If you are like most parents you probably looked at a half-dozen pre-schools and talked to a dozen friends before you found a school that you felt comfortable with.  One, you might have thought, that finally suited your needs.  That’s great.  It is very important to be aware of what is available in the community.  This is the way we make educated decisions.  In this way, informed people select everything from schools to cars to doctors.  But, let me ask, when you were looking at different pre-schools did you consider whether the school suits the needs of your child?

Often in our haste to find care for our child we look not much further than the facilities and the schedule of hours that are available.  We sometimes fail to look more in depth into
the learning program that the pre-school or day care has to offer.  This can be unfortunate where the needs of the child are concerned.  You may have seen a program that at the same time has all the three or four year olds doing the same paperwork at the same table.  The children may well be discouraged from touching, and thus exploring, the surroundings in the classroom.  But is this what is best for your child’s development?

Most recent research suggests that a pre-school program that meets the developmental
needs of your child will include some of the following:  First, the activities should be developmentally, or age, appropriate.  Children learn through developing concepts.  Therefore, the younger the child the simpler the concept should be that an activity teaches.

Next, the activities that make up the classroom environment should be composed mainly
of manipulatives.  These are activities children can work with their hands.  Children, as adults, learn through experience and through the use of their senses.  By allowing them the opportunity to use and refine their senses a greater understanding of the concept is gained.

A sense of order and organization in the classroom is another recommendation.  This provides a consistent environment, one in which your child will learn to trust that his surroundings will be stable from one day to the next.  It is not suggested by the word order that all the children should be sitting at a table at once waiting on the teacher to tell them what to do.  However, it does mean that the classroom environment is consistent from one day to the next.  That is, the rules are regularly reinforced and the expectations are the same.  There is nothing so comforting for a child (or adult) as a stable environment.

Finally, there should be activities that foster physical and social development as well
as mental development.  In short, the program should focus on developing the “whole child.”  Anything less would be unfair to the needs of your child.

A last suggestion, if you have questions about whether a program is right for your child try taking him or her along with you when you visit.  I bet you will be able to tell a lot about
the quality and desirability of the program by the way your child reacts to the classroom.

How often have you been in the situation of trying to solve a conflict between your child and another child (who may also be yours) and wondered what to do?  You may ask yourself the question of whether you should intervene and stop the argument or whether you should simply let the children work it out on their own, hoping that this will enable them to develop the skills to solve their problems by themselves.  When the dispute does not work out the way you had hoped, almost invariably, you end up wishing you had handled the situation another way.

A possible answer to how these situations should be handled may lie in taking a dual or combination approach.  When the threat of physical violence is pending then, obviously, it is time to step in.  What can be done at this point, though, is a different matter.  Rather than stopping the dispute and siding with one child or the other, let me recommend listening to both sides.  Better yet, let the children listen to each other.  With some time to calm their emotions and with some appropriate guidance the children can learn to resolve their own conflicts.

With this in mind, let’s look at steps that can be taken to help young children learn to solve their own problems through communication.  The first thing to do is to approach the situation swiftly, yet calmly, addressing the children at eye level.  Often times a good way to begin dealing with the conflict is by having each child hold one of your hands.  In this way, the children can focus on the conversation.  At the same time, this also limits the potential for further physical violence.  And, it can also provide the concept that everyone is associated, in some way, with each other and there does not have to always be a winner and a loser.

Next, recognize each child’s feelings, thoughts, and actions.  This can be done verbally by a simple phrase such as “I see you are very upset.”  Then have the children explain to each other in their own words what happened.  You may question, “What happened when you were…[playing with Tommy]?”  Then, as the guide, you may want to restate the problem in clear, direct words.  For example, “So, Joey, you feel that you should have the bucket since you had it first.  And, Tommy, you feel you should get the bucket because Joey wasn’t using it when you picked it up.”

After restating the problem and allowing the children time to express their feelings, ask if the children have a solution.  This can be done by simply asking, “Do you have a solution?”  For younger children you may want to offer solutions and let them tell you if this is acceptable or not.  It is amazing how quickly, once the problem is clearly stated and emotions have had a chance to settle, that a solution will come.

When the children have come up with a solution, ask them if they are still friends.  You might even want to ask if they would like a hug, but don’t feel you have to force it if it is not forthcoming.  It may not be wanted then.

Finally, it may be prudent to keep an eye on the situation to make sure that everything does, indeed, work out the way it was discussed and planned.  Awareness and anticipation can go a long way in preventing future conflicts.

And last, remember that this process will take time.  Peer problem solving, as with any system, takes time to get used to, to develop, and to implement.  Eventually, though, you should find it will result in children who are better negotiators and, therefore, able to develop more socially desirable skills.  And guess what else?  You’ll probably find they fight less and get along better.  In the end, you may even find that you have more time for other tasks or to simply enjoy your children.

