I’ve gotten a lot of emails from friends and readers who are “sorry” I have quit writing. It really made me mad at first because I didn’t quit; I never quit on anything. I was made to look as though I quit to satisfy the newspaper’s credibility. It was just another lie like the one about the thank you for all the years of service.
I thought a lot about quitting and what I think quitting means for me, for those around me, for the children I teach.
I thought about the two little pigs we had born at school with cerebral palsy. I took them to my vet, Dwayne Van Hooten, who said, “Take them home and take care of them.” Guinea pigs have to be fed every two hours for twenty-eight days. I diligently fed those pigs night and day until they died. They were unable to digest food. I cried over them and buried them in a memorable spot in my garden.
“Never give up!”
This year in school we had four children who were tagged learning disabled. There is nothing wrong with special education; it’s a marvelous thing, and the teachers who monitor our children’s work are great, but what a better thing if a child doesn’t need it at all and can blend in with the regular class. Children have enough trouble without thinking they can’t keep up. Kids know when they stand out, and standing out for dumb is something they really hate.
All of our teachers struggled with these kids, teaching, re-teaching, and re-teaching again. All four will go to regular classes next year.
We get a lot of children who the world seems to have given up on. We’re not talking about Guinea pigs, we’re talking about children – people in the small – people who will be running the world someday. It’s a moral evil to give up on any child. It’s a corruption to allow a child to misbehave, to be stupid when he’s not. Every child has a basket of goods to share with the world. To shove him and his basket out a door is a crime against the whole world.
Why does our little Garden School try so hard with what has been quietly labeled by everyone else in town? We’ve found that a peculiar sense of order is more important to early childhood than saving a child. People have a fictionalized idea of what childcare and early education should be, and it’s quiet, clean, and picturesque. Children should somehow be dressed for a party and smiling sweetly at one another. This fiction satisfies the state, visitors, parents who don't understand what early childhood should be like.
Early childhood education is a construction zone. We’re building lives here and there is nothing clean, easy, quiet or picturesque about it. There are lots of people who come to the Garden School who are put off by the noise. Noise means kids are communicating – for better or worse. Communication takes words and actions, and for children that’s never quiet.
Teaching children is sometimes loud. Confronting a child is often dramatic. The point of confrontation is so the child knows that someone cares about what he says. It’s easy to praise, but it’s tough to pin a child down and hold him responsible. “What do you think you’re doing?” It’s a question we ask all day. When they first hear it they really don’t know what to say. They have to sort it out before they really know. It’s hilarious to see the brain supercharge.
By the time a child has been at the GS for a week, he’s no longer shell shocked, he’s right in the action. Boot camp is over, and now it's time to join the action.
We went to the zoo last week. We took 35 children. Every child behaved like a dream child because they know it’s expected. We walked the entire zoo without a single complaint. Every child got to see what he wanted for as long as he wanted.
When we returned, one of the kids who had been tagged learning disabled asked me how to draw a monkey. I don’t draw, but I gave it my best shot. He liked the monkey and drew four more so well they made me laugh and I cut them out and framed them for the art show.
Working with children is different every single day. You get what you get, and that’s what makes it the best job in the world – it’s completely unpredictable. So writing about this and sharing it has been a real delight – one often quits one’s delights.
Here's an older column on writing I see a lot on Internet sites:
People ask sometimes what it’s like to write a column every week, especially one written about children and their care. They want to know if writing about children remains interesting time after time.
Children are wonderful beings, and because I like adjectives and description and funny stories about things kids do, the writing never ceases to be fun. It’s telling a story on paper that people enjoy.
The hard part of column writing for me is managing the gray areas of popular debate. Black and white is a lot easier to write about than gray stuff, which always seems indecisive and therefore pretty dull. My life motto is to be direct and say it out loud.
The important part of writing a children’s column begins with understanding what is true and valuable, important and interesting about children and re-constructing that idea onto paper. It’s called communication.
Communication is the element that makes or breaks an idea. As an auditory learner, writing for me first comes alive by hearing something first. Show me; don’t fling the directions at me in print or I’m likely to light them on fire and fling them back at you.
