Tips and Tricks: Talking About Death

Perhaps the worst thing we can do as parents is to avoid the topic of death with our children. Eventually, like it or not, somebody (or some pet) that your child knows and/or loves will die. That's just the way it works.

Before your child needs to experience this first hand, it is important for them to be familiar about the topic of death and what it actually means. This can be accomplished through songs, books, and even movies (careful - some Disney movies make it seem as if somebody is dead, but then, voila! a spell is broken and they are fine, just fine. This can be very confusing for a child.).

Here are some terms for helping children understand death. (I only suggest only using these terms if a child starts asking questions. There is no need to sit down for dinner tonight and talk about death - unless of course, you've just read a book where somebody or some pet dies and your child is curious.)

Physical death - death of a body; the body stops walking, doesn't eat, doesn't hurt, doesn't poop anymore.

If somebody in your child's life does die, it's important to:

• use the word "Dead". Make sure you do not say "lost" or "past on"
• make sure the child knows the person that died doesn't hurt.
• make sure they know the following - death is irreversible, permanent, painless
• let/encourage your child to ask questions
• have books about death and be sure to have read them already (list below)
• let children participate in closure/help set up ending practices
• allow children to grieve in their own way
• share feelings with your child (it's OKAY to be sad in front of children)
• provide support for your child
• maintain the child's daily routine
• death can be a celebration
• remember it is not the age of the child when deciding if the child should attend a funeral service, but rather the relationship between the child and the deceased.
• answer honestly when asked if you are going to die. "No, I'm not going to die right now."
• establish memories ("This is the first birthday since your father died.")

Talk about death before it happens. Some people avoid books where people or pets die - I seek them out. One of Quinn's favorite books is "Tough Boris". It's a great little book about a tough pirate - who's so tough, but then his parrot dies, and the pirate cries, and cries, and cries. He was familiar with this book before our dog died and asked me to read it many times afterwards. Here's a list of other books that are appropriate for young children.

• Tough Boris - Mem Fox
• Wilfred Gordon MacDonald Partridge - Mem Fox
• Sophie - Mem Fox
• You Hold Me and I'll Hold You - Jo Carson
• Old Pig - Margaret Will
• Go Tell Aunt Rhody - Aliki
• Everett Anderson's Goodbye - Lucille Clifton
• Nana Upstairs and Nana Downstairs - Tomie dePaola
• Miss Tizzy - Libba Moore Gray
• Remember Me - Margaret Wild
• Still My Grandma - V. Van Den abbeete
• The Goodbye Boat - Mary Joslin

As well as reading, there are many songs that talk about death. One of my personal favorites is "Go Tell Aunt Rhody". Sometimes Quinn will ask me to sing that one to him as I'm tucking him into bed.

Children's Understanding of Death (stages)

Stage I (ages 2-4) - At this stage children don't believe death is final. It is temporary and reversible. They attempt to equate it with something they know (sleep, parents going on vacation, etc.) They are more interested in what death means right now (person is never coming bac) rather than how it happened.

Stage II (ages 4 - 10) - Children at this stage understand that everything that lives will die, although they may or may not apply this to themselves. This is fine and normal. They play many imaginary games like ghost, superheroes, and role play in an attempt to understand death and to deal with their fears. Children will often play dead and pretend to have funerals and other practices (if they are familiar with this).

Stage II (ages 10...) - At this stage, children understand that death is personal, inevitable, universal and final. They may have fears related to this understanding. At all ages, part of the fear of death, for children, is that they will be separated from their parents.

*Much of this information was gathered from workshops given by Tom Hunter and Bev Bos. And for any of my readers in Southern California, Bev Bos is an amazing women, with an amazing preschool in Roseville. I encourage you to check it out, fall in love, and sign up for the waiting list.

