I (Kirby) was a very emotional and tenderhearted child. My dad was the opposite. He was a great guy, and a real person of integrity, but he wasn’t emotional and didn’t really understand emotions, and as a result, he didn’t really know how to deal with his heart-on-her-sleeve daughter. That was a painful way to grow up even though he was trying his best.

Maybe you have some areas where you and your child are so different it’s hard to comprehend each other. Energy level, emotionality, self-control, introversion, and impulsivity are just some of the areas where there can be problems with what psychologists term “goodness of fit” between parent and child.

Maybe you’re an exhausted mom, and you have a three-year-old that goes, goes, goes from morning til night, and all night if he could. Or maybe you need alone time to recharge, but your preschooler seems to need playdates every day. Or you’re an organized, controlled person, and your child has ADHD.

Learning disabilities are nobody’s fault. Your kids may have their gene pool stacked against them. The problem is, if you wait until those learning disabilities show up in school, you may have missed your window to rewire the brain so that those learning disabilities don’t impede your child’s progress.

I (Kirby) was trained as a Montessori teacher. In my training, I learned that Maria Montessori was the first female doctor in Italy. In her work, she came across individuals with intellectual disabilities. Her theory was that if she worked with these children young enough, and in the right ways, they would be able to pass the tests needed to go to school; they wouldn’t miss out on the opportunity to be educated. She developed systems of breaking tasks down into steps and teaching the steps. Much of my work developing learning games for children is based on Montessori’s principles.

I would never advocate that you sit your small child in a desk and try to do “school” with them. But incorporating delightful learning games target the early skills that become building blocks of later important skills. Children should be learning without having any idea that you are teaching them.

Do you have trouble getting your preschooler to cooperate? (That was a joke…of course you do—they're preschoolers!)

One simple change you can make--without much effort, without discussing parenting philosophy with your spouse, without brainstorming rewards or meting out punishments— can make a significant change in how cooperative your preschooler becomes.

And don't tell, but it will probably work on the adults in your life, too.

Three-year-old Jonathan would not go anywhere without wearing a hat. He called it his "helmet." One day, Kirby and Jonathan were out walking in the woods, and Jonathan realized that he had forgotten his helmet. He started to get panicky. Kirby quickly offered him the knit hat she was wearing because of the cold, and he calmed down.

After a while, Kirby asked him, "How do you like wearing my helmet?"

Jonathan replied, "I like it. It keeps me from falling down."

Kids like moving their bodies! Here are three fun activities that build flexibility, balance, strength, and coordination.

Crab walk: Have children sit with their knees bent, feet flat on the floor in front of them, feet apart. Next show them how to place their hands down by their sides, but slightly behind their backs. Then, they can raise their hips off the floor. Now they can walk forward, backward, and sideways, pretending to be crabs.

Parents of preschoolers are tired people. Caring for little ones is exhausting work. We have the best intentions of providing enriching activities for our kids, but when exhaustion sets in, good intentions go out the window. To help you plan for those times when you need something your child can do while you are lying down or sitting, here's a list of 20 activities.

1. Finger paint in shaving cream spread on a cookie sheet.
2. Play with play dough.
3. Read. If you're reading a well-known book, try changing some of the words or sentences and let your child have fun catching your "mistakes."
4. Play Chutes and Ladders or Candyland.
5. Put on music and let your child dance. Try giving her a bean bag and challenge her to dance with the beanbag on her head, between her knees, or on her elbow.
6. Play "red light, green light."
7. Play a following directions game. Give your child silly things to do.
8. Put out two or three items on a plate, then cover them up and see if your child can remember what he saw. Let him do the same for you.
9. Throw a sheet over a card table to make a fort. Let your child take toys inside.
10. Put a little tub of water on the kitchen floor. Gather up a bunch of objects and let your child test if they sink or float.
11. String big beads on shoelaces.

​When my oldest daughter was 15 months old, her dad built a sandbox. I (Kirby) knew it was going to be perfect! I could hang clothes out to dry while my toddler blissfully discovered pouring and measuring and building and dumping. Montessori had come to my house!

