One of the tools of early childhood is forming a kind of discipline that not only allows children to  listen, but encourages it. It’s not always easy to stop the noise, the crazy kiddie behavior of rolling around and just not listening. Years ago, I borrowed an idea from a very exclusive school that I attended years ago when I was little. The school was Dominican Convent in San Rafael, California. One of the things the Sisters did was to issue “chords” to the girls who did well academically. There were gold chords for the top students; white chords for the honor roll kids and purple chords for those who tried hard. I always liked the way these chords looked. It was an “outward sign” to any and all that the wearer was a good student.

So I borrowed the idea and issued “chords” to all our Garden School students and we called them medals. They have really evolved over the years, and right now they are at their Rococo state of being.

Each medal has a child’s name in those white square letter cubes. They each have a pendant to hold down the original medal. They are a daily badge of honor. ” If I am kind, if I don’t make another child cry on purpose…if I listen and don’t disrupt the class, if I mind the rules…I keep my medal, and I get prizes, treats, and praises through the day. If I am not a good citizen, and I disrupt our group…If I behave poorly and make someone cry…if I am disobedient too many times…I will lose my medal for the day and treats and prizes will be out of my grasp for the day.” It’s a simple child friendly kind of discipline that works.

To the medal, all kinds of prizes are added…especially on Fridays. We have what we call Golden Bead Club…if I have kept my medal all week, I get a yellow or golden bead to add to my name and the original pendant. If I keep my medal for twenty weeks, I should have twenty gold beads…and many children have many more.

We also have awards that coincide with what we are doing at the Garden School. Lately, we have been working on Geography. Every Friday, every child who participated in Geography and was able to name a country in Africa, won a camel, little boy or girl, tent or star that represented a Geography Award! It has a double spun loop that keeps it on the chord. We gave nine geography pendants away today.  At the end of the Geography session which lasts about six weeks…the children who participated at all will receive a tiny globe to wear proudly on their medal chord.

Today we gave away copper keys that represent our best eaters.  We gave away hot air balloons that represent “up up and away with arithmetic” and red hearts that represent the best readers. And every week it changes…and teachers try to bring in the children who are trying, but may not get the whole thing right. This helps to encourage them.

So what do some of these “medals” look like? It depends. We have children who have very few items on their medals…and we have some children who have two strings full. It’s really all up to the child and his willingness to work at being a great asset to his school. There are lots of things to win every week…and some of our children win as many as six awards at a time.

We have Asia week coming up, and children will have the opportunity to earn a little Chinese coin to wear if they eat something on the field trip to the Chinese Restaurant.

We have Puzzle Day coming, and a tiny puzzle award will go to those who can participate in putting puzzles together.

We have a Valentine’s Day dance with hearts for those who choose to dance…

There are Play Awards, Citizenship Awards, Achievement Awards, Swimming Awards, Art Awards and many more.

What I like about the awards is the fact that they are outward signs to the child, to his family, to the other children that there are rewardable possibilities around every corner. It’s a sign that says, “By Crackie, I did that all by myself!”

Each and every medal is individual, precious to the child, and a great keepsake for the future. It reminds them what they have done at the Garden School during their stay with us. It’s a way of remembering a lot of positives and a lot of learning…and no child wants to hear…”Go hang up your medal, shame on you…you know better than that.” It’s really all we have to say…it drives the lesson of citizenship and splendid behavior home like no other lesson.

As we move away in time from the tragedy at Sandy Hook, I read a lot about what should be done about schools where children are obvious targets for anyone wanting to make them targets. Because children are vulnerable, we want to do something now…after the fact because, we, as a well wishing nation, failed. Without malice intended for anyone, we want to lock the door after the horse has gotten away.

I think more than anything else, sense and sensibility has to govern us here. Knee jerk, I told you so, peace platitudes, and the get tough attitudes just look ridiculous at this point.  When you look at the big picture of what happened, you see that the crime was committed out of youth, mental illness and anger.

So how do you stop mental illness and anger? You don’t. So what do you do to prevent this kind of thing from happening again. You can’t.

What happened at Sandy Hook is a byproduct of our culture or what’s left of it, and here’s what I mean:

Look at our entertainment. We listen to one comedian after another who pulls our very foundations apart and we laugh hysterically. Religion, family, marriage, home, children, schools, courts, are all made fun of day after day until we are so numb to it, we have lost a sense of righteous balance. Our television shows are crime, crime, crime, and our sitcoms are poisonous towards the same things the comedians are lambasting. We tune in day after day to hear the metronomic insidiousness of what amounts to hate, hate, hate, hate, hate, hate.

Our music follows suit.

Our heroes follow suit.

At the same time, when the hate manifests itself outside our favorite tech unit, we are all shocked? Really? What should surprise us is that more Sandy Hooks don’t occur.