But at the same time, it’s my job to show the reader the same idea by taking it out of the world and making it fun to read and valuable enough to take something away from reading it, something the reader can use or enjoy.
Writing a good column takes time management. It means putting everything else aside several times a week to paraphrase and re-write, and re-write again something that happened, or something that naturally draws my attention because it’s true.
Some people say meeting a five hundred word deadline of coherent sentences on a would drive them crazy because it would hang over their head like a dentist appointment. Like teaching very young children, column writing kind of invades your life; it’s always there knocking on the mind door.
When I first suggested I do the column on day care or childcare, an office bet was wagered that I wouldn’t last three months because there wasn’t enough to write about regarding children.
Childcare, they said, was boring. Really? Doesn’t the reader remember growing up? Doesn’t the reader have children? Doesn’t the reader have nieces, nephews, cousins, and grandchildren? The point is a column written for and about children will eventually reach everyone, because everyone has, at least, been a child, and childhood is important.
Friday, April 29, 2005
Wednesday, April 27, 2005
An Idea Using Art
We’re putting on an art show at school this week. It’s our first. We actually borrowed the idea from a day care, but we have enhanced the idea so it has become our own.
Children’s art is really wonderful. My own home is decorated with my children’s art from Newburgh Elementary School. I framed their paintings over the twenty-one years I had children enrolled there, and the paintings and drawings hang all over the house.
There is so much to see in a child’s painting; it says a lot about where a child is and what he is currently about.
At the little school I own with Edith St. Louis - the best partner ever - The Garden School, we collected a lot of the children’s work over the last several months and held it back from going home. Then on a few Sundays, teachers met to mat, frame and display what we collected.
Matting children’s work is fun. We bought dozens of frames at the “cheapy” stores and took out the glass and the mat. Using one or the other, we moved the mat or frame across the picture until we saw something that looked really nice. Sometimes only a part of a child’s picture was used, and sometimes we used the whole thing.
Each child has at least three works of art for his parents and grandparents to view and to buy. Sometimes we cut out their work and mounted it in a shadow box or with another item that made it especially nice.
There is not a single work of art that is not beautiful and truly worth a prominent place in a living room or dining room. We hope the parents will love it as much as we have.
On Friday, we will have the showing from 2:00 to 4:00. Refreshments will be served. The show will help offset the increase in gas prices that inhibit our little school from going as many places this summer as we usually do. We travel as far as Tennessee in the summer, and this year we are planning to go to Missouri. The kids love it, so the extra money from the art show will help.
Framing children’s art is a really nice way of keeping special focus on ages and stages. It makes a home belong to the children as much as it belongs to the adults.
I am always upset when I find that a parent has thrown a child’s work out on his or her way out the door. I sometimes find really nice work in the dumpsters, and I wonder if parents understand that these years will not come again. Not all work is savable, but not all of a child’s work should be dumped.
After thirty years, all four of my children can return home and remember their youths with their art hanging on the walls. I know how much they appreciate being around memories while they are building their own. Keep a portion of your child’s work and make it special. You will be glad you did.
The public is invited to the art show. So if you are reading this, and you’d like to see it, come by.
Children’s art is really wonderful. My own home is decorated with my children’s art from Newburgh Elementary School. I framed their paintings over the twenty-one years I had children enrolled there, and the paintings and drawings hang all over the house.
There is so much to see in a child’s painting; it says a lot about where a child is and what he is currently about.
At the little school I own with Edith St. Louis - the best partner ever - The Garden School, we collected a lot of the children’s work over the last several months and held it back from going home. Then on a few Sundays, teachers met to mat, frame and display what we collected.
Matting children’s work is fun. We bought dozens of frames at the “cheapy” stores and took out the glass and the mat. Using one or the other, we moved the mat or frame across the picture until we saw something that looked really nice. Sometimes only a part of a child’s picture was used, and sometimes we used the whole thing.
Each child has at least three works of art for his parents and grandparents to view and to buy. Sometimes we cut out their work and mounted it in a shadow box or with another item that made it especially nice.
