Garden School Tattler

First Tattler for the new school year! Wow, it's really here! We're back! It was a very quick summer. Glad the kids had a good time, but now it's school time, and for the most part the kids have been remarkably interested. First week, of course, is spent on rules. Most of the older children are well versed and are spectacular in making and keeping lines, bathroom routines, and lunch routines. Some have forgotten and some are just learning.

For parents who want to help out, please remind your child that lines are quiet places, that only three children belong in a bathroom at one time, and we don't touch our neighbor during lunch. Here is the reasoning:

When we take the children out in public, lines are important safety feature. If lines are quiet, children will be focusing on the adult and not on the child near him. He will be listening instead of talking, and the line will be able to move steadily. When children play with neighbors, they don't remain in line.

When children don't have a toilet or a sink, the bathroom becomes a party zone and the next activity waits and waits while children talk and talk. The girls begin to use the bathroom as a gym hanging on the bars and balancing on the toilet seats and worse! And the boys use the bathroom as a punching arena. So the rule continues: If you don't have a sink or a toilet to use, you don't belong in the bathroom.

The state requires that children eat as germ free as possible. The are required to wash their hands before they sit down. They are required to sit at bleached tables, and they are asked not to paw one another during meals. Most children will pick off one another's plates, drink one another's milk and fight with food. Even when a teacher is looking, sitting with a child or monitoring a group, the children in that group have little respect for food and will use it as a weapon or a game.

Other rules include no running indoors, and stop look and listen when the bell rings. It's always interesting to watch children respond to rules. Truly if a child behaves poorly at school, you can bet he is behaving poorly at home. If he is behaving poorly at home, his home needs rules and structure. Children love structure. They love being told what to do and how to do it. Then once they have mastered how to, they are ready to actually accomplish something on their own.

There is a terrible child care theory that children should be allowed to do anything they want any time they want. When this theory is in place, the natural outcome is a child who never learns to listen and is always resistant about learning. He is stuck in the self rearing mode of fear and frustration, and he usually becomes a block head - one of those children a teacher can't teach. Guidance, rules, and routine are the badges of parenthood, and these badges go with a child to school.

Children can learn a great deal at school, but if they return to homes that are lax and filled with chaos, they will nearly always revert to a lesser behavior.

Today we will go off to Audubon Park for a walk in the woods and a picnic. It should be a beautiful day. We will practice lines and listening skills. Next week - it's on the calendar - we will be working on listening skills.