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“Can we play a family game?”

It’s a request we are getting more and more frequently in our house, particularly from Dames (our second child).

Quite often the request is made when the kitchen is a flurry of activity, pots and pans clanking, pasta sauce slopped in all directions and our youngest, Miss Gubby, is at her most vocal wanting to be fed. We try to say yes, but we can’t always.

On weekends we say “maybe, after we get through all our jobs” (dinner, baths, etc).

The other difficulty we face now is that Miss Gubby is too young to participate and still needs to be watched around small items. So, game time is usually only when Miss Gubby is sleeping.

I was reminded of the importance of making time to play board games with our children recently. And not just because I was reminded of the benefits of board games that I was already aware of – for example, teaching a child to follow rules, to be good sport as a loser (and a good and gracious sport as a winner), taking turns, sharing, accepting the good with the bad and knowing that luck can turn (either way!) in an instant, the value of persistence and, of course, communication and counting.

Sharing a game of Monopoly with our boys gave us the opportunity to teach them a very important life lesson – and hopefully, because it was experienced in an authentic setting and not just taught, one that they will remember for the rest of their lives.

The game

As only befits a birthday, I was ruler of our family for the day in October and got to decide what we would do.

So, while Miss Gubby had a nice long afternoon nap and we were housebound, I decided that all remaining members of our family would play Monopoly.

So out came the board, the houses and hotels, the Community Chest cards and the counters – the ship, the top hat etc.

The boys (7 and 5 years) wowed us with their adding and subtracting and reading the cards and the street names. They also wowed us with their strategy.  Little Mate (the eldest) was focusing on some advice that Damien had given him about the properties with the highest “return on investment”. Dames was more interested in stock-piling cash.

We laughed, we whooped (when going past GO and collecting $200!) and we cursed (mostly when sent to jail)!

And then Miss Gubby woke up and we abandoned ship/top hat etc.

We returned to the game once Miss Gubby was down for the night. What was obvious however was that one of the boys had helped himself to some finance from the bank. Quite a bit of it in fact.

We expressed our disappointment at the behaviour and determined that the boy in question should not benefit from the next few throws of the dice.  And, sure enough, with the illegally obtained finance gone and no ability to earn, the boy in question was soon bankrupted from the game.

When the winner had been determined, we continued our conversation about the incident. Our little guy, who always tries to do the right thing, was clearly devastated by what he had done and had not appreciated the enormity of it.

Nonetheless we took the opportunity to talk about how it was the wrong thing to do and how it was important to play by the rules.

We also talked about how we wanted both boys to remember this lesson for the rest of their lives because the consequences of cheating and stealing were serious – that, if they stole money or other things in later life, they would be taken away from their family and put in jail; that, with a conviction, they may not be able to travel overseas and get certain jobs. We also talked about how much we valued honest people and honesty and that sometimes doing the right thing was not always the easy thing.

Being there with our children and sharing the game gave us the opportunity to have this discussion in a situation that was authentic and hopefully memorable for them.

A recent seminar on resilience that I attended at the boys school advocated the benefits of an engaged family environment when children are young – because that environment can provide a soft landing and a safe space without judgment where children can make errors and learn from them. To me what transpired through that game of Monopoly was exactly what the educator was talking about that night.

As well as overtly teaching a lesson, we also modelled good behaviour to our children during the game of Monopoly. Board games with an element of chance (eg that involve the role of a dice) can be a great way for parents to model good behaviour to their children because generally the playing field is level and everyone is in the same boat.

In the Monopoly game we played we were all struggling on the property ladder, we all landed on someone’s hotel and had to scrape together the rent (including sometimes mortgaging properties to stay afloat)! Nonetheless, neither Damien nor I robbed the bank!

P.S.

I’ve been wondering if we got too heavy in explaining the consequences of stealing with the boys. You want to teach the “do not steal” lesson to last a lifetime, but you also don’t want to scare the living daylights out of them!  It’s that question of kids should be kids isn’t it? But what does that mean, where are the boundaries and does that mean sometimes parents must lie? Stay tuned for more – I’ll be discussing the idea that kids should be kids next on this blog!

Let’s Draw a Baby – a drawing activity for older siblings

In creating baby + me, we spent lots of time thinking about activities to help prepare soon-to-be big brothers and sisters for a new baby. Looking at baby + me, you’ll see we value drawing highly, as it can provide a window into a child’s thoughts.