There is not a single work of art that is not beautiful and truly worth a prominent place in a living room or dining room. We hope the parents will love it as much as we have.
On Friday, we will have the showing from 2:00 to 4:00. Refreshments will be served. The show will help offset the increase in gas prices that inhibit our little school from going as many places this summer as we usually do. We travel as far as Tennessee in the summer, and this year we are planning to go to Missouri. The kids love it, so the extra money from the art show will help.
Framing children’s art is a really nice way of keeping special focus on ages and stages. It makes a home belong to the children as much as it belongs to the adults.
I am always upset when I find that a parent has thrown a child’s work out on his or her way out the door. I sometimes find really nice work in the dumpsters, and I wonder if parents understand that these years will not come again. Not all work is savable, but not all of a child’s work should be dumped.
After thirty years, all four of my children can return home and remember their youths with their art hanging on the walls. I know how much they appreciate being around memories while they are building their own. Keep a portion of your child’s work and make it special. You will be glad you did.
The public is invited to the art show. So if you are reading this, and you’d like to see it, come by.
Tuesday, April 26, 2005
Time Out!
In a story today on 25WEHT , Indiana day care regulations for licensed childcares say no to time out. It's the lesser of two alternatives to curbing poor behaviors. The better alternative is redirection.
Most children don’t need time out. Most children, by age three, know that no means no. Children who don’t know about no are children whose parents need discipline, and they should go along for the ride.
Discipline can be anything – deprivation of sweets or treats, time out, corporal punishment, and verbal reprimands. It’s true that punishment is the least desirable alternative to correcting poor behavior, because it makes everyone unhappy.
And no matter how often parents want to admit it, redirecting behavior might be the desired plan, but as often as not it’s the adult’s behavior that is redirected more than the child’s.
In childcare, where children try on one another’s behaviors, there is always more undesirable behavior than at home where one or two children play more or less peacefully. So separating children is a way of handling combinations of behaviors.
In other words when Harry punches William, and William hits Harry with a chair, and Harry throws a truck at William, putting one child in a chair at the art table is a way of “redirecting.” But what if Harry doesn’t want to sit at the art table? What if Harry just wants to beat up William and make him cry all day?
Time out is not the enemy. Time out is a tool like any other childcare tool. Making it against the law is as ill thought out as taking wine off the market because some people drink too much. Children are not ornaments. They are people. Just like reprimands in an adult’s life, so time out is a necessary component in a child’s life.
Here are some thoughts that might bring time out into focus:
Millie is cracked on the head with a fire truck. But it’s not Bobby’s fault, because he’s working out a problem. There’s no punishment involved because Bobby is a good boy.
Mrs. Excello discovers why Bobby hit Millie; he wanted to. She teaches him words to use instead of fire trucks. Bobby goes off again, but this time, he adds words, “Give me your toy, or I’ll hit you with the fire truck.”
Hell-O Child Care is a great place for kids because nobody has to say, “I’m sorry.”
Last week in a local paper, a state welfare department consultant denounced time-out as a discipline because “children are good and don’t do [bad] things without reason.” He said there should never be punishment. That’s very wishful thinking because there are very poorly behaved children -- just look around -- anywhere you go.
Then ask: do caring parents who pay as much as a house payment for child care really want to know that their well behaved children are in danger because of an ideology that refuses to punish children who repeatedly hurt them? Do we want to think the state backs up the perpetrators with soft words while it denies the child-victim even a corner to get away from pummeling?
Relax. Punishment does exist. In fact, the bigger person can do more than punish; frustrated by “problem solving” which has gone awry he can send the child to the psychologist to be “treated” with “drugs” for the rest of his life. Aren’t we clever; we didn’t even use time out.
More children visit psychologists today than ever before. Is this an accident or a product of a no accountability society that denounces reflection and retreat? The ability to reflection and retreat, by the way, denotes an interior life which children do have. Developing an interior life begins in childhood.
But children will not be reflective nor even sorry if the ideal of today’s child care is anti-teacher and anti-rule. In fact, parents should know that providers are afraid of punishing any child -- even by time out -- because it’s frowned on by welfare consultants who take great delight in bullying providers and directors into submission.