I gathered up my basket of wet clothes, led my little girl over to the new sandbox, and headed for the clothesline. But she just stood there, staring at the sand and looking puzzled. Then it hit me—she didn't know how to play with sand. So I abandoned my laundry and we spent time making mountains together and filling up her dump truck, pouring water onto the sand, and digging holes. After that, she knew what to do, and she knew how much fun it could be.

It's not just kids who haven't learned how to play with sand. Lots of parents don't know what to do with a sandbox either. So here's a list of activities you can do with your pre-schooler in the sand. All of these games build cognitive and physical skills too.

​This is a little different from our usual posts, but I want to talk about something that is a familiar face to parents—fear.

A friend of mine just had her second baby; her first son is a toddler. This week, she wrote about her worries that all the attention she is giving her baby will damage her older son. Will he feel unloved? Neglected? Will he start to resent the baby? Will this hurt him for life? Can she be a good mother to both kids? What if she's not doing enough?

Does any of that sound familiar? I bet it does, even if the thoughts are not about the same issue. From pregnancy through having adult children, we have fears about whether we've chosen the "right" approach or philosophy, about how our own personality, limitations, mistakes, and choices will affect our kids, and how in the world to handle all the curve balls our children throw at us. We often feel like we are groping our way through a dark, booby-trapped room, and it can be terrifying. And perhaps deepest of all, we fear that we are not good parents.

​It's back-to-school time! Like with every decision, parents agonize over preschool options. Do you send your child to preschool? What kind? Would your child be better off at home? Will they be ready for kindergarten if you opt out of preschool?

To help you think through your options, here's a basic checklist of what kids need to know to succeed in kindergarten. You can help your child learn these things at home, or they can gain this knowledge through any number of preschool programs.

Language and Pre-reading skills:

​If you're looking for a versatile toy with tremendous developmental benefits, a simple length of string, rope, or yarn is the way to go. Here are some games you can play with that string that address various areas of a child's development. Many of these can be played anywhere! Keep yarn or string in your purse or pocket to pull out when your little one is getting bored and needs something fun and challenging to do.

Balance and Coordination String, yarn, or rope makes a perfect balance beam. Stretch the string out on the floor, and show your child how to walk on it, putting one foot in front of the other. Your child can do lots of fun things on a balance beam:

• Walk on a curvy or zigzag line
• Balance on one foot on the string
• Do an arabesque (or scale)
• Jump zigzags back and forth across the string
• Hop on one foot either on the balance beam or from side to side
• Walk backwards
• Do forward rolls
• Walk on tiptoe on the beam

For more ideas, see this post.

​Bouncing spirals hanging from the ceiling fan. Paper dolls. Hula skirts for toys. Fringed placemats. Paper-plate angels. Toilet-paper-tube puppets. When you know how to use scissors, you can make the best crafts!

So how do you teach the skills necessary for all those fun crafts?

Introduce the Scissors

​Josie's (age 3) parents had been trying to teach her not to lie. They had been talking with her about lying, giving consequences for lying, and making a concerted effort to stop the behavior. One day Josie accidentally knocked over her milk. She quickly started cleaning it up, and said to her mother, "I don't know if this is a lie or not, but I spilled my milk."

Josie knew that a lie was something she shouldn't do…but she didn't understand what it was. Lying is a lot more complicated of a concept than adults tend to think. And even once a preschooler really understands the concept of true and not true, their brains aren't mature enough to always get it right.

Of course, we can still work with preschoolers to teach them to be honest. It's just that it's important to take a gentle teaching approach that is appropriate for their level of development. We'll give you some ways to teach preschoolers to tell the truth. But first…

​"Mommy, they're talking funny!"

"Why does she walk like that?"

"Why is his face brown?"

"My son (2.5) is finally into imaginative play. However, the characters aren't always nice to each other. They say things like "you're not my friend". Sometimes they are really bad and get put into the corner. Do I intervene when the characters are being mean and saying things I wouldn't let my son say?"