We are desperate to give our criminals a hundred chances…to what? Play it again, Sam? We can’t stand our poor limited power to understand what  justice might be about. We despise punishment of any kind, and we have decided that what we used to call correction and admonition is great as long as we are not called to correct anybody or admonish anyone…ever! That’s because we can’t be honest about crime, offense, or bad behavior, because in the great new scheme of things, it really doesn’t matter…until it kills 26 people…then it matters…for a while.

A great and responsible culture leads…because it’s a great culture’s responsibility. But that doesn’t mean giving over the power to lead to those who say they will do it for us or  “buying professionals” to do it. Responsibility begins in every American home with every American. A fully responsible grown up has a duty to care for himself, his family and his community – that’s what it means to be a grown up in America!.

And that means teaching our children the same lessons of responsibility even if it means saying “no” to popular culture of hate, crime, and the love of negative behavior. Even if it means saying “no” to our friends and relatives who indulge in things that continue to crush the culture…even if it means publicly saying “no” when called to do so.

Last week, six hundred and fifty thousand people came from all over the country to march for life in the freezing weather to say “no” to abortion.  It was ignored by the news media. This March for Life was not about death, crime, or negative behavior. It was about a particular love for life…and the media response was to ignore it. That says a lot about what we as a nation are willing to accept docilely about the culture. It’s legal to starve the elderly to death in six states, yet the hue and cry about killing animals can not be silenced. It’s OK to kill some but not others…and we can learn who’s a target and who is not from the media. Is that good enough for you?

Can we really stop Sandy Hook from happening again by say, putting guards in our classrooms? Is that the answer? In some places perhaps that’s what it will take. In all places? I doubt it. Are more guns in more people’s hands going to stop anger? Probably not. What we can do is make a concerted effort to remind ourselves of the foundation of goodness most of us were instilled with from very early childhood and promise ourselves that if it’s not going to lead to goodness…then we should probably leave it alone. It means reflecting on what is good and what is not. It’s a simple policy, an easy, grass roots way of taking charge of self. That includes what we allow into our homes on TV, in movies, in music, video games and people who are vulgarians who only want to smite what is left of what we believe.

By letting others, and that includes the media and the government have the final say about our children, our homes, our rights, what we are doing is putting down our responsibilities at the feet of our keepers and returning to a kind of desperate childhood that makes us less human rather than more human.

While cleaning out a dozen places where I have stored everything from old stamp collections and Boy Scout paraphernalia  to dozens of stuffed toys and and doll houses and their furniture, to my own novels run off on tractor feed paper, every kind of craft supply and even clay sculptures made by someone…well you get the point; I wondered again just why I was doing this when it made me so sad. I guess it’s the general way I view being in the world.

I’m a big picture gal. I have kept this stuff year in and year out…some of it for thirty-eight years simply because I have the room to store it, and the big picture was a kind of youthful status quo – they aren’t THAT far from the nest…but they are. The status is changing now with my age, so the “quo” must go, go, go!

As I add years to my sixty, I am realizing that no one is going to claim this stuff, and although it’s cute and has a memory attached to it, it makes the “bigger picture” all that more difficult to manage and to care for. The bigger picture is, quite frankly, a home that’s manageable in my later years that no longer looks like a store house. A home I can share with Terry that we will enjoy and not feel burdened by. How lovely it would be to open a dresser in one of my three guest rooms and not find it crammed full of non usable stuff. How nice to be able to vacuum a carpet and not have to move six boxes of 35 year old Halloween costumes!

As I was sorting and pitching and gathering for M Teresa’s, I realized that I have always been a big picture gal. I have always lived not by the moment, or the day, or the week, but for the greater good. At any point in time, you could ask me why I was doing what I was doing, and I would stretch out to star depth and probably say, “because it will eventually help my children to get to heaven.”

It’s no different with the Garden School…we, as a faculty, as a place, are helping the next generation get a good start that will make them good people and great parents! I want to give them something that they can take with them when they leave the Garden School that has become part of their personhood..their formation. Formation is a big big word for me.

That’s why our program at the Garden School must be more than one moment by moment activity after another. It must be about more than what is happening now or in five minutes. It can’t be flight by the seat of our pants or made it up as we go just to get by the moment. The whole program from the beginning has been a concept in early child care, and as it continues to develop, we need to remember our roots and remember what we must be about!.

First premise: safety.

Second premise: formation of body, intellect, and social awareness

Third premise: Activity!

The whole concept of the Garden School is to be a “little school for little people.” And that is no simple task. Approaching this concept from a big picture point of view means asking, “How much CAN we do; what are the possibilities in everything we do.