And that’s why child care providers are running for their lives. The turn over in child care is the national disgrace. The few men and women who opt to do this work don’t last, and part of the problem is a lack of support from officials who have a certain agenda.
That agenda rocks our traditional culture which ascribes to the idea that the human character is flawed. But good parents will always teach young children how to amend the natural flaws that make us human and fragile. That training is called social behavior. You hear it in traditional prayer: “forgive us our trespasses.”
That’s what good child care is all about, and that’s what parents should be getting from providers for the sake of the child, and sometimes it means time out. And true, in good places where a real control of children’s behavior matters, time out is rare and therefore even more effective.
Children love limits, and they certainly will ask for time-out when confronted with more than they can handle. They will come to a parent or teacher for help. A discerning adult will understand what the human need is, and they will help even if it means someone takes a ten minute reprieve to get their intrapersonal ducks in a row.
Most children don’t need time out. Most children, by age three, know that no means no. Children who don’t know about no are children whose parents need discipline, and they should go along for the ride.
Discipline can be anything – deprivation of sweets or treats, time out, corporal punishment, and verbal reprimands. It’s true that punishment is the least desirable alternative to correcting poor behavior, because it makes everyone unhappy.
And no matter how often parents want to admit it, redirecting behavior might be the desired plan, but as often as not it’s the adult’s behavior that is redirected more than the child’s.
In childcare, where children try on one another’s behaviors, there is always more undesirable behavior than at home where one or two children play more or less peacefully. So separating children is a way of handling combinations of behaviors.
In other words when Harry punches William, and William hits Harry with a chair, and Harry throws a truck at William, putting one child in a chair at the art table is a way of “redirecting.” But what if Harry doesn’t want to sit at the art table? What if Harry just wants to beat up William and make him cry all day?
Time out is not the enemy. Time out is a tool like any other childcare tool. Making it against the law is as ill thought out as taking wine off the market because some people drink too much. Children are not ornaments. They are people. Just like reprimands in an adult’s life, so time out is a necessary component in a child’s life.
Here are some thoughts that might bring time out into focus:
Millie is cracked on the head with a fire truck. But it’s not Bobby’s fault, because he’s working out a problem. There’s no punishment involved because Bobby is a good boy.
Mrs. Excello discovers why Bobby hit Millie; he wanted to. She teaches him words to use instead of fire trucks. Bobby goes off again, but this time, he adds words, “Give me your toy, or I’ll hit you with the fire truck.”
Hell-O Child Care is a great place for kids because nobody has to say, “I’m sorry.”
Last week in a local paper, a state welfare department consultant denounced time-out as a discipline because “children are good and don’t do [bad] things without reason.” He said there should never be punishment. That’s very wishful thinking because there are very poorly behaved children -- just look around -- anywhere you go.
Then ask: do caring parents who pay as much as a house payment for child care really want to know that their well behaved children are in danger because of an ideology that refuses to punish children who repeatedly hurt them? Do we want to think the state backs up the perpetrators with soft words while it denies the child-victim even a corner to get away from pummeling?
Relax. Punishment does exist. In fact, the bigger person can do more than punish; frustrated by “problem solving” which has gone awry he can send the child to the psychologist to be “treated” with “drugs” for the rest of his life. Aren’t we clever; we didn’t even use time out.
More children visit psychologists today than ever before. Is this an accident or a product of a no accountability society that denounces reflection and retreat? The ability to reflection and retreat, by the way, denotes an interior life which children do have. Developing an interior life begins in childhood.
But children will not be reflective nor even sorry if the ideal of today’s child care is anti-teacher and anti-rule. In fact, parents should know that providers are afraid of punishing any child -- even by time out -- because it’s frowned on by welfare consultants who take great delight in bullying providers and directors into submission.
And that’s why child care providers are running for their lives. The turn over in child care is the national disgrace. The few men and women who opt to do this work don’t last, and part of the problem is a lack of support from officials who have a certain agenda.