This activity called “Let’s Draw a Baby” is a great big sibling activity – it provides an opportunity to talk about the baby (their physical make-up, their capabilities and needs); it helps develop fine motor skills; and, it’s a great bonding activity (and, if the child develops an interest in drawing, it can be a go-to activity when the new baby arrives). 

This blog includes tips for doing (or modifying) the activity to suit you and your child. These tips come from my own experience as a mum and draw on the knowledge and expertise of Debbie Isaac, the consultant paediatric occupational therapist on the baby + me book. 

Tips

There’s no one-size-fits-all with big siblings – they could be 1 year old or 10 years’ old or more. Boys, girls, indoorsy or outdoorsy types…

It seems young, but children from 1 year of age can be encouraged to hold a crayon or pencil and draw. I’ve just started Miss Gubby (15 months’) with crayons. She’s now spending more time at it and filling the page with more and more colour.

To be completely honest with you though, if I’d read this post six years ago when I was pregnant with our second boy, Dames and had Little Mate (then just a year old), I probably would have found another source of inspiration for big sibling activities!  Worse still,  I probably would have worried and even felt guilty about the fact that Little Mate thought crayons were for chewing (or throwing) and paper was for scrunching.  Little Mate was not really interested in writing, drawing or talking.  Outdoor activities, playgrounds and riding on trains were his thing!

But fast forward to now and Little Mate (now age 7) is full of words and fills not only my ears but also any piece of paper he can find around the house with words and drawings. Often he will get home from school and launch straight into a creative project – writing a book, tracing a picture, doing a painting.

Here’s some tips for doing (or modifying) this activity to suit you and your child:

• do it together – drawing is a great activity to share!
• choose crayons or pencils or other writing tools (chalk) that suit your child. There are a wide range of writing tools available that have been specifically designed for children – for smaller hands, for those who are just learning to use a pencil grip or for those just starting out.  Here are a few options.  These ones are available at one of our fantastic baby + me stockists – Windmill Educational Toys and Equipment (see www.windmill.net.au for more details):

• try modifying the drawing activity to suit the child’s capability and interest level. Here are some baby pictures of varying complexity to give you some ideas:

 

• if your child is just starting to draw, take the lead and draw the outline of the baby, and ask the child to colour (scribble!) it in or add some features (eg eyes, nose, fingers).  This is also a great strategy if your child says “I’m finished” but the drawing is missing some important features. You can prompt your child in a less confronting way with questions such as “does the baby have any hair?” and “what is baby wearing?”
• even if your child is older and more capable, a blank page can give a child “stage fright”, so consider starting the drawing off yourself.  For that reason, the baby + me book does not have any completely blank pages in it!  Even my Dames, who has loved drawing since he was very young, has got stuck starting a drawing from scratch!
• try foot prints or hand prints as a starting point for a baby picture. These are always popular with the little-ones and, even if they are not holding the pencil or crayon, they feel involved in making the picture by having their hand traced around!
• consider using a different medium for drawing – a more sensory experience like drawing in flour on your kitchen bench or in the sandpit may have appeal
• add a date to all the drawings – they could be a nice keepsake and help you track how the child’s drawing develops over time
• and finally, try not to put pressure on your child (or yourself!) – drawing should be fun for both adult and child.  You can always come back to it another day!

We’d love you to try “Let’s Draw a Baby”.  Please tell us how you and your child go (pictures too please)!

Good luck and happy drawing!

Lauren x

 

 

 

baby + me, a new and unique book for soon to be big brothers and sisters that helps them prepare for a new baby, is Lauren Gardiner’s first book. In this blog post she talks about why she wants to write for children and hopes that it will inspire you to share a book with a child, or even pick up a pen or your computer keyboard and write a story yourself! The story behind baby + me and Lauren’s inspiration for it will be covered in a later post.

I reflected on my motivation for writing for children last week when I had the privilege of opening a book launch event for the Year 6 children at Our Holy Redeemer School in Surrey Hills as part of their Book Week 2018 celebrations.

The children had each written, illustrated, covered and bound by hand a picture story book.