How many times as adults have we wished we could speak another language?  Maybe it was the week you went to Mexico and found that all of a sudden not everyone understood what you were saying.  Or, maybe it was the time you went to France and found the “lovely” Parisian waiter did not bring you exactly what you wanted.

As adults we find learning another language to be laborious and tedious.  Although we have wonderfully rational minds capable of great analytical thought we do not possess the skills necessary to allow us to acquire a language naturally.  Young children from three to six years, on the other hand, have not made that step into the world of the fully conscious and rational and, thus, are much more capable of learning another language fluently and naturally.  Children at three to six years of age are at a point when they are just acquiring and mastering their own language.  Therefore, at this stage of development it is much easier for children to simply pick up a different set of vocabulary and grammatical rules.  Not much thought or effort has to be expended on the part of the child as he learns through his experiences.

Wouldn’t it have been great if our parents had known this when we were young and enrolled us in a second language program.  Then maybe now we would be able to communicate better when we travel to that exotic place.  Well, at least we now know that we can have a positive effect on the next generation’s ability to communicate across cultures.

Yes, but is learning a second language right for your pre-school child?  This is a common concern for many parents.  And one of the most frequent questions asked by parents considering a second language program for their child is “will learning two languages confuse my child?”  The answer is no.  A child may mix the languages some at first but he soon learns through experience to separate the two languages and to associate each with different sets of people and environments.  Many parents of bilingual children even find that their children develop a greater resourcefulness and sense of confidence in their communication abilities.

In order for your pre-schooler to fully realize this sense of confidence and resourcefulness you may want to consider several key factors when looking for a second language program.  First, the class should be conducted by fluent, native speakers of that language so that your child will be exposed to the language as it is used naturally.  Second, the program should be conducted in a separate classroom so that the child can learn to associate that language with those surroundings.  And last, as with any pre-school program, the classroom should be inviting to the child while the teachers should be friendly and caring.

For some of us, our earliest memories as children were of being confined to a playpen.  When everything and everyone around us was moving freely about, we were restrained from participating by those four meshed walls.  And as adults we may now find ourselves unwittingly restricting the movement and growth of our own children in a similar manner.  We may not realize that it is through movement and interaction with his environment that a child develops his view of his surroundings, his relationships with others, indeed, his own personality.  That is, a child constructs his outlook of his world through his interaction within it.  Therefore, by restricting a child’s access to his surroundings, by whatever means available, we are actually slowing his development.

Movement and vision are two of the primary components of early learning.  Through observation and physical interaction infants and toddlers learn about themselves, their environment, and the relationship between the two.  To foster this development, a room or corner can be prepared for the child in which he can move about freely, yet safely.  This environment should be one in which he can see and get to all things.  It is also one in which everything he has access to is appropriate and safe for his development level.

The importance of being able to move about freely is seen early in a child’s development.  Consider the process of learning to walk.  Infants learn to walk partly as a natural process of their development and partly as a result of their seeing other children and adults walking around them.  They learn purposeful movement (and language) by imitating the actions of other people.  They do so because they have a genuine desire to be like them.  That is, the younger child wants to be like the older child who, in turn, wants to be like the adult.

Freedom of movement, then, is vital in early growth because it allows the child the opportunity not only to copy the actions of others but also to discover and interact with his surroundings.  Therefore, a child should be exposed to activities that are appropriate to his level of development and that are designed to promote purposeful movement.  As with an older child, an infant or toddler is stimulated by the activity and the result that can be achieved from this activity.

It is, then, the satisfaction that the child receives from meeting an inner desire to accomplish a goal, be it walking, crawling, or picking up a ball that drives his activity.  By restraining his movement, through restrictive clothing or confining furniture, a child at a very young age learns that movement, or activity, is bad.  He may become overly passive, learning from experience that his environment does not respond to his movement.  Or, he may learn to be overly aggressive, when he is free to move about, as he compensates for inactivity and attempts to interact with the world around him.  By allowing a child to learn about his environment first hand, we enable him to foster a positive sense of self and develop a constructive outlook on life from the very earliest years.

If you’re like most parents you’ve at some point picked up your four or five year old from pre-school to find him very excited about the picture he drew and the story he wrote about it.  When you tried to read what he had written you might have found something like “i yNt Tu hTe prk ND so The Dox.”  Thinking for a moment, you may have asked him to read it to you.  This way, you could help build his self-concept while at the same time understand what he was exactly intending.

When we teach children to read and write we (educators and parents) often do so by first teaching them the names of the letters.  While this is quite nice for familiarizing a child with the letter names it can also prove to be a hindrance later when the child is learning to read and write by sounding out words.  Children do this naturally.  They take sounds that they know and then either put them together in order to write or take them apart in order to read.  We know this “natural” method of learning to read and write as phonics.