That agenda rocks our traditional culture which ascribes to the idea that the human character is flawed. But good parents will always teach young children how to amend the natural flaws that make us human and fragile. That training is called social behavior. You hear it in traditional prayer: “forgive us our trespasses.”
That’s what good child care is all about, and that’s what parents should be getting from providers for the sake of the child, and sometimes it means time out. And true, in good places where a real control of children’s behavior matters, time out is rare and therefore even more effective.
Children love limits, and they certainly will ask for time-out when confronted with more than they can handle. They will come to a parent or teacher for help. A discerning adult will understand what the human need is, and they will help even if it means someone takes a ten minute reprieve to get their intrapersonal ducks in a row.
Judy's Last Stand Revisited
Because of popular demand, I am bringing this blog entry back. It's the original column I sent to the Courier. They would not print the part about my new adventure. They would not even put my email address in my usual shirttail which is an ordinary courtesy to writers. It will remain a question forever: what did they fear in being above board and honest? If they fired me, say it. If they hated my work, they should say it. If they no longer had a space for a column on kids, they should admit it, but don't make me out to be a quitter and then manipulate my words.
The parts removed by the paper have been bracketed.
I’m the most fortunate person who ever lived. I have children to die for, grandchildren in abundance, a husband who loves me, a best friend, my own school filled with children and teachers I graciously call my own. I practice my religion every day in everything I do, and in addition to all this, I’ve been fortunate enough to have had a public voice for nearly fifteen years.
I love you. You have filled my heart with more than I can ever repay.
[Although it is not my choice, this will be my last Evansville Courier and Press column. Whenever a closet is cleaned, things are thrown out. But too, one man’s discard is another’s treasure.
If you have enjoyed my column, my next one will appear in Childcare by Judy Lyden on the Internet on Tuesday, May 3 at http://childcarebyjudylyden.blogspot.com/
The blog will feature new longer and possible more frequent columns, an archive of past columns for immediate review, published childcare studies from major universities, new products and books available from key producers, answers to your questions, and links to resource and referral services and childcare rules.
For those who will be reading me for the last time, ]
I hope I have graced some lively discussions, provoked some good thoughts, some hope. I have said with all the repetition I can muster that you are your children’s white knights. Ride into battle every day, because without you, they have nothing.
Love your children. Know that children are not playthings; they are people whose issues are often swept under the carpet of neglect.
We need childcare no matter what is said about marriage and families. There are children who need a place to go during the day because families have failed them. The child is often the victims not the culprit.
As a reporter for the National Media Service, I am privy to the most current and in depth university studies on childcare. These studies demonstrate a real troubled view of childcare. Experts struggle with nearly every childhood issue nationwide, and because of poor early childhood education or none, many children are at risk. It’s a national disgrace and an issue with few public forums.
The truth is, children want to learn; yet these studies indicate we bide the child’s time in a desert of boredom. We waste the optimum learning time until the window of opportunity closes. We’d rather let the window snap shut on the inquisitive four year old than spend more than $5.10 an hour on what the state day care rules say is simply a nameless faceless employee.
So how do we explain our great disaster after all the money we have had to spend? We don’t.
Childcare is not expensive to provide no matter what government says. The childcare I built was built on a paycheck for two of my columns
[- $80.00. ]
With a little ingenuity and a little hard work and a whole lot of love, anyone can build a place where children want to play but it means the child must be heard first.
Over the years, I have written about what I see and hear. It is always the truth. I have written about you and me, your children and my children and I will continue to do so.
I have loved writing for you, and your gracious affections to me say a whole lot about our community and what we think of children. I thank you from the bottom of my heart
[and look forward to this new enterprise. ]
Talk about media bias. I got a plea to change the blog last night. I offered to say nothing about the paper, because I really don't want to start something new on the corrupt coat tails of something now past, but unfortunately, the adulterated column had already gone to print. So I made an offer that the original goes to the wire and a nice announcement appears in the Sunday Paper. Let's see what happens.
Next up is a really neat series on teaching music to kid's.
The parts removed by the paper have been bracketed.