Tips and Tricks: Leaving Your Child at Pre School

Age: 3 and up
Area of Development: Social and Emotional

This may be quite possibly the easiest tip to remember. If your child is crying when you go to drop him or her off at preschool (or kindergarten or first grade or, well, if they're older than that maybe talk to your doctor), say a quick goodbye, tell him or her they are very safe here and they can have fun, and leave. Prolonging the goodbye will only escalate the crying. Leaving without saying goodbye will cause your child to not trust you and he or she will probably not even let go of you next time you attempt to "sneak out." In all my experience of working in daycare centers and preschool classrooms I can almost guarentee that your child will stop crying within 10 minutes - usually children stop crying the minute they can no longer see their parent. Usually this behavior will stop within 2 weeks - if the behavior isn't gaining the child any extra attention - so, like I said, say a quick goodbye, assure your child she is safe, and leave.

This tip will also work for dropping your child off at the babysitter or daycare - and even works with toddlers - trust me on this one.

Did you find this tip helpful? Do you have a tip for leaving your child at school? Let us know!

Tips and Tricks: What to Buy Your Child's Teacher (or babysitter or therapist)

So this tip and trick isn't really for your child's development. But I know some of you are wondering what the heck to buy your child's teacher as an end of the year gift.
Let me begin by saying that teachers Do Not Expect a gift at the end of the year, nor will they penalize your child if you don't send a present. However, I get gifts from about 32 of my 37 kids at Christmas time and again at the end of the year and the ones who don't have something to give me often feel a little left out. Some will even come up to me and say, "I didn't bring a gift for you" with a very sad look on their face. I can usually cheer them up by asking for a hug and sometimes they'll say, "Okay, here's a hug, but I'm going to make you something during center time." And they'll draw me a picture or something. So yeah, maybe you weren't thinking about sending a gift for the last day of school, but maybe now you are. So here's a few tips.
Teachers have a lot of stuff. Older teachers, who've been teaching for more than 3 years, have a lot of "teacher" stuff - apples, world's greatest, etc. (I liked getting stuff like this for the first few years - then it got old and I ran out of places to put this stuff.) Teachers get a lot of candles and lotions. Some teachers are very sensitive to smells - so be careful here. A high quality candle or lotion or soap is very nice. Something that you've picked up at Walmart for $5 is not.
Here's a list of some of my favorite gifts. I will start with the most expensive and end with the least. Any combination of these would be great.

• Dish soap, lotion, dish towels from Williams-Sonoma. Sounds crazy, but most teachers will not spend their own money on "luxury" soap or nice dish towels. Include a gift receipt in case the scent you've chosen causes the teacher to get a headache.
• Gift certificates: Starbucks and bookstores are my favorite. I also get a lot for Target and used to end up just using it towards toilet paper - how fun is that? This past Christmas I kept the gift certificates and used them to get myself some clothes, nail polish, and other things I don't normally buy. That was fun. I would LOVE for the mom's in my class to get together and buy a gift certificate for a spa - a good one. That would be nice - enough for a message or mani and pedi.
• Donation to a charity. One year I did a charity walk and word got out that I needed money donated so a lot of moms donated to that and then just gave me a card letting me know. I loved it - I didn't need any more stuff or any more gift cards. Find out if there's a charity your teacher supports and make a donation in her name. Or - just pick a charity - Breast Cancer Research and Autism Research - would be two of my picks. I'm willing to bet that most school teachers would support autism research or any type of children's charity.
• Flowers! I love when a child walks in with some fresh flowers for me! Love it!
• Plants! - one year I got a beautiful collection of outdoor flowers/plants to plant at my house. It was perfect and the child painted the container they came in.
• Hanging flower basket - great!
• Teachers get a lot of cookies and baked goods at Christmas - and almost none at the end of the year. Can you think of something to bake that would a fun gift. How about these?
• Fruit basket
• Have your child draw a picture for the teacher - she might not keep it forever, unless she's a crazy scrapbooker like me, but it will mean a lot. Especially if your child draws a picture of something they've done at school or something they like about the teacher. Write down what your child tells you his/her picture is about OR have your child write on the picture.
• Write your child's teacher a note. I love when I get a nice note from a mom letting me know how much she's appreciated all the work we've done through the year. Of course, if you don't feel this way about your child's teacher you might want to just say, "Thanks for a great year!" or "Have a nice summer!" or "I'm so glad we're done with you."