Children who learn the names of letters before they learn the sounds will more than likely use a letter name that begins with the sound of the letter sound that they intend.  For example, a “y” may be used in place of a “w” because the letter name “y” starts with the sound “w” whereas the letter name “w” is pronounced “double u.” Therefore, the sound that is most similar to the sound “w” is the letter name “y.”

As you can tell, all of this can be very confusing.  Well, it needn’t be.  One way to help lessen the confusion for the child is to allow him to learn the sounds of letters, if not before at least while he is also learning the names of the letters.  This phonetic-based approach to learning to read will enable him to more easily decode what someone else has written while also helping him more effectively communicate what he writes.  Who knows, you may even find that eventually he becomes a pretty good speller.

Something else that may have occurred to you when looking at your child’s picture:  You  may have noticed your child showing an interest in writing even before he shows an  interest in reading.  Although sometimes lacking in the fine-motor skills necessary to grasp a pencil and form a letter exactly, young children are generally more interested in expressing their own thoughts than in reading the thoughts of others.  This is due to a
child’s developmentally natural focus on himself at this age.

Capitalizing on this bit of knowledge, you may find some pre-formed letters and let your
child trace them while saying the sound of the letter.  This will allow him to learn the sounds while at the same time let him learn the shapes of the letters.  With these new tools he will be on his way to writing and reading in virtually no time at all!

Part 2:  How to Stop Biting!

So how can we stop biting?  Well, to answer this question let’s look at how to handle when biting initially occurs.  First, the biter should be addressed, firmly but not harshly, with the words “No biting.”  Then the biter should be separated from the rest of the group.  After this, calmly and as a matter-of-fact address the needs of the bitten child.  The less fuss made over the bite the calmer the reaction will be, even though the bitten area may still hurt.  Finally, allow the biter to rejoin the group when appropriate.  You may also want to offer an object the child can bite during the day, particularly at times when the child is prone to get tired and frustrated.

Now that we know how to address biting after it occurs let’s look at how to prevent it from happening again.  The first recommendation is to always have interesting, developmentally appropriate activities for children to do.  This not only provides them with something on which to focus their attention but also helps to develop their concentration and lowers their frustration level.  Second, when a child does bite another child it is a clear signal to increase supervision and awareness of the child’s social interactions.  In other words, watch who he is playing with and be prepared to jump in when necessary.

If a child is persistent in his biting habits a change of environment may also be necessary.  As with adults, children develop routines.  Biting other children in similar situations day-in and day-out can become the expected and accepted behavior.  By changing the environment a child is put into a new or different situation where the rules and routines can be more easily re-established.

Another recommendation is to provide the child with the words to express himself.  By doing so, we are providing him with the tools with which he can state his desires or concerns.  By enabling a child to express himself he is then able to handle frustrating situations by communicating what is wanted rather than by physically hurting others to get his way.  And, finally, remember that consistency is vital.  When a child knows what the limits and expectations are he is able to spend less time exploring the boundaries and has more time to concentrate on the activities that are available to him.

Part 1:  Why Young Children Bite.

It’s a familiar scenario:  Young Johnny and Susie are playing and having a wonderful time together until Johnny decides he wants Susie’s toy.  He, of course, tries to take it from her and without hesitation she responds by biting him.  Is this survival of the fittest?  Perhaps, but it is developmentally inappropriate behavior for all but the youngest of infants.  So, our questions arise.  Why does biting occur, particularly with toddlers?  And, what can be done to keep it from continuing?  To understand, let’s begin by addressing the question of why biting occurs among young children.  We’ll start by looking at what is developmentally appropriate behavior among toddlers…and adults.

While we as people grow we develop more refined, and socially acceptable ways of dealing with conflict.  In adulthood, we find the most successful and socially, well-adjusted people are those that have a gift of getting what they want or need through words.  This is developmentally appropriate and socially acceptable for adults.

For infants, the first instincts are that of suckling.  It is in this manner that infants are able to have their most basic needs met.  As they mature they explore their environment through the most developed muscles in their young bodies — those that make up the mouth.  However, while biting is appropriate for infants who are teething and exploring their environment with the one part of their bodies that they have most physical control over, children who have begun walking are at another stage of development. By this point children are developing the gross motor skills necessary to interact on a different level.

This corresponds to the onset of verbal language, which is necessary to engage other people on a social basis.  For a toddler this can be a time to state one’s independence with the familiar word, “No!”  It can also be a time of much frustration as a child’s greater needs for socialization and exploration meet with the limited needs to verbally express himself.  This is where biting comes in to play.  Biting, then, is a primitive reaction to a more complex social situation.

Next week:  How to Stop Biting!