I’m the most fortunate person who ever lived. I have children to die for, grandchildren in abundance, a husband who loves me, a best friend, my own school filled with children and teachers I graciously call my own. I practice my religion every day in everything I do, and in addition to all this, I’ve been fortunate enough to have had a public voice for nearly fifteen years.
I love you. You have filled my heart with more than I can ever repay.
[Although it is not my choice, this will be my last Evansville Courier and Press column. Whenever a closet is cleaned, things are thrown out. But too, one man’s discard is another’s treasure.
If you have enjoyed my column, my next one will appear in Childcare by Judy Lyden on the Internet on Tuesday, May 3 at http://childcarebyjudylyden.blogspot.com/
The blog will feature new longer and possible more frequent columns, an archive of past columns for immediate review, published childcare studies from major universities, new products and books available from key producers, answers to your questions, and links to resource and referral services and childcare rules.
For those who will be reading me for the last time, ]
I hope I have graced some lively discussions, provoked some good thoughts, some hope. I have said with all the repetition I can muster that you are your children’s white knights. Ride into battle every day, because without you, they have nothing.
Love your children. Know that children are not playthings; they are people whose issues are often swept under the carpet of neglect.
We need childcare no matter what is said about marriage and families. There are children who need a place to go during the day because families have failed them. The child is often the victims not the culprit.
As a reporter for the National Media Service, I am privy to the most current and in depth university studies on childcare. These studies demonstrate a real troubled view of childcare. Experts struggle with nearly every childhood issue nationwide, and because of poor early childhood education or none, many children are at risk. It’s a national disgrace and an issue with few public forums.
The truth is, children want to learn; yet these studies indicate we bide the child’s time in a desert of boredom. We waste the optimum learning time until the window of opportunity closes. We’d rather let the window snap shut on the inquisitive four year old than spend more than $5.10 an hour on what the state day care rules say is simply a nameless faceless employee.
So how do we explain our great disaster after all the money we have had to spend? We don’t.
Childcare is not expensive to provide no matter what government says. The childcare I built was built on a paycheck for two of my columns
[- $80.00. ]
With a little ingenuity and a little hard work and a whole lot of love, anyone can build a place where children want to play but it means the child must be heard first.
Over the years, I have written about what I see and hear. It is always the truth. I have written about you and me, your children and my children and I will continue to do so.
I have loved writing for you, and your gracious affections to me say a whole lot about our community and what we think of children. I thank you from the bottom of my heart
[and look forward to this new enterprise. ]
Talk about media bias. I got a plea to change the blog last night. I offered to say nothing about the paper, because I really don't want to start something new on the corrupt coat tails of something now past, but unfortunately, the adulterated column had already gone to print. So I made an offer that the original goes to the wire and a nice announcement appears in the Sunday Paper. Let's see what happens.
Next up is a really neat series on teaching music to kid's.
Sunday, April 24, 2005
For Mothers To Be
Just a quick note that I received an advanced copy of Parents EXPECTING from Parents Magazine. It's dedicated to expectant mommies and has a lot of really nice articles. It's on the news stands now. I can't say enough nice things about Parents because they occasionally use me as a resource. It's always fun to see how people have used your work.
Saturday, April 23, 2005
Daycare and Cancer Article
The BBC reports a link between daycare and leukemia.
It brings back a lot of memories about a little girl named Shelby we had at our little school in Evansville, Indiana. Shelby had a pernicious case of leukemia that would require a bone marrow transplant.
Shelby was three when she started with us and seven when she left. She was placed with us to increase her immune system with contact with the other kids. Her parents hoped she would make it to age eight, because that was the optimum age for the transplant.
Her disease did not increase while she was with us, and in fact got a little better. Today, she lives in Nevada and is doing OK. She has not had the transplant.
I think one of the things parents forget is that kids need to get dirty. They need to swap germs and learn to fight off regular children’s illnesses.
Part of that is getting dirty. I go round and round with some parents over dirt. Dirt is a signal that children are playing, and that’s what children should do – play.
Here’s an older, popular column on dirt:
Would you let your child climb to the top of a giant pile of soft dirt and then tumble or slide down on all fours? If your provider allowed this activity in day care would you be upset?
