Education of Children

It can be hard to get children to sit still in circle time or at a desk. Ideally, we can take the time to see why a child may be having trouble. For those that are young, fidgety or distracted, we need to know they are not doing it to bother us, and we need to have strategies to help them be more attentive. Remember, some children can sit still longer than others. Other children need to fidget or move because their nervous systems just are made that way. Here are some ideas and strategies for assisting restless kids: 1-Use a visual cue. For example, if the teacher is reading Spot, the children can hold beanbags, and every time the teacher says Spot’s name, the children have to toss the beanbag into the bucket. This keeps him attentive! 2-Use carpet squares or bean bag chairs. Space the kids out so they are not on top of each other! 3-Some kids can not sit unsupported (and unless you are super strong in your core, you can’t, either!). Make sure you identify these kids, and lean ...

Sensory strategies are one of the most common and least invasive suggestions made to assist children with Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder  (ADHD) function more successfully in their day to day lives. Because of the increased awareness surrounding ADHD, it has become a popular topic for many professionals. While this means that there is an ever-growing supply of research and increasing amount of resources for parents, teachers and medical professionals to reference; it also has the potential to be both overwhelming and confusing. Many of the professionals researching ADHD publish articles, books, and research papers with strategies they have found to be beneficial to children with ADHD. This has potential to be very informative and helpful but there is no unified terminology being used, and thus, the same suggestions are being made using different terms, creating a difficult system to navigate. Sensory strategies are included in some form in almost all approaches suggested...

“Mom, I’m bored.” Makes you feel put on the spot, right? You might even feel like you're a bad parent. Most of us feel responsible when we hear this from our children and want to solve this "problem" right away. We respond to our kids’ boredom by providing technological entertainment or structured activities. But that's actually counter-productive. Children need to encounter and engage with the raw stuff that life is made of: unstructured time. Why is unstructured time for children so important? Unstructured time gives children the opportunity to explore their inner and outer worlds, which is the beginning of creativity. This is how they learn to engage with themselves and the world, to imagine and invent and create. Unstructured time also challenges children to explore their own passions. If we keep them busy with lessons and structured activity, or they "fill" their time with screen entertainment, they never learn to respond to the stirrings of their own ...