$10 per day childcare - celerbation or concerned

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 So want to say “for now” to all those answers from politicians and advocates like the AECEO and OCBCC for this … based on historical precedent of what happens when the government is responsible for the majority of funding I find it hard to trust promises like “ratios won’t increase” also do not see funding being distributed equitably to see improvement to wages across the board - large licensed centres are going to end up eating up the majority of funding because well they are the least financially viable model of childcare and have the highest overhead model and overtime easy to hypotheses that there will be less and less for the tiny amount of licensed home childcare that is currently is represented in the licensed model let alone if the “unregulated sector” starts to try to migrate over placing more demand on said funding that’s been allotted which is based on the currently model that only meets 25% of the actual childcare used in Ontario. 

 

Again based on precedents of history - hate to keep saying it but look at Quebec …. despite the sector being unionized for 25 years now their home childcare sector, under this same model being represented here, gets the scattered crumbs that are leftover and preCovid had started roaring strikes because 25 years in and home childcare was still making LESS than minimum wage because they were getting away with paying them daily rates vs hourly wages and the length of the days just kept increasing as parents worked longer hours and had longer commutes you know to help pay for these programs … and this is despite the reality that home childcare has the least amount of overhead, provides the lowest ratios/group sizes for children and the access to a responsive attentive primary caregiver throughout their early years journey that all the brain and trauma informed research shows is vital to success in the early years. 

 

Currently licensed programs cannot properly staff programs NOW where are they gonna get all these new staff from to open up new spaces or to be home coordinators for agencies?

How quickly are we gonna see more and more centres who currently only hire ECE because they believe that’s what high quality program should be having to resort to hiring unqualified staff a because of shortage and b because they can pay them LESS and the burden of the pressure from the government not funding enough in wages to keep up that practice - which is gonna put more responsibility on the ONE RECE required per group because with the CECE and protected practice laws the non qualified staff are not SUPPOSED to be doing program planning, discussing development with parents and array of other “only a RECE” can do

As always people get hyped about the sound bytes and then are greatly disappointed by what actually rolls out! 

 

FDK is almost 20 years in between the pilots and than the full roll out is STILL underfunded and looks NOTHING like what was promised

Based on conversations with peers I it is likely that majority of home childcare providers will WAIT and see what actually rolls out before being concerned about this … I am willing to guess that any families going on wait lists NOW for this new program will likely have children in university before they actually opening up spaces for them! 

 

I would also bet money that the majority of these 86,000 spaces being promised  of which 15,000 are already been already created in 2019 and counted in this promise will be for SCHOOL AGE children and not the 0-4 age group which they do NOT tend to open up  too many of at a time in comparison! School age care is the ONLY care that can actually balance an operational budget because their ratios are so much higher than current infant and toddler or even preschool programs which is why programs choose to focus on those age groups with school age and preschool spaces being in abundance and toddler and infant spaces in great demand in the licensed sector!

 

And I have to say it once again if parents cannot access this 'social support' $10/day program to let a parent stay home and DIY their own childcare or get their nanny, extended family member or neighborhood home childcare costs covered via the program too than it’s NOT gonna fit the definition of ‘universal’. At best based on the current landscape it is going to be a very expensive investment that is only reaching 25% of the children in Ontario and that just does not seem like a EQUITABLE investment in the early years or respecting CHOICE for Ontario families!

 

Can’t help but be concerned about the future generations that are gonna come up through this model specially when again the research that shows that Quebec’s long term studies on the actual social/emotional and mental health outcomes for their program users has been alarmingly poor So sure the program got more parents into the workforce cause both can work but at what TRUE COST to children and families living there cause there’s more valuable things in life than lost INCOME.

 

Hug your little ones tight and if you believe in a higher power pray that today's announcement about Ontario joining the Federal government's $10/day platform turns out to actually be beneficial to the CHILDREN it is meant to serve as building blocks for their life long learning path! 

 

For the first time in two years I ironically now have something to be grateful for with the pandemic having closed my own early learning program and my health having forced me to retire from practicing early childhood education for the time being - I can advocate from the sidelines without the stress of having to live through this uncertainty of roll out first hand! 

