5 of Our Best Parenting Tips for Under 5!
August 2022 | Jeannette Kahn, SLP, Founder & Co-Owner Buttonloop Children’s Therapies | Linda Hassapis, Owner and President Magical Beginnings Learning Centers
Learn how to:
Get your child comfortable with boundaries and the word “no”
Create early literacy habits to promote reading and early language skills
Lean on nature to regulate emotions
Support your child’s first words
Our Top 5 Tips!
Say “no.”
Set expectations (that are developmentally appropriate) and be consistent in enforcing them. We are all for positive parenting. When possible, we try to phrase things in terms of expectations (Instead of “no running,” we tell our own kids “use walking feet” or at least we try to that once or twice a month when we have had the perfect amount of sleep and coffee to draw from!), BUT our kids need limits. They need to hear the word “no,” respect the word “no,” and use the word “no.”
Nature-base play
Get your kids outside. Want to build every soft skill they need for adulthood, this is the easiest way. Building attention and focus, emotional health and wellbeing, healthy life choices, and developing a nature hero who will preserve the planet for generations to come. Don’t believe me, there’s and entire movement dedicated to this! https://richardlouv.com/books/last-child
Daily Reading
Read to your kids. Work it into your nighttime schedule to make sure you read at least one book a day. What an amazing opportunity to expand expressive and receptive language skills. I love the way picture books provide a visual representation for the words you are saying. It offers such a wonderful scaffold for children to learn language. Maybe your child hasn’t learned the concept of big yet, but there is a huge giant pictured on the page, maybe your child is really familiar with the word fish, but hasn’t yet explored the vocabulary for shark, octopus, seal. Good stories have such a wonderful arc. They teach narrative development, reciprocity in conversations, and problem-solving in slow motion. Your child wants to read the same book every night? No problem! They are soaking all that information in and retaining it. Your child has a million questions, great, they are really processing the concepts on the page. Your child just loves snuggle time with you, priceless! Need suggestions? I LOOOOOVE our local librarians! https://peabodylibrary.org/children/
Healthy Eating
Eat veggies. You can start with child-led weaning. Allow your child to hold onto a vegetable like a carrot and develop a chewing pattern by placing it where their molars will one day be! You are a great parent because your baby is mouthing objects, you are building healthy food choices, and you’re developing great oral motor skills in order to build an emerging rotary chew. How does this look in later years? Having to make ONLY ONE family meal. As long as your child is not a problem feeder and is moving along on the growth chart, whatever you made is what everyone eats.
There’s a whole different set of rules for picky eaters/problem feeders, need more resources, check out Dr. Toomey:
Play as they play
Get down and talk to your child on her level, that means babbling like a fool to your baby, zooming your toddler through the grocery store while you pretend to drive a race car, donning a tiara and princess cape with your preschooler, or schooling your elementary-aged child on the basketball court. No matter what age or stage, meet them there. Get down on their level. Listen to their number of words per utterance and vocabulary and imitate at that stage. The days are long, but the years are so very short. This from the mom of a ten year-old daughter, an eight year-old daughter, and a three year-old foster son. Now that I feel my oldest needing me less, I can’t get the days to go slow enough…
Want some additional support? Check out Magical Beginnings and Buttonloop Children’s Therapies for speech, occupational therapy, feeding and social skills needs.