So when planning a calendar, an event, a play, a reading class, a menu, a summer program, an art program, the big question is, “How can this create a kind of positive outcome that will not only serve the child now but later, and serve the teacher with success?”

Does everyone come from a big picture point of view? Not by a long shot. Most people come from a much shorter perspective, and that’s not a bad thing altogether because too many big picture people would never agree and chaos would ensue. But at the same time, one person’s big picture perspective must be in a position to guide the shorter perspectives, because shorter perspectives will often dangle in space and time without continuity, without a reason to be and another kind of chaos is born and reborn.

Who has a big picture point of view? People who look at all the gathered moments for the greater good and continually ask questions about how it all fits together. How does this reading class fit into the general idea of what we are trying to do here…will it make them independent and stronger? Will reading propel them into their future with joy and understanding? How do the plays bring the social elements of the school into a focus that will build cohesiveness, trust, and group behavior while bringing out the star in all of us?  How does the afternoon class gather the activities of the whole day, the week and the month together and render a “picture,” through art, of what we are continuing to learn together? How does a summer program teach and build and establish the trust needed to teach the next school year while it is fun, and active?

It takes a lot of planning; it takes a lot of think time outside of school; it takes a lot of maneuvering and changing up and realizing that the status quo is not a safety zone, but a war  zone.

Everyone is going to have their own opinion about food simply because food is such an important part of being alive. For most of the population, eating is a pleasure. Yes, I said most of the population. There is one “body type” according to William Sheldon, that does not enjoy eating…the ectomorph. The ectomorph body type is small head, small hands and feet, usually introverted rather than extroverted, and who builds muscle less fast than the other two body types, namely the endomorph and the mesomorph.

The ectomorph thinks about food less often than most…can’t seem to finish a whole serving of anything, is naturally enviably thin and sometimes lives on high calorie, extra sweet foods because they don’t have to chew as much. Eating, after all, for the ectomorph, is a chore. One ectomorph told me once, “If I never had to eat again, it would be great!”

But getting back to the whole concept of opinions about food, most people have them, and they come in all flavors! As someone who has been interested in food most of my life, I’ve gone through a metamorphosis more than once and changed the way I think about food on many occasions.

As a young mother, I was interested in bringing to my home the very best food I could. It was much different than what I had grown up with, because my parents were restaurant eaters…if my mother was not taken to dine at least five nights a week, we all knew it,and so, I had to start from scratch – no pun intended. I had to either buy or make everything we ate. I learned quickly that “store bought” foods like cake mixes, Hamburger Helper and frozen and canned foods were MUCH more expensive than scratch and fresh. With an extremely short budget, and lots of mouths to feed, I worked tirelessly to find the best and the most abundant food I could.

There was the shift from white flour to whole grain…from buying things like noodles and bread to making my own. I’ve made just about everything over the years…from jam, yogurt, bread, refrigerator biscuit dough, yeast, wild bird food, to grinding my own flour and making my own mayo.

When I started offering day care in my home, I began to be interested in what other people’s children needed to eat. I was appalled by children’s preferred diets and their willingness to go hungry rather than eat. One family came in and said, “She only eats Barbie cereal.” One child ate only ice cream. One child vomited everything he ate…he ate only oatmeal.

By the early 1980’s, I began to read extensively on different foods, what each would contribute nutritionally, how foods worked with the body, what a child needs for good health, how many calories, from what food groups they are needed, how to make things children actually want to eat, who will be the eaters, who will be the dissenters. It occurred to me that since my day care children ate most of what they would eat at my home, then morally, my home better offer those children enough quality calories to not only keep them healthy, but make them healthy as adults. Food, after all, is an investment in our health forever.

The biggest problem I encounter both past and present is a general lack of support – a real boredom when the topic of food is even brought up. There is generally little interest from young parents just getting their feet wet with nutrition and feeding their first child simply because it is all so daunting. The world of food seems huge and unsafe and so failure ridden, many parents run screaming into the night rather than face anything more complicated than the packaged food section of the grocery store, the stove, and the table.

And the working parents of multiple children are generally so exhausted from all they have to manage, they usually look for the easiest “something to eat” which as often as not, is filled with empty calories.

Feeding other people’s children and teaching good table habits is not easy. It takes years of trust and habit. Feeding children takes understanding of the human conditions balanced with compassion. OK, most people are not going to go home from work every single evening and make a big scratch and nutritious dinner for their family. First, there is no time, and second, the children are too tired to eat by the time a big dinner is put on the table. Most children will eat ninety percent of what they are going to eat by 4:30. That’s where good child care comes in…and that has been my focus for thirty years. What will they eat balanced on a scale with what should they eat is the constant push-me-pull-you!

