Ages & Stages

Prevent Tantrums
Young children often can't communicate frustration and intense emotion verbally. Stay calm when they "melt down".

• Look for patterns– when and where do they usually occur? Who is generally involved? What happens before, during and after a tantrum?
• Stick to predictable meal and bedtimes.
• Transition to the next activity by saying "We are going to leave the park and go home in a few minutes. Let's do one last push on the swing."

Links
Understanding Temper Tantrums (pdf)

Parent – Teacher Conferences: What to Ask?
Kids benefit when teachers, fathers and mothers work together.

Fathers ask Teachers:

• Tell me about the curriculum for (math, language, science, etc.)
• What do you expect my child to learn?
• How can I help my child achieve these things?
• How can I support your work in the classroom?

Teachers ask Fathers:

• What affects your child's attention, learning style?
• What suggestions do you have for me to help your child learn this material?
• What do I need to know about your child?
• How would you like to be involved in the school right now?
• How can I support your role as the father of my student?
  
  

Quality Time, Quality Books

Any day can be Father's Day! Take your child to the library and borrow this book. Have fun making a special day together!

A Perfect Father's Day
By Eve Bunting, New York: Clarion Books, 1991.

Celebrate Father's Day or any day with your dad with this humorous book. A young girl decides that she will make her father's special day a day he will forever remember and enjoy. The young girl has many wonderful aspirations of what she will do with her father. These plans have a tiny little hitch though...they require her father to pay for them, to drive her to them, and they all happen to be his daughter's favorite things to do!

Through colorful and amusing illustrations, which happen to include many other fathers who are celebrating father's day in a very similar manner, the love and happiness of this special day are conveyed. You will most certainly get a chuckle out of this book!

Me & My Dad Activities
Plan a special day for just you and your child. Include your child in the planning. What would he or she like to do? Here are some inexpensive ideas:

• Create an indoor picnic: Spread a blanket on the floor and open the shades to let the light in. (Do not open the window - BRRR!) Make a picnic lunch and enjoy the WARM atmosphere!
• Bake cookies together. Take the extra time to make cut-out sugar cookies! Children LOVE to decorate!
• Make a movie theater in your own family room. With your child, make movie tickets, make popcorn bags and pop popcorn. Select an appropriate movie and dim the lights, grab your ticket, munch popcorn and watch a great flick!