The books are bright and engaging. Some are humorous. Others are very touching – about family, friends, feelings. An incredible amount of time, thought and effort has been spent on them.

The children are now on tour – reading their books aloud to the other classes and to children at local kindergartens.

In the address I gave, I focused on my own motivation for writing for children, because I think it demonstrates the incredible thing these children have achieved.

Books as part of the bedtime ritual

The image that motivates me to write for children is an image that I am part of almost every night in our house.

The bedtime ritual.

In our house we choose a kid’s bed and we snuggle and we cuddle and our legs go this way and that way and we read books together.

We read the story and talk about the pictures and we enjoy this special wind down time together.

Sometimes the book teaches us something (perhaps we’re reading The Very Hungry Caterpillar by Eric Carle and we learn about the life cycle of a butterfly).  Sometimes the book might help us feel more accepting of life’s ups and downs (like Dr Seuss’, Oh, the Places You’ll Go).  Or maybe the book helps us to put ourselves in someone else’s shoes and realise what it’s like to live differently from how we do.  For example, as a homeless person in David Walliam’s book, Mr Stink.  And sometimes we just enjoy a laugh all together (has anyone read Captain Underpants lately?)

Books at any time!

But books are also a “go to” for our family at any time of the day – not just at bedtime. Sometimes we grab a book after school when the kids are tired or things are a bit rocky. A child who’s feeling a bit on the outer, maybe a bit upset, slowly warms to the idea, maybe listening from afar in the beginning, but slowly edging closer and closer.  Ah…the magic of a book to calm and to gather in close!

Books have also helped our kids understand their feelings and to express them (see Trace Moroney’s When I’m Feeling… books).  They’ve helped us with school and kinder transitions and other tricky transitions too, like toilet training.

I love the way that children’s books speak to children through words and pictures in a non-confrontational way. Sometimes they can plant a seed but don’t prod it and poke it (like sometimes a parent does: best case of that, me!)

I have no doubt that reading to our kids from a young age has helped them with their reading at school – it has sparked an interest in books that has made it so much easier and more natural for them to find the tools they need to read for themselves.

I remember not knowing what else to do with our eldest child, known here as Little Mate, in those early days. We’d done tummy time, already gone for a walk, sung my total repertoire of nursery songs (badly!) What next to do with a newborn? Answer: read books!

In summer last year we drove 6000 kms up to Queensland and back over 6 weeks. We downloaded audio books from the library and listened to them most days on the road (some days it was essential for our sanity!) We also read chapter books almost every night.  When Little Mate returned to school in February this year, he started reading at a level that was almost 20 levels above where he had left off the previous year.  And no, we didn’t do readers with him every night on our trip (actually: none at all!)

Book magic!

To me, books are magic.  They give gifts to readers – to children, to adults and to families.

The magic of books is that – while they are made up of two-dimensional images – how we experience a book is so much more than that.  Books enter our children’s heads and spark joy and excitement, bring calm, or prompt wonder and imagination, evoke laughter, understanding or knowledge and foster a love of language.

So, from a writer’s perspective, don’t you think it would be amazing to contribute a book to the world? To share some magic? To give a gift?

Speaking of the world: let’s talk about Eric Carle, the author of The Very Hungry Caterpillar for a minute.  Over 30 million copies of The Very Hungry Caterpillar are floating all around the world (WOW!) (Wikipedia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Very_Hungry_Caterpillar)).  If you’re Eric Carle, you would have brought joy to millions of children and taught them about the caterpillars, cocoons and butterflies.

And while I’m not at the 30 million copies sold point…(yet!) the response from families and children who have received baby + me to date gives me so much pleasure. My favourite story so far is from Harvey (age 7) who took baby + me to school for “show and tell” (that’s a kid’s version of a gold medal isn’t it?!?!) He also told his Mum that:

I couldn’t wait to get home from school every day to fill out this book with my Mum.

There’s magic in books.  There’s magic in baby + me – for families, parents and children and I can’t wait to share it with more of them!

Lauren x

PS

And if you do one day choose to pick up a pen or a computer keyboard and write a story, know there’s plenty of time to get published – the winner of the Children’s Book Council of Australia Picture Book of the Year award 2018 announced last week was Gwyn Perkins.  He was 76 at the time of writing and illustrating his book called A Walk in the Bush! Inspiring stuff!