 

Changes in childcare have never run smoothly as they rolled out and sadly far too often caused more stress and work for those on the front line than benefiting them! 

 

Margaret

Live, Laugh, Love

Be Totallyawake4-life

 

 

 

Is letting a child cry detrimental to them?

So this meme was shared today in an early childhood education group and it started a huge debate among educators. Some saw this as parent shaming and others as defending that infants NEED to be allowed to cry it out to learn how to self regulate and understand the concept of delayed gratification.

In my experience this is the challenge when we read something and assume the two extremes around what it’s meaning in the actual middle of the spectrum. 

IMO this meme isn’t saying NEVER let a child cry because you’re gonna break their fragile mental health and cause trauma if you do. 

Yes infants are gonna NEED to cry from time to time because that’s how they communicate when they are frustrated/bored as well as all the other reasons like pain/hunger/scared, etc. There is a HUGE difference between allowing an infant a moment or two of delayed gratification during which they may cry and not dropping everything and meeting their needs for them immediately IF while they are in that state the adult is being responsive to the cry by verbally reassuring them “I hear you. You sound upset but my hands are busy changing a diaper/making dinner/going pee (whatever is delaying you from attending to them immediately). I will be there in just a minute to help you” and trying to help them corevulare through verbal and body language cues or if seeing them struggle a minute to reach for a toy or change positions themselves and they are crying in frustration and you are giving them a minute of frustration to see if they can use that to propel themselves forward and meet the need themselves and using body language are to cheerlead them on. Then when you are done with your task or you’ve given them that moment and can see that they are gonna need assistance than you are in fact attending to their need that made them cry so the need it’s actually met just delayed - that approach is what is called responsive caregiving and most definitely teaches them that yes my need WILL be met if I am just patient or persistent.

Verses the other far end of the spectrum here, that research like this is talking about IMO, where infants are left for LONG periods of time to cry it out with no support at all from a responsive adult in their life’s and their need that started them off crying is often NEVER met either entirely or it’s left for so long they given up trying to have it met - aka they are left up to hour or more to cry in their beds to learn to “self regulate”, they are left for hours in distress because they are feeling insecure in their environment but are not picked up and soothed cause ‘that will reinforce their crying behaviour’ and they need to learn to ‘self regulate’ or “don’t pick them up you’ll spoil them” or they are in pain and cry out and left to cry it out to “toughen em up”, or they are left to cry when hungry cause “the clock says it’s not been 4 hours yet” and “they need to follow their schedule” at all costs and the array of other old school approaches to caregiving around infants and toddlers and the behaviour of crying and why it should be ignored and not reinforced that were used in infancy/toddlerhood not only by parents but by ECE in childcare settings too. Approaches that, yes with the research done today when we know more about the brain and how it works and longer term studies have been done on various approaches has shown, it can in fact create attachment trauma and other trauma responses in the brain as the infant grows into other stages of development that for some children can result in increased aggression and lack of impulse control. It can affect the ability to form healthy attachments in adult relationships and an array of other mental health barriers around trusting one’s needs will be met. 

This new information is not to lay BLAME on those who’ve fallen into that old parenting advice - every generation of parents does their best with the tools and resources they have at the time  but as we learn as a society what might work better than we should be having these discussions around our practices so we can DO better moving forward with the new information we have. 

It’s the same with the old school “corporal punishment” argument where there are those who still say “I was spanked and hit as a child and I turned out fine” … but how might we have turned out if we HAD NOT had that form of discipline and instead had a gentler more positive approach to what occurred when we were making mistakes ? Is it possible it would have been better and healthier for our attachments, relationships and view of authority and trying other things in the world where we don’t know the success of them for fear of being punished if we do try them? And why are we settling for “turning out fine” when we could be reaching for “turning out exceptional”?

Also to touch base on a  couple other points that came up in the thread on Facebook that prompted this blog post. 

