Q&A with Christina Dalton, MSSW, CSW
Is there anything I can be doing now for my daughter at 15 months old to prepare her for school?
This is a great question. There are so many things parents can do to prepare their children for school, especially at such a young age. Children at this age have a tendency to be shy, not like strangers and cling to their parents. I think it is a good idea to make sure that they are able to be around other children. This is the age when they are starting pretend play, for example, like feeding a baby doll and pointing to things that interest them. It is also a time when temper tantrums are the latest and greatest skill they have mastered. A child as young as 6-months-old comprehends that when they throw an item on the floor, you will pick it up. We have all seen this scenario a million times, a baby throws a toy on the floor and we pick it up over and over. It can make you feel like the baby is training you. A 15-month-old normally has a vocabulary of about 3 to 6 words. At this age it is a great time to start looking at picture books with them. They are so curious and whether you can see it or not they are absorbing everything and learning daily. Reading to your baby, interacting with other children and showing them new things each and every day will help them become ready to enter school. When children are screened for kindergarten they look for things like color recognition, numbers, letters and sequencing. I can promise you though whether your child knows all of these things before kindergarten or not they will learn them in school. Keep in mind that 90% of a child’s brain develops in the first five years of life. Important factors include daily experiences, parent involvement, nutrition, physical activity and most importantly…LOVE!
My 13-year-old son is so disrespectful of me and others. I feel like I am at a total loss. It’s so embarrassing, especially out in public. Is there anything you can suggest?
I completely agree with you about teenagers, young adults and all the way to little children. I have seen it in restaurants, grocery stores, and just about anywhere you go. There is an air of entitlement in today’s children. I think that we have to go back to the basics of good ole fashioned manners. We are somewhat in a society that wants to blame others for our problems. Sometimes as parents we go to great lengths so that our children do not have to experience disappointment, struggle, or any form of delayed gratification. I know there are people, myself included, that have had moments of entitlement with our children. I have had my child tell me it’s time for me to get off the phone. That is entitlement. When a teenager has a closet full of clothes and says I have nothing to wear. That is entitlement. Manners are directly related to respect. Manners are our first introduction to respect. More importantly we can only learn to respect ourselves when we learn to respect others. It’s hard and sometimes we treat our children as if they are the center of our world. There has to be a balance in our relationship with our children. We need to go back and make it a point to teach our children thoughtfulness, courtesy, consideration, kindness, politeness and basic etiquette. When we do that then the respect will follow.
I have a 9-year-old daughter that is so stubborn. I can say the sky is blue and she will argue with me all day long that it’s not. How can I effectively talk to her when she is like this instead of yelling and screaming because that gets me no where?
My child can be stubborn sometimes and my first piece of advice is to pick your battles. Sometimes it is just not worth the fight to argue over something that is not important. But they suck you in and before you know it, you are arguing over a math problem that you know what the right answer is and they don’t believe you. Never tell a stubborn child what to do either. When you tell a stubborn child what to do it alerts some part of their brain to disengage and do the opposite. Instead you describe what you’re willing to do or allow. In the Love and Logic Program® they call this enforceable statements. Here is an example, “I’ll be happy to do the things I do for you when I feel treated with respect,” or “You may go online as long as I’m around to supervise.” By using these types of statements you can take the arguing out of the equation. One thing I want you to remember is the only thing you can control is yourself. I know it’s hard and can be so frustrating at times. Stop telling them what to do and start telling them what you are going to do.