It’s no longer my job to make the food that my school children will eat Monday through Friday, because I’ve passed the baton to my daughter Molly and Miss Lisa. It’s time for the younger women to try their skills and knowledge. But that doesn’t mean I’ve stopped thinking about the kitchen, reading, writing, and experimenting with different foods and ways of preparing those foods. Will I ever gain respect from my work and interest? That’s left to be seen, but I will always be interested in food as not only a gift from above, but a means of health, a natural delight…and one of life’s entrusted pleasures!

“You don’t listen to me,” is a most offensive statement – both coming and going. But the truth is, few people really listen. I once made the statement that “He listens like a man…for yes, and the dinner chime.” But the statement fell on deaf ears.

Being able to listen is a skill. Animals listen. Every morning when I pull into school, the barn cats hear MY car and come running. When I pull in in my husband’s car, they are not near as attentive. My car means food…they can hear the difference between the engines, and they can hear the difference because they listen.

“What did I say?” is a perfectly legitimate question in any argument. A good listener will be able to repeat what the other has said, because he has listened. It means that somebody has put someone else first. Letting someone else have the floor to say out loud what it is that is important to him or her is the hard part. Few people are generous enough, or well meaning enough to really WANT to stop, look and listen to someone struggling for a say.

A poor listener is like talking to an uncaring stranger. You can say the funniest thing, the most apt thing, make a statement that should be printed, and the poor listener will simply say, “Uh, huh,” and either change the subject or end the discussion. This poor listener is called a bore. This poor listener never remembers what you tell him…can’t remember to do the things you’ve asked, and never seems to really want to talk about much of anything except himself.

We can go on and on about listening, but the object of bringing all these things up is simply that the lack of listening power begins someplace and interestingly enough, it begins at age three. At three, a child begins to listen because he or she has discovered that other people are interesting.

Children who don’t listen are probably absorbed in their own little world. That could come from several things. On the down side, abuse, lack of feeling safe, too much parent time and not enough child time, and on the upside, repairable developmental delays and selfishness. As a child who grew up in an abusive home, I know that not listening meant I was safe – even for a few moments. As a child who grew up with all parent time and no child time, I developed an extraordinary imagination which had to have a place to go, so I blocked out the world. I could block out just about anything and it helped that I was strongly hard of hearing only able to get about three words in a sentence without lip reading. I grew up not listening as a formula for emotional, physical and moral survival…but that’s not the plight of most children.

Most children who should and don’t listen come from loving homes where mom and dad just don’t realize that they should be demanding about conversation, and this is how it happens:

When the same basic care a child receives as an infant is still going on at age six, you can bet that there will be some delays.  Mommy and daddy are still carrying junior, still chasing after him without dialogue, still telling him everything he needs to know…silently dressing, feeding, bathing, and junior is in his own little world, and mommy and daddy don’t even notice it.

By the time a child is two, language skills should be taking place with a fever. A two year old should be able to have a relatively in depth conversation using hundreds of words. That only comes about when constant and comprehensive conversation takes place. Conversation isn’t telling junior, but asking junior questions, and junior responding in full sentences. Language is a practiced skill. People talk TO a baby, but people should talk WITH a toddler. Talking WITH a very young child allows the child to understand that other people are interesting, that what he or she has to say is also interesting and valuable and there is an exchange.

At age three, the child who understands the give and take of language will be able to listen to learn. He or she will understand concepts quickly and with a broader world view simply because he knows how to listen.  The child who has not learned to enter into a conversation will not learn with the same energy or the same desire. He or she has instead developed the habit of self absorption and learning…giving someone else the floor… is on the far back burner.

Re-training a child means an all out effort to engage the child in conversation – a lot.  Quiz, quiz, quiz, and then STOP, LOOK, and LISTEN for the answer. Prod the answers…demand response, and in your spare time…sing with your child.

Give your child sequencing activities:

“Go to my dresser and get my red sweater and bring it to me.” A two year old should be able to do this.

“Go into the kitchen and bring mommy a spoon.”

“Go into my study and get me the red box on my desk.”

Children who listen can sequence activities.

More important than reading to a child is a lively conversation around the dinner table that engages a whole family. It’s not JUST about the child; it’s about the whole family. “I’ve told you about my day, Johnny, now what toys did you play with at school?” Then wait for an answer…a whole answer in a whole sentence.

When a child shrugs and gives a one word answer, repeat slowly what you want. If he does not listen and refuses to engage, send him away from the table. He’s escaping what he should be doing, and that won’t correct the problem. Be sure to ask questions a child can answer. Don’t ask “why” questions. A child under seven can’t answer them. Don’t be too general…ask about specific people or things. “Who is your friend?” What toy do you like best?”

Increasing listening skills is not hard. It takes about three months of work. And when those three months are over, I will promise that you will see a remarkable new little person emerge; one you will treasure.