Did you find this tip helpful? Do you have some tips you want to share? Are you a teacher? What would you like as a gift?

Tips and Tricks: Pencil Grasp

Age: 2 years and up
Area of Development: Fine motor skills

To encourage your child to hold their writing utensils properly (with their thumb and one or two fingers as opposed to wrapping all of their fingers around it also known as fisting) break their crayons into small pieces. The occupational therapist at our school swears by this and I've been using it with some of the kids in my class who still struggle with this. I only offer them broken crayons (sounds mean, I know) or small pencils (think mini golf course size). With a small writing utensil there is little room for your child to fist it. Another thing you can try is to have them write on an elevated surface such as an easel or just tape the paper to the wall (or, you know, let them color on the walls).

Did you already know this? Did you find this tip helpful? Do you have a tip you'd like to share? Leave it in the comments or email me at mccathy at comcast dot net.

Tips and Tricks: Going Green

Age: 18 months - 5 years
Area of Development: self expression/fine motor skills

This trick of the trade is coming from the art teacher at my work. After you have your child paint (either finger paint or with brushes) save the paper that they painted on. Later, once it has dried the child can use that same paper to draw scribbles or shapes on top of the colors. Save that paper. Later the child can cut out the shapes or just cut apart the paper. Three uses for one piece of paper: paint, draw, cut. (An occupational therapist might also suggest that you have your child crumble the cut paper to help throw it away.)
Most kids paint for the enjoyment of painting and what they create is just a big piece of paper covered with paint. They enjoyed the process of it all much more than the product that they created. Once your child actually starts painting pictures I do not suggest that you have them draw on top of them (unless they want to use a different media to add to the picture) and I do not suggest that you tell them to cut up their pictures or crumble them up and throw them away. This tip is for those people who have kids that will paint and paint and paint until the entire paper is covered and then ask for more paper to paint some more.

Did you find this tip helpful? Do you have a tip you'd like to share? Leave it in the comments or email me at mccathy at comcast dot net.

Tips and Tricks: Baby's Temperature

Age: Newborn and babies
Area of Development: parenting/health

When taking your baby's temperature the most accurate reading is accomplished rectally. Fun, right? I read a few years ago that the best way to do this is to lay the baby on his/her back, lift the legs as if wiping their butt, dip the thermometer in petroleum jelly, and insert into the rectum. This is so much easier than laying the baby on his/her stomache. A newborn will most likely scream in this position and any baby able to roll over from stomache to back will try and try to roll over while you're taking his/her temperature. I would also suggest a quick read thermometer - the quicker the better, right?

Did you already know this? Did you find this tip helpful? Do you have a tip you'd like to share? Leave it in the comments or email me at mccathy at comcast dot net.

Tips and Tricks of the Trade

I decided to start sharing some tips and tricks that I've learned either through work or parenting books. Through the years I've picked up some tips and tricks from speech therapists, occupational therapists, social workers, and many other professionals. So...to start us off. Here's a tip from one of Quinn's first speech therapists.

Age: 2 years and above
Area of Development: Speech

As soon as your child is able to suck from a straw, you should replace all sippy cups with straw cups. You really should stop using sippy cups by two years of age and your child should be able to drink from an open mouth cup at the table. We were doing that, but allowing Quinn to use sippy cups in the living room. Sippy cups do not help the muscles in the mouth area to develop strength. Having your child drink from a straw actually gives their muscles a little work-out and these straw cups keep the messes to a minimum. She also suggested giving him yogurt or thick shakes to drink through a straw to really work out those muscles (we never did do this - I thought it was kind of mean).

Did you find this tip helpful? Do you have a tip you'd like to share? Leave it in the comments or email me at mccathy at comcast dot net.