I think I am realizing my oldest girls are not babies anymore. I just signed Tela up for kindergarten and now this week I am posting pictures from the old days of training the kids. Corney!
Anyway, here is another view of little ones attempting to set the table and wash the table. The independence Parenting On Track has help me create is definitely paying off.
These days we have a 3rd child running around, who is 1.5, and I am trying to start a business. When I am working and they want a snack the routine is in place where the girls can get it, eat it, and clean up after it. I would not be able to work at home with three young kids without the help I have received from Vicki Hoefle! Thank you.
Here is Sadie at 2.5 learning to carry the milk to the table. Freaking out and taking the gallon of milk away from her would have squashed her excitement.
At young ages kids want to learn but they don't have any skills. She managed to drag the milk to the table and I lifted it up for her. That is where I believe the training starts. I sat at the dinner table watching the whole thing, okay so I had to get up to get a camera, but I did not interfere. Sadie is now 4 and getting her own drink comes naturally to her. I do remember having to close the fridge door a lot in the early days.
I wanted to share this to give people a sense of the time line for training that Vicki Hoefle talks about. It doesn't happen over night, in one week or one year. It happens just over time and all kids being different will need more or less help along the way.
Okay, so here is a perfect example of how smart and quick kids are.
Kathy takes her 3 kids to the kiddie pool during her recent stay in Florida. Zack, a new walker, tries to follow his sisters into the center of the pool.
Unfortunately for Zack, he has only been on his feet for a few short weeks (still wobbly), the bottom of his little shoes are slippery and the kiddie pool has a decidedly deceptive slope “down” to the center.
Zack enters the pool to follow said sisters. His feet come out from under him and SMASH. Down on his ass he goes knocking his head on the bottom of the pool.
Mom walks over to the child on his ass. She didn’t run. She didn’t scream. She didn’t grab him up. Why? Because she knows her kid. The other parents in attendance jumped up to “assist” Zack, but Kathy used non-verbal tools to get all the busy bodies to sit down and mind their own business.
She holds Zack by the hand, lifts him up, puts him on his feet at the edge of the pool and sits back down.
Zack takes a few steps towards the center of the pool and SMACK. Down he goes again.
This happens approximately 6 times. No tears. Frustration to be sure, but Kathy is quickly by his side, Quick hug, quick smooch and off he goes again.
Until suddenly, left on his own to figure this problem out, this smart, clever, creative, determined young 14 month old figures out that he has to sit on his ass and scoot towards the center of the kiddie pool.
For the next 2 weeks, remembering what he learned all on his own, Zack enjoys the pool. In fact, he practiced every time they went to the pool and inevitably, some parent would approach Kathy and comment on how clever Zack was for scooting into the pool and asked her “so how long did it take you to teach him that?” To which she promptly broke out in gut busting laughter.
I asked her why the gut busting laughter – her reply “Can you just see me sitting MY ass down in the pee filled kiddie pool and teaching my kid to scoot down to the center? No way that was gonna happen.”
Here is what she knows, what I know and what the parents of the Parenting On Track family know:
Kids are their own best teachers and when parents provide opportunities to practice, well, kids find their own perfect solutions.
Way to go Zack!
This is Sadie. She is almost 4 years old and she pays bills, takes out the trash, and likes to vacuum.
This is going to be so great when I am ready for that "Me time" that I used to have before I had kids. My goal is to train my children to enjoy or at least understand the importance of contributions to the running of our home so that we can all enjoy the "Me time" that make us tick!
I take me time when ever I can. Parenting On Track has taught me to cherish the "types" of me time that come with having three children.
There was a time when I used to have this sort of me time: golf, skiing, mountain biking, rock climbing, hiking, trail running, reading, and traveling.
This is my new me time: nap time, the hours 5:30am-6:30am, 8pm-10pm, bath time (pictured above), sunny afternoons with kiddie pool set up and when the babysitter comes. I love my new me time. Someday I will be that weekend warrior athlete I used to be!