When I was a child…about four years old…my brother and I decided that we needed some new friends. We had just moved into our new house on the island, and the next logical step to four and five year old children was to find kids to play with. We marched down Eucalyptus Road to Golden Gate Avenue. The first house we came to produced friends. A nice girl named Barbara for Tad, and a nice girl named Cathy for me. These childhood friends have lasted fifty-seven years. Cathy was my maid of honor even though I moved sixteen times before I was married. If I picked up the phone right now, I could talk to her for an hour. Our lives have taken different roads, but the friendship remains intact.

Making friends in childhood is an important part of the whole early childhood experience.  We find that children who come from big families, who go places to play and who are allowed to speak to other children have a wonderful advantage. They learn very early what attracts other people, and they learn quickly how to engage others so that friendships abound.

Friendships are an important part of growing up and growing old. Children learn early that friends add to life as no other thing can, especially when they come in all sizes, shapes, ages and colors. What children demonstrate to adults is that most people can be a friend even if it is for a short few hours while we play at the park. Children are rarely biased about differences. Someone who is engaging about play will have no trouble making or keeping friends. It’s the keeping of friends that is the hard part because our lives change and grow and take on other friendships that carry us away.

One of the things we notice is the style of friend making. Boys tend to play in a group…everybody plays…they don’t usually pair off. A hoard of boys will descend on an activity and as the activity moves, so moves the hoard. Girls, however, have a best friend. It might change every day, every hour, every play period, but you will rarely find a girl who isn’t playing with her best friend right now!

As someone who moved every six months or so as a child, my friendships developed quickly. I was always the “new kid,” so I had to barge in and quickly form a lifetime of memories. And as a result, I savored those early friendships. I knew that the friendships had no roots and would most likely be a momentary part of my life, and then they would be gone.With no relatives in my life that filled that family void, I tended to make friendships quickly, and I tried furiously to save the best of them over the years. And that’s not easy. People’s lives move forward, and they don’t necessarily take you with them. Children finish in one school and move onto another. Sometimes friendships are pulled apart forever with a brief memory from time to time about someone they once really liked. But sometimes they do last, and that’s what we want for our kids at the Garden School.

I remember a group of five girls at the Garden School a few years back who were various and sundry best friends through the week…they all moved to different schools, but they all still keep in touch and that’s important. And it’s important that their parents are friends as well, and that’s even harder. It takes spending time at school.

That’s one of the reasons for all the parties at school. Unfortunately, most or our parent guests bring their own friends and family, and the conversation stays in the family. I have thought many times to limit the activities and parties to one family member. This would force parents to talk to one another and hopefully strike up friendships. I can’t tell you how many times parents have created “best friends” from a chance meeting at a Garden School party!

What we hope for our beautiful children is that they make life long friendships at the Garden School. That the never ending story of friendship will start with the basic elements of friendship: caring, trust, independence and joy. When someone is filled with joy and willing to offer that smile, that affection, that hope, and there is a mutual exchange of trust and care and a respect for one another’s independence, friendships will flourish. They can’t miss.

Discipline is a wonderful thing…because it produces the power to do just about anything successfully. Discipline is learning to put the selfish self second. Discipline is learned. There is, like anything else in life, a time to learn it. That time is in early childhood. Early childhood begins at conception and ends about age eight. The lessons begin when a child first hears the word “NO.”  And that “NO” is shocking! “What do you mean I’m not God!”

There are plenty of early childhood experts who say, “Never say ‘no’ to a child.”  And for those poor kids in the care of the never say nos, the lesson will eventually and brutally come, and at such an enormous expense, that it will be earth shattering. Children who spend their very young years pretending that they are invincible and limitless will get a rude awakening in a public school, a church setting sans parents, and in any public when they are asked to leave because their behavior, of which “no” plays no part, is so horrendous, nobody wants them around.

Many children come from an only child status in homes to the more populated environment when they go to school and get a first awakening when they have is that there are many voices clamoring for the same attention that they receive without waiting in line at home. It’s startling for some children. There are lines, waits, turns to take, things to share…how well a child will do will depend on how often they have been disciplined at home to wait, to share, to take turns in the course of normal living even in smaller households.

Problems arise when parents fear making a child temporarily or momentarily unhappy with a disciplinary “no.” Parents who fear the word “NO,” and who refuse to say no to their beloved godess or young god, have children who learn to smile on continuing behaviors that could be destructive or harmful. A child has what I’ve always called the mini age of reason ability. He or she knows that what they are doing and getting away with is wrong, and some children delight in that, and they like it so much that they become experts in avoiding discipline; they avoid being told “NO” by ignoring it, crying at its abrupt sound, or even throwing a tantrum when an adult says, “NO.”

