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Develop Motor Skills for Preschoolers Through Cooking
by Laura Bankston

Did you know that cooking with your kids is a natural way for them to develop motor skills? If you've never looked at cooking that way before, think again. There's a reason why kids have a universal love for cooking - just like for stacking blocks and banging!

Cooking is especially good for preschoolers and here's how:

 

 

1. Two year olds are developing large muscles in their arms: They will enjoy stirring and stirring and stirring :-). My two year old is always asking to stir; and her

subconscious knows why! At 2 years old, a child naturally imitates circular strokes as part of their normal physical development. So, let them stir at every opportunity.

 

Here are some ways to encourage arm muscle development through cooking:

1. stirring: flour, eggs, pancake batter, gelatin making, etc.
2. scrubbing potatoes and vegetables
3. cleaning the cutting board: Give them a washcloth and some lukewarm water with the cutting board in the sink. They'll have a blast rubbing the wet washcloth up and down the cutting board to clean it.
4. pouring from large measuring cups into a bowl.

2. Two year olds are developing the ability to turn pages: Another motor skill developed during the preschool age is the ability to turn pages.

So - just pondering here...is it the story they love so much or just turning the pages of the book? Well, actually both. They need the motor development of turning the pages; and the pictures and vocabulary improve their intellectual development.

 

3. Two year olds love "patting" and "pressing": From being fascinated with "patty-cake" chants at an early age, preschooler's still love to pat and press.

 

I'm sure you'll recognize your preschooler doing this at the park: scooping up rocks or sand, piling them up, and patting the top into different shapes.

 

Well, here's some suggestions to bring the "patting" inside:

1. packing down brown sugar in the measuring cup
2. gently pressing a fork on top of peanut butter cookie dough on the cookie sheet
3. patting to level off the top of a cup of sugar
4. patting and pressing on pizza dough
5. pressing down with a cookie cutter on rolled sugar cookie dough

4. Two year olds love to dip - and this develops arm muscles skills too!: it takes a lot of coordination to dip! Getting the food in the dip, then moving the arm and somehow getting it into your mouth. If it wasn't difficult, they wouldn't get food all over their face! :-)

 

So, unless your 2 year old always has a clean face when he or she is done eating, here's some dipping opportunities:

1. carrots in salad dressing
2. french fries in catsup
3. dipping a spoon in the emptied batter bowl to clean out the goodies :-)
4. dipping fruit in a fruit dip or chocolate (like frozen bananas or strawberries)
5. dipping chicken or fish in a batter for you to cook
6. dipping the bread in French toast mix

So, instead of "shooing" your preschoolers and 2 year olds out of the kitchen, let them dive in with these simple tasks that not only give them great pleasure, but help them develop their age appropriate motor skills.

 

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Laura_Bankston

 

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Give Twins & Multiples Their Own Identity

Adapted from Parenting School Age Twins & Multiples book by Christina Baglivi Tinglof

 

Nobody is born alike even twins. Each individual is special in their own rights. Parents with twins and multiples tend to feel awkward when their child starts to display actions to exclude his/her twin or multiple. This is in fact normal. Indeed it is better for parents to incultivate their children own identities as young as possible so that their child will feel more secure even when they are on their own.

 

Here are some suggestions to develop the twins and multiples own identity:

1. Start from an early age to allow each child to have her/his own belongings- don't group all the toys, favourite books or clothing together. Give individual ownership instead.
   
2. There is no problem if the twins have to share clothes but allow each child to have a few favourites of his/her own.
   
3. Give each child their own box for putting/stashing their personal stuff.
   
4. Take plenty of solo pictures of each child as they grow and put them in separate albums for each child.
   
5. Acknowledge individual likes and dislikes from the food they eat to the clothes they wear and even to their favourite cartoon characters. Nurture individual creative expression, qualities and talents.
   
6. Make a priority to spend time alone with each child every day. Introduce gradual, planned separation outside the home, too. Begin with short period of separation when your twins are very young and increase the duration as they age. The most difficult ones are the older children whom when young never experienced time alone but it is never too late to start. The key is to be sensitive and creative.
   
7. Assign different household shore to each twin. Allow each child to develop confidence to work independently.

At the end of the day, children are a bundle of joy to their families regardless whether they are twins or multiples or singles.

 

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Parenting - The Biggest Responsibility
by Saima Nasir

If someone asked me "What is the biggest responsibility that anyone can take?" I would say, "Parenting".

 

You should be sure and confident about your parenting skills before you plan to bring a human being to life. Parenting is way beyond just giving birth and raising a person to have good habits in her/him. It is not enough to check that your child behaves well in crowd, gets good grades in school, dresses up properly and eats his lunches on time. As a parent, you are responsible for something much more serious and important; you are responsible for imparting ethics in your child. Directly or indirectly, you are the biggest influence on your child when her/his personality and character is being formed. Your child knowingly and sometimes even unknowingly catches up so many traits of character from you. Take up this responsibility only if you are sure about your ability to become a ‘role model’ in someone’s life.

 

Here, I am not talking about ‘How to become a good parent?’, because that is the second step, to begin with you should realize ‘how important it is to be a good parent’. Though this seems so obvious (of course everyone knows it is important to be a good parent!), but unfortunately, I do not see many people putting any efforts into learning the skill of parenting.

 

People generally have children because everyone has them, but this is not enough of a reason. Before having children, you have to check not only your physical or financial capability to have them, but also your emotional capability and maturity to handle an important task as parenting. Parenting is a ‘skill’, and that you'll have to learn it like you learn any other skill, by observation and understanding. You may also require to take help from experts and counselling from other parents. Do not commit the mistake of assuming that you will automatically learn how to ‘parent’ your children when you will produce them.

 

So many parents make immature and irresponsible decisions on behalf of their child during her/his early life, when the child is completely dependent on them. The consequences of your careless parenting may not become appearent so quickly, but this carelessness will show in your child's behavior, personality and life style when he'll become an adult.

 

We come across so many parents cribbing about their child’s behavior, they fail to realize that somewhere they are themselves responsible for such behavior. When your child does something good, you happily outline your role in your child’s achievement and you become a part of his success. But when he fails you do not want to share the responsibility of her/his failure. You just stand aside and start ‘reacting’ to his failure either by criticizing or by defending her/him. You make pressure on your child for performing good and slowly you keep on increasing this pressure. One day this pressure becomes a gap that you call as ‘generation gap’. Then you and your child live all your life with this 'generation gap' between you two.

 

This gap is unnecessary, you and your child can always connect without letting any gaps come between both of you, so learn parenting before its too late!

 

Article Source : http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Saima_Nasir

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