On the topic of these memes “shaming” parents who let their children cry. I totally agree with the advocating for the importance of a caregiver, be it a parent or third party, to know their own limits for dealing with adversity in caregiving such as the stress of listening to a baby crying and nothing working to sooth them and that it is totally better to tell baby “I need a break for a minute” and set them somewhere safe and walk away for a couple minutes to collect oneself, grab some coffee, wash their face whatever they need to do to ground themselves before coming back to try to help baby again - that IMO is still totally within the realm of responsive caregiving. Or to even know their threshold of when they need to reach out for back up from family/friend/neighbour/coworker to tag on so they can take over for to give them a longer break to take care of themselves and their own mental health. Raising tiny humans is HARD and we definitely need to to do a better job to support and not shame or judge people for needing to ask for HELP with the task! 

The two things do not need to be mutually exclusive - we can ensure we have the support system in place so that both the infants need to feel heard/secure/supported in their distress AND the caregivers need to protect their own mental health in face of that distress and not feeling like they can help their tiny human in that moment because to own cups running on empty.  

There is also the reality that due to the fight or flight response humans have that even in the most responsive healthy attachment based modes of caregiving situations you are still gonna have the exception where young children still show “aggression” because it’s a)  the nature verses nurture of human beings occurring and b) the fact that it is developmentally appropriate in early childhood to learn by trial and error as they figure out their world around them … so some personalities are just going to be more engrained with the ‘fight’ response when they are faced with an adversity/stressor. The trick to avoiding growing up into ADULTHOOD with STILL leaning impulsively towards aggressive solutions to adversity and solving one’s problems is how RESPONSIVE we are to supporting young children to develop better empathy, conflict resolution, and anger management techniques so that they have the tools they need in adulthood to cope with what nature engrained in their brain pathways. 

There is so much that is newly discovered every year about how amazing the human brain is and the connections between the nature and nurture outcomes in life affecting the brain and what our role as educators of the early years is in helping to advocate for the “when we know better we DO better” in a way that is not judgemental of the ways that came before us! 

It took me a lot of years of therapy to get to the place where I can look on my own trauma filled childhood with authoritative emotional and physically abusive parents and accept without blame that my parents did the best they could with the knowledge, resources and skill set they had at the time … I don’t hold blame or judgement for them! They loved me in the only way they knew how. 

As an adult I now know better because I looked outside my family circle for information, I have access to the Internet and so have better resources and tools in my toolbox so I can do better than those before me and I can do the hard work end the cycle of parenting style that I had and do better for my children and grandchildren - and hopefully they will know even better and have better tools that I did and continue working towards helping ensure that all children can do more than the benchmark of ‘fine’ and instead have the benchmark be ‘exceptional’ building blocks from their childhood experiences 💗

Ultimately we need to remember that when we KNOW BETTER we strive to DO BETTER … no shame, no blame, no punishing ourselves for what came before because we lacked the tools we needed to do better! 

Be the change we want to see in the world! 

Margaret

Live, Laugh, Love

Be Totallyawake4-life  

Self Regulation

So often we hold children to a higher standard of self regulation than many of us are capable of ourselves! 

There are times when we, as adults, become over tired and over stressed and suddenly hit our threshold of all we can take with demands on us and we act out towards a spouse or family member with unkind words or we may throw a little toddler tantrum ourselves! I know it happens cause I have seen it out and about in stores and service based businesses ;) 

Peopling is HARD and what children need in those moments what ANYONE needs where they cannot regulate themselves is for us to HELP them through co-regulation showing empathy and offering support vs tossing more stress into their spiral. 

Photo credit

Mental health in the early years MATTERS! 

Margaret 

Live, Laugh, Love

Be Totallyawake4-life 

Avoiding Picky Eaters

Love this awesome visual for kids!

The news tonight was discussing the important of labeling food benefits for children specially when introducing new food. Helping them learn to make the connect that food isn’t just about eating what we “like” but about eating what our body needs to be nourished! 

Focusing on benefits that are not only accurate but are goals that children would be motivated to achieve - protein helps to build strong muscles so you can jump and climb, veggies give you energy so that you can run faster and grow taller and so forth ... young children really want to be big and strong motivating them to make connection that healthy eating is KEY to doing that!

