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Wow 2012 got off to a tough start for my husband and me. I hope yours was much, much better. We have been down with a flu bug and it’s after effects. Broken night’s sleep has robbed us of strength for the day. We’re both on the mend, but needless to say, we are almost a month behind in our internet work.

So this month I’m going to share some ideas from a newsletter that I get regularly called Mamapedia. You may like to join the list or just browse through the web site.

Many of you receiving this letter have children too young to begin doing chores, but keep these ideas in mind and hopefully chore time won’t become fight time in your home. For those of you with children old enough to help with chores, don’t be afraid to try something new. If what you have been doing hasn’t worked well, January is a good time to try a new scheme, learn new habits, and see big improvements.

Here’s to a better 2012! Continue reading 'Getting Your Family to Help'»

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With Christmas this month, it is a great time to wake to the wonder all around us. A friend wrote an article about learning from the Book of God’s Word (The Bible) and the Book of God’s Work (Creation and all around us). Don’t let this be an ordinary Christmas, take time and quiet enough to have an attack of wonder.

We can be sitting at home in our ordinary, undramatic life, when suddenly we are struck with an attack of wonder. It can begin in a moment as you watch your little one sleeping peacefully or when you stop to watch the pattern of raindrops on your window. A simple thought or the flash of a half-remembered dream may be the spark. Whatever it is, the effects can ripple throughout your lifetime.

Continue reading 'An Attack of Wonder'»

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November is American Thanksgiving. We really do have so much to be thankful for! What a good time to practice thankfulness ourselves and to teach our children the attitude of gratitude. Let ‘please’ and ‘thank you’ be common words in your home.

With Thanksgiving this month and Christmas and New Years soon, food is on our minds. There will be all kinds of foods around that only seem to appear once a year. So with all these strange foods and many more sweets around than usual, mealtime can become a battleground. Rather than try to make your toddler face new foods at every turn, why not try to keep it simple. Stick to the basics for your toddler as much as possible, even while you enjoy the treats of the season. There will be plenty more years ahead to encourage your child to be a gourmand. Continue reading 'Preventing Food Fights'»

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Dr. Kevin Leman wrote a wonderful book to help parents with discipline called, Have a New Kid by Friday. I reviewed some of the major concepts of the book and some specific examples of how it works for Toddlers. You can see the series of articles one at a time here:

Part 1- Acceptance, Belonging, and Competence

Part 2- Attitudes

Part 3- Character

Part 4- Discipline

Part 5- Temper Tantrums and Bedtime Battles

Part 6- Let Reality Be the Teacher and B Doesn’t Happen Until A Is Completed

done

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This month I’d like to explore some ways to look at areas of marital conflict. We have had several couples talk to us this month about difficult conflicts in their relationships, so I guess that has made this topic stand out.

When we have areas where we constantly clash or are offended, there is usually a deeper root. Since finding that deeper root involves opening up and being vulnerable, many couples never try. It is easier to grouse about the symptoms on one side. Or on the other hand, to bear the nagging of an annoyed mate rather than deal with the deeper issues.

Let’s peak in on one couple and see if we can discover some underlying causes and some possible adjustments that could make this marriage better.

Continue reading 'Dealing with Conflict in Marriage'»

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Some of you are already raising your kids in a multi-lingual home. Congratulations! Here’s some proof that it is worth the trouble. Some of you have your children in day care or preschool where a foreign language is spoken as well as English. Good job! If you haven’t considered exposing your children to a foreign language, read on. This article was published by GreatSchools.org

“I’m so atrocious at languages,” my Czech artist friend moans with her characteristic Slavic purr. “It vas always so harrrrd for me in school.”

Continue reading 'The Brain-growing Magic of Foreign Languages'»

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First Steps is always trying to provide you with good, reliable information to help you make choices for your children. When considering whether music lessons are important, you should take a look at this summary of research that has been done on the effects of learning to play an instrument. This article was published in GreatSchools.org

Here are seven areas where studies have shown the benefits of music to kids’ education and development:

Language processing: Several recent studies suggest that the brain processes music and language in similar ways, and that training in music may have benefits for language-related skills. The Neurosciences Institute reports that its research has “revealed a significant degree of overlap between music and language processing,” and in a 2005 study , researchers at Stanford University found that mastering a musical instrument improves the way the human brain processes parts of spoken language. The findings suggested that students who are struggling with language and reading skills could especially benefit from musical training.

Continue reading 'Music and Your Child’s Mind'»

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We live in Malaysia, a land of hot sunny days year round. But many of you live where the seasons change from icy cold to cool and comfortable to hot and steamy. Since it is hot weather for almost all of the First Steps moms, I thought I’d send some ideas for hot weather fun with your baby or toddler.

John J. Ratey’s new book, The Revolutionary New Science of Exercise and the Brain, reports how exercise can give your child the edge in learning. He is using this knowledge to help schools transform their PE programs and improve academics. Why not begin early and help your child develop a lifetime habit of being physically active?

Continue reading 'Out-doors in the Heat'»

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This is a continuation of a review of Mary Sheedy Kurcinka’s book, Raising Your Spirited Child. This book would have been such a boon to me in raising my two sons. They were good boys, but both were spirited in different ways. I felt like I was banging my head against a wall many days, especially before they could talk well and again when they were teenagers.

The section on persistence is a long section and much of it deals with children who can talk well enough to negotiate. Though this site is primarily for moms with younger children, there is no way to understand the principles without discussing the goal and general methods of dealing with persistence in older children first. Please bear with me, it is worth the journey.

“The difference between perseverance and obstinacy is that one comes from a strong will and the other from a strong won’t.”—Howard Ward Beecher

Continue reading 'Persistence'»