Ages & Stages

Back to School Tips

• Let your kids help pick out their school supplies and clothes. Set limits on what is acceptable and affordable. Teach them the value of money by comparing prices and quality when you shop together.
• Establish a bedtime. School age children need about 10 hours of sleep each night to be rested enough to learn. Set the bedtime 10 1/2 hours before the child needs to wake up in the morning.
• Make the evening routine enjoyable with a relaxing bath, snack and reading before being tucked in. This builds your relationship, instills cooperation and teaches healthy habits.
• Get an alarm clock that your child can set her/himself. Teach her to set it each night and turn it off each morning. Waking to music can be a pleasant way to get up.

Links
Get It Together for School (pdf)

Going Potty
Most every parent has toilet training stories to tell. Which do you follow? Watch your own child for signs of readiness. They have to be physically and emotionally ready which usually happens about age 2 ½ for girls and about age 3 for boys.

Ask yourself, can my child
* Follow simple directions?
* Stay dry for at least 2 hours during the day?
* Walk to and from the bathroom, pull down pants, pull pants up?

Does she/he:
* Stay dry during naps?
* Dislike soiled or wet diapers?
* Seem interested in the toilet or potty chair?
* Have regular, predictable bowel movements?
* Want to wear underwear instead of diapers?

Links
Understanding Children;ToiletTraining (pdf)

Quality Time, Quality Books

Fathers have a big influence on how children adjust to change. Dads and moms who take time to create new family relationships and identity reduce children’s stress of becoming a blended or stepfamily.

When We Married Gary
By Anne Grossnickle Hines, Hines, New York: Greenwillow Books, 1996.

This true book, shares one family’s experience in becoming a blended family. The friendly pictures and warm, comforting tone invites young readers into the text. There are several “photographs” which give the reader a feeling that they are looking into a scrapbook. The metaphor of a puzzle is used to describe the character’s new family.

Me & My Dad Activity
Make a puzzle together, giving your child a sense of what it means to have all of your family fit together.

What you need:
*Paper
*Markers, crayons, colored pencils
*Pencil
*Black marker
*Glue
*Poster Board
*Scissors

Directions:
1.With your child draw a picture of his or her new family
2.Use a pencil to draw “puzzle pieces” on the picture. (The younger your child, the less complicated and detailed you might want to make the puzzle.)
3.Trace the pencil lines with black marker
4.Glue the picture onto the tag board.
5.When the glue is completely dry, cut the puzzle pieces out.
6.Piece the puzzle back together, discussing how your new family fits together.