This lack of parental care begins as early as under a year, and could stay with a child right up to public school and even beyond. I have known children who have had to be put into the special education room for psychotic behavior because their early start was so permissive, they couldn’t cope with a world with limits. Talk about unhappy children!

Saying “No” to a child is a gift, a blessed gift of parent to beloved child. It’s the fairest of the fair in matters of love and affection, because it keeps a child on a positive social road, a happy road. The discipline of being told “No” does not break a spirit; it’s not meant to. No is meant to instruct…it guides, it makes right what is not right at the loving hand of a parent who truly cares.

Constructive discipline begins when parents first tell a baby that he or she cannot put a nail file found on the carpet in an electrical outlet. When parents tell a child he or she cannot throw food onto the floor either at home or in a restaurant, or cannot have their lights on at night, or must not throw a tantrum in public, parents are doing what they are naturally charged with: being the parents! “No, you may not have the treat…your behavior does not warrant a treat!”

It’s the Christmas Season, and there are plenty of things that children will want to touch, to eat, to play with and do, and here is where an adult in charge can teach. “We look with our eyes not our hands.” It’s an initial disciplinary statement. It’s not punitive. Instruction should be positive most of the time, and it is when it comes before a problem rather than after it. And then you explain why we don’t touch. With this approach, parents are befriending the child on a much more mature level…they are sharing…they are creating a closeness…an understanding bond.

When parents don’t initiate the direction that “We look with our eyes and not our hands,” the child is free to act without knowledge, without direction, and then must be reprimanded if his knowledge or understanding falls short of the public demand. The parent, in public, is always the child’s teacher…his VERY interested teacher, and the teaching words come before the child can make a mistake.

The job of “NO” belongs by right to parents because they are in charge of their children. It’s part of the job of turning unformed people into formed people, and that doesn’t happen if children are never told that some things are not permitted. And remember, if there are no “NOs” then the word “Yes” is greatly diminished!

Parenting is not easy. Formation of a person who will live for all eternity is no laughing matter to be done when nobody is looking…It’s a full time job and one that comes with little rest and less satisfaction unless parents do a favor for the whole family…instruct with care…and learn the word “NO” and share it with their children.

It’s been four months since I took on the task of teaching reading. My class is not a regular class of five and six year old kids. I started with twenty four, five and six year olds who were ready to read. They had already learned their letters and sounds and were ready to start putting it all together.

I hadn’t taught reading for a long time, and getting back into the groove of daily lessons was not a thing I was crazy to do. I’ve avoided the classroom in favor of the kitchen simply because the kitchen is way easier than the classroom.  I thought back to the teachers who had taught for me before, and like anything I do myself, I learned from their successes and their mistakes. I could have taken the easy route and done the workbook thing, but somehow, that was a life worse than classroom death, so I did something different.

In four months, I’ve written seven books for my kids based on like sounds. We took a classroom break when we did the play.

In the beginning, I put together a work bag that contains folders for work, notes and a parent calendar, crayons in a cheese box so there is some integrity to keeping them pristine…lol… a pencil and a sharpener, clay for strengthening little hands, a laminated writing strip and a marker, a name strip with their name printed correctly, a tablet of children’s handwriting paper, and lastly, the book…and laminated cards with all the words from the book. These building cards are so that tired hands can make sentences without writing them.

In four months, we have learned about 100 words, and we have learned to write a sentence. At first, I gave regular spelling tests, but then, because I am who I am, I thought spelling tests are a waste of time and energy…put your words to use by writing a sentence with what you know. If you can’t write a sentence, figure it out.

We have learned to really read. That pleases me to no end. It’s one of the three childhood freedoms that children absolutely need: toilet training, reading and operating a car. We don’t teach driving…lol.

Why have the children learned so quickly? It’s fun. If it isn’t fun, it’s not worth wasting time on. I say that pragmatically…these are VERY young children. They need to have fun and PLAY, and play is something that leads to completeness by way of learning. Fun teaches…it doesn’t simply exist…it’s a project…it’s a life bonus…it gives pleasure, but not like a mirror, like a run, like being able to say…”Oh, I get it, I can do that…and I can do that all by myself.

For homework over the past four months, I’ve left the learning up to the kids. I stepped in at one point and asked parents to make the kids use the word cards more, and that boosted the learning with a giant leap. They had, after all, a lot of tools, a lot of things they could choose from to do in the evening. Interestingly enough, they chose to do it.

What makes kids want to do this? Some of it has to do with the newness of it. You might say it’s the tool bag. It’s theirs…all theirs…like a present with new stuff… And  the books were readable without a lot of struggle. It’s easy, it’s quick and it’s not demanding, but it is retain-able even to a four year old. Primarily, it’s because parents like the program too. It does not take hours of homework. It takes fifteen minutes while mom is cooking, or assembling dinner. The child is mostly independent and the materials are cute, indestructible and contained….no mess.