Another trick I use with children is that your “taste buds” are just like everything else in your body - they grow bigger every day so while your taste buds might not have been big enough to appreciate broccoli (or whatever new food your trying to palette) today they might be bigger so it’s important to keep trying to see if your taste buds are big enough yet. Again children CRAVE being seen as “big enough” so using words and presentation of food in a way that motivates them to want to try verses trying to battle or barter or bribe them to get them to try! Intrinsic motivation is the BEST route to life long healthy eating! 

Have an amazing day

Margaret

Live Well, Laugh Often, Love Much

Be Totallyawake4-life

Sensational Sleep Tips

Growing research over that past few years shows that children and adults in North America and SLEEP DEPRIVED and it is slowly killing us. The epidemic has gotten so bad that over a 1/3 of participants in a recent study reported using over the counter or prescription drugs to get their children to settle into sleep at night ... that is over 30% of children who, for what in my opinion is totally preventable reasons, are unable to do what comes naturally and SLEEP? 

Having suffered with pain induced sleep deprivation myself and seeing the damage it did to my own mental and physical health learning more about sleep and its importance has become a mini passion for me leading me to advocate for protecting sleep for myself and others as the first line of defense in creating and living a healthy life.

In addition as an early childhood educator who is passionate about giving children their best foot forward in life these growing statistics on sleep deprivation in younger and younger children are heartbreaking. During the first 3 years the brain is working so hard and setting itself up for its lifetime it is during this time that we need to ensure it has all the tools it needs to do the BEST job it can! So rather than looking to 'big pharmacy drugs' to treat a symptom and MASK the damage that symptom might be causing we should be looking deeper into WHY is this trend emerging and what can we do naturally to improve healthy sleeping patterns in North America! 

Sleep requirements by age:

Image Source

 What Are Sleep Deprivation and Deficiency? (source)

 

Sleep deprivation (DEP-rih-VA-shun) is a condition that occurs if you don't get enough sleep. Sleep deficiency is a broader concept. It occurs if you have one or more of the following:

• You don't get enough sleep (sleep deprivation)
• You sleep at the wrong time of day (that is, you're out of sync with your body's natural clock)
• You don't sleep well or get all of the different types of sleep that your body needs
• You have a sleep disorder that prevents you from getting enough sleep or causes poor quality sleep

11 Signs You Are Sleep Deprived (source)

1. You are always hungry
2. You've gained weight: 
3. You are more impulsive
4. Your memory is shot
5. You're having trouble making decisions
6. Your motor skills are off
7. Your emotions are all over the place
8. You get sick often
9. You are having trouble seeing
10. Your skin is not looking good - prone to rashes, acne and so forth
11. You think you have fallen asleep at the wheel

Risks to your health and well being not sleeping:

Image source

While there is lots of documented articles with citing research coming out on how this issue of sleep deprivation and how it is affecting children I do not need to read research to know some of the changes that have been occurring in childhood that are impacting sleep I have seen the slow change in family life over the past 25 years working as an Early Childhood Educator .... as a society despite modern conveniences meant to make life easier we are busier than ever, children are scheduled out the wazoo with extra curricular activities often during their bodies natural 'nap period' so we have infants that are supposedly outgrowing the need for a nap before a YEAR but are only averaging 8 hours a sleep at night so are missing out on over 40% of their required sleep, we eat fast food and are always go go going in one way or another in today's family. So for life to suddenly 'stop' and children be expected to turn it off and sleep its a challenge specially when sometimes bedtime is 7 and other nights it might be 9 cause of an extra curricular or family commitment! 

When I worked in centre care client's in my programs were continually coming to the team with requests to 'eliminate the nap' because Little Johnny is up until the wee hours of the morning wanting to watch TV or eat waffles or just bouncing off the walls cause they cannot lie still and some how the 'nap' at daycare is being blamed for this because he must not be 'tired' otherwise he would just got to sleep. Eliminating the nap is NOT the answer though ~ specially when you look at the 'signs your sleep deprived' these behaviors are ALL attributed to not getting enough sleep! 