If ordinary playful dirt creates a division in the philosophy of day care between parents or providers, now is the time to talk it out. Summer vacation is nearly here, and a spotless summer could be a big bore to your child and a nightmare for you and your provider.
When parents and providers take great pains to keep children spotless for the sake of another adult, children get a message: casual grime and anything sticky but soap must be the enemy to hands and faces. That, in turn, turns kids off toward arts and crafts. It hypes feelings about being outdoors, and a paralyzes children about eating wonderfully messy stuff like ice cream sundaes.
Agree now about clothes. Spotless, neatly tucked clothes are confining Even the soles of their shoes are suspended from dirt because children are carried everywhere. This can perpetuate a helplessness in children. The child begins to resemble the keepsake doll in the blister pack.
Kids aren’t toys; kids are people, and people get dirty. It’s the real effect of real play. Good providers know that and encourage parents to send children in washable, durable, and comfortable clothes that can take a stain--cheap replaceable T-shirts, and above the knee pull on shorts are wonderful; it’s all they need.
Providers who don’t offer children a variety of messy fun because messy is too much trouble because messy might give a wrong impression of the right kind of primary care are depriving children of exposure to necessary discovery that answers questions about the world of nature and the relationship of natural properties.
Imagine the parent or provider who carefully builds a sandbox for the children to play in, and then tells them to stay out because sand is dirty. That’s like buying finger paint to stand on a shelf as a decoration.
When children find painting, gluing, paper mache and clay a challenge because of clothes or a fear of getting hands dirty, the joy and fun of investigating disappears in adult preening and self consciousness: kids miss out.
What should kids be playing with?
Sand and water
Wet clay
Make-up
Paint
Paper Mache
Cooking batters
In other words, if your provider sends kids home in the summer time looking like they just climbed out of Peter Pan’s swamp, three cheers are in order. Kids are having fun and exploring summer stuff.
If you’re provider’s idea of fun, however, is a brand new video--run for your child’s life. In fact, if the TV goes on at all during the summer between 7:30 and 5:00 run. There is too much to do to waste time on TV.
It brings back a lot of memories about a little girl named Shelby we had at our little school in Evansville, Indiana. Shelby had a pernicious case of leukemia that would require a bone marrow transplant.
Shelby was three when she started with us and seven when she left. She was placed with us to increase her immune system with contact with the other kids. Her parents hoped she would make it to age eight, because that was the optimum age for the transplant.
Her disease did not increase while she was with us, and in fact got a little better. Today, she lives in Nevada and is doing OK. She has not had the transplant.
I think one of the things parents forget is that kids need to get dirty. They need to swap germs and learn to fight off regular children’s illnesses.
Part of that is getting dirty. I go round and round with some parents over dirt. Dirt is a signal that children are playing, and that’s what children should do – play.
Here’s an older, popular column on dirt:
Would you let your child climb to the top of a giant pile of soft dirt and then tumble or slide down on all fours? If your provider allowed this activity in day care would you be upset?
If ordinary playful dirt creates a division in the philosophy of day care between parents or providers, now is the time to talk it out. Summer vacation is nearly here, and a spotless summer could be a big bore to your child and a nightmare for you and your provider.
When parents and providers take great pains to keep children spotless for the sake of another adult, children get a message: casual grime and anything sticky but soap must be the enemy to hands and faces. That, in turn, turns kids off toward arts and crafts. It hypes feelings about being outdoors, and a paralyzes children about eating wonderfully messy stuff like ice cream sundaes.
Agree now about clothes. Spotless, neatly tucked clothes are confining Even the soles of their shoes are suspended from dirt because children are carried everywhere. This can perpetuate a helplessness in children. The child begins to resemble the keepsake doll in the blister pack.
Kids aren’t toys; kids are people, and people get dirty. It’s the real effect of real play. Good providers know that and encourage parents to send children in washable, durable, and comfortable clothes that can take a stain--cheap replaceable T-shirts, and above the knee pull on shorts are wonderful; it’s all they need.