Now what I am finding is that these kids can read anything I write, so I am moving over to very early readers just for the vocabulary words. I will be sending a book home with each child that allows him or her to “figure it out” and bring it back and share it when he can. There will, of course, be some human competition…that’s to be expected. Then the child can pick two words from his book to share with his or her friends. I will make word cards for them to keep with all the others. I’m thinking by March, I will not have to make word cards anymore, and they will be reading just about anything.

The other thing we will be launching is a new creative writing project because if you can’t write about what you have read about, you don’t really know what you’ve read! Since all those spelling tests that we wrote sentences for were actually fun for the kids, we will start to “journal.” Now I hate journaling because I think it’s narcissistic. So we will be creating a character to write about. This will allow a lot of dialogue and a lot of description. It will allow practice of handwriting, sentence structure, and word choices.

So, where to go from here? Well, it’s time for the little kids to start a reading program. Not sure how this is going to work, but because these kids are where the readers were last August..6 they need to progress. I’ll keep you posted.

In the meantime, great big kudos go to the children and their parents. It’s been a dream come true in communication skills!

Just finished this article Hunger

I wondered when our First Lady was taking funds from food stamps to fund her new nationwide school lunch program why we were tolerating going from a program that was poor (USDA Child and Adult Food Program) to one that was poorer – hers – but life got in the way, so I didn’t think much about it again until I read that not only is Mrs. Obama’s lunch program much more expensive for every child, but the amount of food has been drastically decreased and the choices are not even in the ball game for children’s palettes.

So what gives? Jumping on the “children are obese” bandwagon is not as easy as it seems…I know; I joined the Evansville Coalition and was promptly “shelved” for greener pastures when I tried to do something real and concrete for our city’s nutrition. I got the impression that we were at the Evansville Coalition to spend money not to accomplish anything. So when I read all about Mrs. Obama’s just “adding more fruits and vegetables” scheme to reduce obesity, I smiled and thought, I hope this is “shelved” as well because the project is typical of someone who has not cooked, cared, and understood the problems of feeding today’s school children.

When you ask a group of forty children, “How many of you ate at McDonald’s last night?” And nearly every hand goes up, you know you’re up against a mighty fortress…and it isn’t God.

I’ve fed children for over forty years, and successfully from what I can gather when I run into my little kids grown up years later and they still remember. I’ve trained a lot of cooks, and taught my daughters how to cook with love, care and wit. It takes two things…a brain and a heart…not one to be outdone by the other.

First thing to remember when feeding children is calories. School children MUST have enough calories to be healthy, awake, and function as students. Those calories must be desirable…healthy, available, and fun. The whole concept is a balance between what children SHOULD eat and what they WILL eat while we are counting those calories. Remember, little kids struggle with 1200 calories a day while a big strapping football player needs more like 4000 calories. The same school lunch is not going to work for every child.

Where do these calories come from? First on the food agenda is milk. Three glasses equals 300 calories. But they have to drink it, so if nothing is ever offered BUT milk, it will at last become a habit. Every year when school starts, the only children who drink their milk readily are the children coming back to the GS for a second or third go-round. None of the new children drink their milk. That shows us something quickly. The calorie base or foundation for balance and nutrition is in trouble in nearly every child. By teaching children to drink their milk, we are actually fortifying their diet with a brain food. We are re-structuring their health based on a habit of “always finishing our milk.”

Next on the agenda: grains – noodles, bread, rice, oats etc. By eliminating exclusively white flour foods, we are returning two things to a child’s diet…the idea of being satisfied at the table and adding the nutrition that comes from whole grains. Children will gravitate away from the chore of eating if the food served is perceived to be more than they can handle. The idea is to make whole grain foods something they really want to eat. By serving a double sized fun food made with whole grain in the morning, a delicious and familiar one or two at lunch and one knock ’em dead home baked one at snack, as many as five grains can be loaded on the calorie scale successfully.  That’s 500 calories…we’re getting there!

Protein: It’s hard to manage more than a fast food fantasy food with a lot of children, especially children who come from families who don’t cook. Meat is difficult for many adults, so the idea with children is to use other proteins and gradually manage to win their trust so that they eat anything you make. At the Garden School, we have a beef day, a chicken day, two meatless days when we serve cheese based, egg or fish meals, and a pork day…this allows us to both keep the budget under control while it allows the children to have the varying nutrition found in varying meats, cheeses, eggs and fish. We make all our own meals, so we design our lunches to meet the needs of the children in our care. That’s another 200 calories..

