I recently came across a wonderful episode of Mr. Rogers for parents, produced a very long time ago, when Kennedy was assassinated. The video and audio have a bit of a quality issue, but if you bear with it, I think the message is really a very important one for parents of young children to understand.
As is true with many parenting topics, two exercises can help us with clarity and a way to better support our child’s self-confidence.
Hello all, and welcome to my blog.
I’d like to spend some time validating the extreme difficulties parents are facing right now. In our preschool community, I’m aware that many families are struggling with the stress of having to refrain from the social experiences that they, and their children enjoy. Children of all ages miss their schools, their friends, their relatives, their teachers. Parents likewise are missing their relatives, friends and often their co-workers.
Here are some important factors we consider when choosing books for young children at preschool. Some of these items are more intuitive than others. Many children’s book authors are not Child Development experts, and so there is a wide array of ways in which stories are told to children, some are on target for what is most interesting and developmentally appropriate, but others are not-- many are not.
We use our expertise in Child Development to find the books that are more helpful for growing children.
Some factors we consider at Caterpillar Cottage when choosing books:
In March of 2020, when the stay-at-home orders were first implemented and the teachers and I shifted to serving our preschool families on zoom calls and with correspondences through our online community platform, we initially thought this would be very temporary. We knew we needed to get back to the classroom and playground to really provide the services that children and parents are looking for (we still know that). As the weeks went on, we started to hear from parents that children were struggling with the emotions of being away from friends and preschool.
Written by Heather Malley and Susan North
Ideally, the purpose of a schedule is to create a daily flow that is working for everyone (a negotiation of needs). It’s about ensuring that logistics and individual responsibilities are being balanced with free time and family togetherness.
Helping children be patient when adults are having a conversation is a topic that comes up often with parents of young children, and can be a topic that surfaces over and over throughout childhood.
Co-written by Heather Malley and Susan North
Parenting Without Being a Dictator or a Doormat
Our role as parent and teacher is to find ways to support children during their journey towards autonomy. The seeming complete helplessness in infancy starts us out with a role of meeting almost all their needs. We are faced with how to grow our parenting as our children grow, and how to help them become more autonomous as they get older.
We host coffee hours a couple of times a month for our preschool parents. During these coffee hours a fellow early educator and mentor, Susan North, and myself (Director at Caterpillar Cottage) present a topic and discussion that is relevant to parenting preschoolers, such as discipline, media, sibling rivalry or numerous other topics. This is also a time where parents have opportunity to bring up and discuss any topics that are pressing for them.