Providers who don’t offer children a variety of messy fun because messy is too much trouble because messy might give a wrong impression of the right kind of primary care are depriving children of exposure to necessary discovery that answers questions about the world of nature and the relationship of natural properties.
Imagine the parent or provider who carefully builds a sandbox for the children to play in, and then tells them to stay out because sand is dirty. That’s like buying finger paint to stand on a shelf as a decoration.
When children find painting, gluing, paper mache and clay a challenge because of clothes or a fear of getting hands dirty, the joy and fun of investigating disappears in adult preening and self consciousness: kids miss out.
What should kids be playing with?
Sand and water
Wet clay
Make-up
Paint
Paper Mache
Cooking batters
In other words, if your provider sends kids home in the summer time looking like they just climbed out of Peter Pan’s swamp, three cheers are in order. Kids are having fun and exploring summer stuff.
If you’re provider’s idea of fun, however, is a brand new video--run for your child’s life. In fact, if the TV goes on at all during the summer between 7:30 and 5:00 run. There is too much to do to waste time on TV.
Out With The Old - In With The News
For those of you who have heard about this new blog, welcome. It's a totally new enterprise that in some ways is completely refreshing, and in some ways it's a little daunting. For fifteen years, I wrote a very popular column for Scripps Howard.
Writing the column was wonderful, but very restricting. The topics I was not allowed to touch included: day care and all descriptions therein. I could not write about the little school I own, my family, my life, so the column became very formal. I was not allowed to touch on anything current, popular or in the news.
In the forty five second conversation that closed the column, two things stunned me. First, that the senior editor at the Evansville Courrier and Press openly admitted that the new format at the paper did not have room for a childcare column - a column on kids, and secondly, neither my editor nor her editor knew what I do for a living. When I asked that they publish this new blog address, they refused. Fifteen years.
But on to bigger things!
With this blog, I hope that the world of childcare, especially locally, opens up. It is not a cloak and dagger subject to be hidden. It is perhaps the only positive news subject available. Children should be in the news and have a corner for discussion, because children are our future.
There are too many families struggling to raise children alone. They need all the support they can get, and this blog is a tribute to them. I hope people will share openly all that they do regarding the children they love.
As a reporter for the National Media Service, I interview the researchers who put out new studies on childcare. I intend to publish those studies in full. Did you know that millions of tax dollars are spent on these studies that you have little or no access to? They are about your world and your children, yet where do you see them? There is no room at the inn.
I hope to set up this blog by subject and current interest. You will find a new weekly column, and older columns that relate. Please don't hesitate to write to ask about topics of interest. That's what we are about.
I welcome your ideas and comments.
Judy
Writing the column was wonderful, but very restricting. The topics I was not allowed to touch included: day care and all descriptions therein. I could not write about the little school I own, my family, my life, so the column became very formal. I was not allowed to touch on anything current, popular or in the news.
In the forty five second conversation that closed the column, two things stunned me. First, that the senior editor at the Evansville Courrier and Press openly admitted that the new format at the paper did not have room for a childcare column - a column on kids, and secondly, neither my editor nor her editor knew what I do for a living. When I asked that they publish this new blog address, they refused. Fifteen years.
But on to bigger things!
With this blog, I hope that the world of childcare, especially locally, opens up. It is not a cloak and dagger subject to be hidden. It is perhaps the only positive news subject available. Children should be in the news and have a corner for discussion, because children are our future.
There are too many families struggling to raise children alone. They need all the support they can get, and this blog is a tribute to them. I hope people will share openly all that they do regarding the children they love.
As a reporter for the National Media Service, I interview the researchers who put out new studies on childcare. I intend to publish those studies in full. Did you know that millions of tax dollars are spent on these studies that you have little or no access to? They are about your world and your children, yet where do you see them? There is no room at the inn.
I hope to set up this blog by subject and current interest. You will find a new weekly column, and older columns that relate. Please don't hesitate to write to ask about topics of interest. That's what we are about.
I welcome your ideas and comments.
Judy
Thursday, April 21, 2005
Under Construction
Judy Lyden's Childcare blog will be up and running in all of its glory very soon.
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