The fruits and vegetables are the easiest part of the meal plan. These are the things children grab first to eat. But they have to be first class and look good. Serving a variety is the key. One cooked veggie like sweet fresh carrots…one salad filled with extras like cheese, crunchy stuff and a great dressing! A cherry critter…a kind of cherry brown Betty…fresh grapes…raisins…melon…apples…buttered corn…fresh green beans…the list is endless, possible and doable.

When a child sits down to a child’s meal – a plate filled with really healthy, well thought out meal components, children will thrive, they won’t be hungry, and the expensive, pre-made empty calorie items they are in the habit of eating will be second on their list of wants. At the same time, they can’t sit down to a plate filled with celery and carrot sticks, mixed frozen vegetables and half an apple and find anything satisfying, fun or enough calories to be “full.”

Someone has to care, and overworked cafeteria staff, teachers, state officials, and principals are not the target here. They have other tasks to accomplish. If parents are not cooks and take children for fast food half their evenings, the habit of eating well is not going to happen. But it can start, and it can start in early childhood, in preschools, family day cares and centers. It starts small…it starts with three glasses of milk every day…it travels over to homemade and enrichment of whole grains…it sneaks a peek at two good proteins a day – even egg and cheese…and then as much quality fruit and vegetables as a child will consume.

Health is worth every penny…

Every year new children come to school for the first time. There are always some children who don’t speak. They are unusually quiet. In class, they have voices softer than a whisper. Their answers are one nearly inaudible word. So teachers watch and listen and wonder. When the newness of the adventure of school wears off, every child comes around to talk to teachers at recess. It’s then that a teacher discovers speech difficulties.

The categories for concern are:

A child simply does not make sense. They babble some words together in a jumble and then stop. It’s not that you can’t hear them, and there are words…but there is no sense to what they have said.

A child talks to you and the mispronunciation of ninety percent of his or her words is so poor, they can hardly be understood.

A child cannot speak in sentences. He or she is still using hands and one word commands or pleas.

A child cannot respond to a question or a direction with any competency.

Base-line reason behind most of these problems? Lack of practice talking.

Culprits? Cell phones, television, and parents and providers who don’t communicate.

When parents spend the majority of their child/parenting time on their phone, the child will suffer a speech loss. When television is “chronically” on during the day as a “diversion” for kids, children will suffer a speech loss. When parents don’t speak WITH their child, the child will suffer speech loss.

Socio-economic classes used to be defined by vocabulary and speech patterns. Accents and local colloquialisms were the American norm. And that is a sign of families spending time with each other. Children learn to speak because of interaction with family members. The “word stretch” was a gift of educated parents who educated their children. When television became the teacher along about 1955, children started to pick up a “television” language, but television was available for a certain number of hours a day. Children still mostly played outside with their siblings and friends, and parents turned off the television at family times and actually spoke to their children.

When families became limited to one child who had no one to play with, the television became a kind of babysitter. When this happened, a syndrome called “a processing disorder” started to rear it’s ugly head. Children could understand, they knew what was going on, but they could not respond intelligently because they were never asked, and parents who used television to this degree, didn’t even notice.  You see, TV does not expect a response, and even if it gets one, it doesn’t care, so learning HOW to respond at the appropriate age is not learned while parents don’t notice.

And now that cell phones dominate many parents’ lives, there will be more difficulties because children need interaction with a parent for speech development – and not the kind of two second responses while they concentrate on one liners from friends who aren’t really friends. Conversation, the ability to discuss a topic or have a back and forth discourse MUST come before a child is five or a child will struggle all his life. That gives parents five years…and those five years come to a close far too quickly.

Discovering the fact that a child has a limited ability to speak, does not mean racing off to the doctor, speech therapist, psychologist or minster. It means re-arranging one special little time during the day EVERY SINGLE DAY so that the child can catch up. This time is meal time.

Meal time…whether it’s breakfast, lunch or dinner or even a snack just before bed, is the most important time during the day for family discussion. It’s the time families should turn off the invading television, cell phones, radio, music equipment, and house phone, and sit down, because sitting means you are not ready to leap away, and TALK to your child. It’s a time to expect a response. To have a child practice speaking back at you. Don’t dominate the time…expect a response…come to expect sentences in return, and spend some time laughing, smiling, and showing the child that this time means something to YOU!

Many studies have been done that show that even more than reading to a child, meal time discussion is more important for a child’s social, emotional, spiritual development than any other single family activity. Children learn who their families are, what they think, what’s important in their lives when families talk to one another in the casual meal time activity that meal time should be. Active participation is important for every single family member.

So…is a child’s speech important enough to turn off the world and show your child that he or she really is the world to you? Within weeks of sitting down to a meal with a  child who has speech difficulties, those difficulties will begin to improve. I promise.