Play-Learn-Grow-Repeat

From Friday Mom – Erin:
As I mentioned last week, Rory has started to develop some very strong preferences and opinions. At the moment, this is manifesting itself with outright breakdowns when he does not get his own way. When we tell him it is time to come in from playing outside on the front porch: red face, tears, and screams. When we tell him he can’t climb up the stairs carrying a beach ball: red face, tears, and screams. When we stop him from pulling the entire roll of toilet paper off the roll and tearing it to pieces: red face, tears, and screams.

Are you beginning to get the picture?

It’s not easy to turn away or sit and watch while he flails about in his mini-tantrums. But I know that giving in and letting him get his way, just because the alternative can be difficult, is not the right approach. My typical approach is to tell him, calmly, why it is that I did the thing that has made him so upset. I know he doesn’t understand (or maybe he can’t even hear me over the screaming); but my hope is that, over time, he will start to hear and acknowledge the reasoning.

We are also trying to work on patience. Such as when he comes up to me or his father with a book in hand and pulls on our legs to get us to read it, but we’re in the middle of brushing our teeth/drying our hair/or getting dressed for work. Although I have become a pro at reading books one-handed while putting on knee-highs, there are times when I end up telling him that he needs to wait a moment until mommy is ready to read.

I know both of these endeavors will take some time, but as long as I remember my own patience, we’ll all get through it just fine.

From Wednesday Mom – Janelle:
Disclaimer 1: There are many opinions regarding children and audio/visual content’s risks and benefits. The purpose of this blog is not to discuss what my kids watch or how often they watch it. This is my observation of HOW my son consumes content in our house and how it is dramatically different than even a few years ago.

Disclaimer 2: My husband helped me this week. This blog is from a conversation we had about our kids.

We are a tech savvy household. We have a broad taste for movies, TV and music. My husband has a wide collection of electronics including DIRECTV, Netflix, XM/Sirius Radio, Blu-Ray, DVD, DVR, WIFI, LCD(s), Laptops, Xbox360, iPhone and Apple TV.  It sounds excessive, and my husband could explain how it all works, but that is for another blog.  What’s interesting is how our children interact with all this technology. Jack doesn’t understand the difference between regular television, internet and web content. He knows he likes PBS Kids programming. He knows what “shows” he likes but he doesn’t care if he gets that show over the air, DVR or streaming from Netflix. More importantly, he doesn’t care if he watches it on the TV, the computer or my phone.  In his mind there is no reason to wait until a show is on.  With the tap of a finger or click of a mouse he can watch, interact or play immediately.

It is convenient to have children’s programming at your fingertips, but it can make for a very aggravating four year old. Jack has instant media gratification. For example, he plays with Thomas toys in his room and then wants to watch a Thomas program.  He will grab my phone and find the Netflix App and watch one of Thomas movies instantly. A few years ago he might have reached for one of his DVDs. Now he can get almost any children’s show ever made. This did not happen in my household growing up. We waited for a week to see our favorite show.  Therefore, we learned to wait for things.

The real risk we see as parents is Jack might think that all wants and desires can be instantly satisfied. If Jack wants lunch it takes patience to wait for me to make a PB&J sandwich. We have to remind him that things take time. Most of the world doesn’t offer instant gratification.  The good news is that every gadget and device has a common feature; the off button.