Sometimes our sweet babies come out with words and behaviors that we haven't taught them. It can be upsetting, and we wonder, "Do I need to nip this in the bud? Or should play be correction-free territory?"

Preschoolers like to "try on" words and actions that they have observed—whether from siblings, preschool, the playground, or tv. Imaginative play can be a safe place to do this experimentation. It doesn't mean they've internalized the behaviors, or that they'll start talking like that all the time.

​"One of the best predictors of whether a child will function competently in school and go on to contribute actively in our increasingly literate society is the level to which the child progresses in reading and writing. Although reading and writing abilities continue to develop throughout the lifespan, the early childhood years—from birth through age eight—are the most important period for literacy development." -- The International Reading Association

As you can see from the above quote, writing skills are crucial for ensuring success in school and life. The good news is that activities that teach writing are things that kids love to do!

The first step to learning to write is strengthening finger and hand muscles. For ideas on how to do this, see this post.

​The ability to write, once a child is old enough, largely depends on the finger and hand strength and the coordination he has developed in his early years. You would think this would happen naturally, but teachers and physical therapists are seeing more and more children whose hands and fingers are not up to the task. Even in third and fourth grade, teachers are sending home notes asking parents to please help their children to do tasks which develop finger strength.

Good news! There are many fun activities from infancy on that you can do with your child to prepare him for success in this important area of life.

Tummy Time

Does this sound familiar?

"Evan, put on your pajamas."

"Take off your pants and put on your pajamas."

​Grocery shopping with preschoolers isn't easy. We get goal-oriented about shopping and feel frustrated that our kids are slowing us down. But grocery stores offer a wealth of stimuli for a child's brain, and shopping is a great opportunity to help your little one learn and grow. Below are some ways you can engage your child while getting your shopping done.

Name everything. Everything you buy, hold it up and name it. Let your child hold, feel, and smell items. This will help your child's vocabulary explode.

Work on colors. Once your child knows lots of nouns, you can begin to work on colors. Hold up a banana and say, "Yellow. Yellow banana." Do this with anything that has a clear color. Show your child something red, and then say, "Can you find anything red?" Let them name everything they can find that's red. Play "I Spy." Keep in mind that kids under 3 probably won't remember what they picked, so they may say no to everything you guess!

​So often we think to let children feel textures with their hands, but we seldom think to let their feet experience new textures. Feeling textures with the feet is great for toddlers and preschool aged children. It stimulates the nerve endings in their feet as well as working on balance. And it is fun.

How Do We Play?

• Place several textures in a row on the floor. Examples: Soft spongy foam from packing or bubble wrap. The large bubbles make a loud bang when popped, so avoid those for toddlers and young pre-school aged children. It can frighten them and ruins the experience. You also could use a mesh bag that oranges come in, a terry cloth towel, clear cellophane that makes crinkly sounds when stepped on, fuzzy fabrics like velvet and fake fur, the bottom of a Styrofoam egg carton, or clean meat trays.
• Tape them down to avoid slips and falls.
• Have all ages walk barefooted on the textures. Some will walk on them over and over. Some will try it once. Some may be frightened. Don't force it.
• If the child doesn't like it at first, encourage them to feel the items with their hands. If possible, help them walk on at least one texture to see that it feels good. Introduce this experience again after about a week. They may love it. After an introduction to it, the second time seems more familiar.
• Don't use unpleasant textures. Sand paper and hot coals are not favorites. Remember, we want to build trust as well as balance. Experiment with different textures. You try walking on it barefoot, too. If the child sees you do it, he or she will know it is safe. It's fun. And it gives you a foot massage (which some people pay big bucks for).

Photo Credit: Adrian Dreßler cc

​Bubbles in a cup is a great summer activity for outside. It teaches concentration and attention span, strengthens the muscles of the mouth, provides a science lesson, teaches following directions, and is lots of fun!

Materials:

• Towel to soak up spills if inside
• Tray under the cup or bowl
• Flat-bottomed bowl or cup – one per child
• A little Liquid detergent for dishes in water
• Straw – one per child
• (for bubbles that float, add a little cooking oil)

Procedure: