of flowers, fairies and animals.  One afternoon I had left the 2 youngest alone for 10 minutes whilst I was tidying my bedroom when I heard the baby shouting.  I went downstairs to see what the problem was and was greeted by this.  My 3 year old thought it was a lovely idea to use a blue permanent marker pen to draw tattoos all over herself and her sister.  The baby had scribbles on her head, legs and belly (including colouring in her belly button) and back, and the 3 year old was covered from head to toe.messy baby

They were both scrubbed in the bath but the baby had a blue head for about a week after!

Different ways of mark making are encouraged in our house and I love it when the kids are creative, but this wasn’t quite what I had in mind.

Note to self – don’t leave pens in reach of a 3 year old.

competition, review, Uncategorized

The Land of Sometimes – Review and Competition

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The first thing that struck me when this cd arrived was the beautiful packaging.   The Land of Sometimes moves away from  standard cd casing, instead presenting it as a book  with captivating illustrations. Each song has an illustrated page in the storybook encouraging the children to follow the story. I had high hopes that the songs would also reflect the magical quality of the artwork.

The Land of Sometimes is an audio storybook and the characters are brought to life by original music. The story follows Alfie and Elise in their journey through the seasons.  They meet a number of colourful characters, and each one is brought to life with a song. The narration is simple and clear and the quality of singing and musical production superb.  I’d love to sing on the follow up if there is one. My 3 year old is a big musical theatre fan and she loved the songs dancing around her bedroom and attempting to sing along.

I generally find children’s song cd’s a bit irritating.  I have been playing The Land of Sometimes in the background while I write this post and it is surprisingly relaxing. The songs are well written and very catchy and move away from the simplicity of some children’s songs by introducing them to a number of musical genre including reggae, folk and jazz.

Put this one in your car and I’m sure you will be singing along in no time.

The Land of Sometimes website is also worth a visit. Children can find out more about the characters and places in the story, colour in some of the beautiful illustrations and download lyrics for the songs.

A beautiful gift for any child with a fondness for stories or music and something that can be treasured for a long time.

The Land of Sometimes is released on February 6th at a retail price of  £9.90 from Amazon.

One lucky reader can win a copy of The Land of Sometimes.

Simply post a comment telling me why you would like to win.

A Bonus entry is available if you follow my Facebook page using the link on the right hand side.

Winners will be drawn at random on 6th February.

Congratulations to the winner Sue Willshee

Terms and Conditions

This competition is only open to residents of the UK and Republic of Ireland

Only one entry per person

Winners will be notified by email and  will be posted on this site.

Loquax Competitions

parenting, Random Thoughts & Life Stories, Uncategorized

Watching Family Videos from 20 Years Ago

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I lost my mum 11 years ago.  My children have never met her.  They have seen photographs and I talk about her a lot but they don’t really understand who she is.

With this in mind I asked my dad if I could borrow the DVD footage he has of her so that I could show the children.  This starts in 1992 when we had our first camcorder.  I was 21 years old.

My expectation of watching the video was that it would be really difficult and that I would spend the evening blubbing into my pillow.  In fact it had the opposite effect. Watching a family party featuring my mother, grandmother and great aunts who are no longer with us made me feel really warm inside.  It brought back memories of large family gatherings and the characters within them that could be so easily forgotten.

Watching myself was interesting too.  I was surprised at how little I said even in comfortable environments.  I could feel how I might be perceived by others and it gave me a useful insight into myself.  Not that I think I still behave like my 21 year old self but it made me think a lot about the importance of communicating (something I have been reflecting on a lot recently).

It also made me think how lucky our children are.  They have the capacity to record their memories on film so that their children will not only be able to see what mummy looked like when she was young, but they will also be able to watch events and see how she behaved at them. They can preserve those everyday moments that are so quickly forgotten.  I wonder whether in the light of this our perception of history will change? We will have a clear picture of what it might be like to live as an ordinary person during a given age in addition to learning about key historical events.

It was a great exercise to watch these films. My children were fascinated by my parents’ wedding film (no sound as it was transferred from cine film).  They could see how quiet the roads were, how the cars were different and that my dad once was a young man with hair. There are members of my family that I only ever remember as being old, how precious it would be to see them when they were young, not only in photographs but  also how they behaved.  My parents told me what their grandparents were like, but I never had a clear picture.  My children will be able to hear my stories but also see what their grandmother and great-grandmother were like .  How precious is that?

One of the main reasons we made the decision to have our own wedding filmed was that the footage would include family and friends who over time would be gone and we felt it was a special way to preserve their memory.

I must make an effort to take more video of our family. Filming the everyday things and not just special events because they tell us so much and jog memories that would be more easily forgotten.

books, early education & play, parenting, review, Special Educational Needs

Books about Children Wearing Glasses – The Pirate of Kindergarten

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My 3 year old wears glasses. She has been getting on really well with them and feels quite special and unique.  She wears them because she has a turn and is long sighted.  The ophthalmologist thinks that her glasses will correct the turn, but there is a chance that she will have to have an eye patch.

When we were told she would have to wear glasses, I searched for picture books about children wearing glasses.  I bought the Charlie and Lola book ‘I Really Absolutely Must Have Glasses’.  This didn’t really fit the bill because although it is about going for an eye test and really wanting glasses, Lola doesn’t actually need glasses.

I gave up looking for a while until by  a stroke of fate I came across The Pirate of Kindergarten in a list of top 10 books for Special Educational Needs.  This hit the nail right on the head .  The story is about a little girl who is clumsy and sees in double vision unless she closes one eye.  After attending an eye test they tell her that most children don’t see in this way and  give her glasses and a cool eye patch .  She becomes the Pirate of Kindergarten.

My 3 year old is incredibly clumsy and often falls over and crashes into things.  I asked her if she ever saw 2 of things like the girl and she replied ‘sometimes’.  I don’t know whether she sees in this way, but the book gave me a valuable insight into what the world might be like through her eyes.

This is a lovely book for  a child who wears glasses and for a nursery, pre-school or childminder who is looking to increase their inclusive books. The illustrations are beautiful, the subject matter is handled sensitively and is told in a simple and sympathetic manner that young children can understand.

This post is a personal recommendation, no payment or product was received for writing this review.