Young children still of daycare age need between 11-14 hours of sleep a day with families busy schedules today there is low statistical probability they are getting that all at NIGHT so an afternoon nap is paramount!  The reality is that ALL the research out there shows that Little Johnny is likely OVER TIRED and has entered a phase of 'sleep resistance' that is why he is not settling into sleep! 

Setting a consistent routine and environment that promotes healthy sleep patterns in early childhood is KEY to help stave off the sleep related issues and create a relationship with sleep that should ideally last throughout adulthood! 

My Tips for Sleep Success in the Early Years

ENSURE SLEEP IS A PRIORITY ... like eating healthy and other positive habits in life we need to VALUE the benefits of doing them to keep it a consistent practice! We can ensure we are making things a priority or what  I call 'living  our values and goals' by ask ourselves with every thing we do or choice we make 'will this help me achieve my goals in X', so in this case 'achieving healthy sleep habits', if the answer is NO than consider how to eliminate it from your routine and make room for more YESES in your life. For example while taking the kids to a late movie as a treat cause its the first night its showing and all the other times sold out might be awesome in the moment if you have to pay for that moment for the next WEEK in increased resistance at bed time and the behavior challenges that come when a child is over tired 24 hours and up to several days or longer trying to get them back on routine is it really WORTH that moment which is gone in a fleeting nana second in the course of ones life? Asking ourselves when something comes up that is going to interfere with a child's sleep goals is it worth it or can it be done on a schedule that fits in with keeping sleep a priority for your family? Which brings us to tip number 2. 

 

RESPECT THE INTERNAL CLOCK ... Sleep is regulated by two body systems: sleep/wake homeostasis and the circadian biological clock. Young children need a consistent routine of meal times, sleeping times and getting daily exercise in order to learn how to self regulate these system to optimum health not just for sleep but for all sorts of bodily functions including as they age toilet training and so forth. A consistent routine of when the body can expect food, sleep and exercise allows children to better learn to listen to their bodies cues for being hungry or tired. When ones routine changes and moves around all the time we get very adept at learning to 'ignore' messages from our body in order to cope and this can have long term consequences to our health. We learn to eat when not hungry or ignore our hunger which can lead to imbalance with our metabolism and result in 'over eating' and weight gain, we miss our window of opportunity to fall asleep which creates imbalances in our sleep hormones which is what results in overtired children and adults being wide awake at 4AM ... all of these challenges affect other parts of our body and as a result our physical and mental health! Young children AND adults both need a consistent routine to thrive optimally ... when I worked in Human Resources I use to constantly advocate that we needed to do away with things like 'rotating shifts' for employees because the long term risk to their HEALTH AND WELL BEING was not worth it. As a society we should also be making SLEEP a priority in our policy making. Asking ourselves is this work that MUST be done 24/7 and if not than protect the SLEEP of our workforce and do not work 24/7! 

 
GET ACTIVE OUTSIDE: In an era where we have so many 'electronic conveniences' we seem to loose ourselves in our IPads and LeapFrog devices at younger and younger ages combine these conveniences with the access to information from all over the globe that has us feeling that no where is 'safe' for out children our children spend less and less time actively engaged in outside vigorous play!  However I totally notice in my own front line 'research' the huge correlation between children being active daily OUTSIDE and getting a good nights sleep. When we have a period of inclement weather where we are not getting outside for our 2-3 hours a day of active outdoor play I totally can see the increase in parental complaints about 'poor nights sleep' at home despite the fact that were indeed still active INDOORS. Being active OUTSIDE in the fresh air and sunshine has huge benefits to our health!

• 1. Sleep-inducing natural light
  Regular doses of bright natural light help children stay more alert during the day, elevate their moods and make it easier to sleep at night. Exposure to outdoor light in the morning actually helps set their body clock for a better and earlier night’s sleep.
  2. The soothing dimensions of more time in nature
  Nature has a way of comforting children. It can take away stress and be a haven for kids who are otherwise feeling the pressures of school, family, and social demands Research has found that children who suffer from attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) get significant relief from their symptoms and are able to concentrate better if they spend some time outdoors.
  3. Outdoor exercise is better for children than indoors
  Exercise can release soothing endorphins into the blood stream and can help with the production of melatonin. Outdoor play encourages activities such as climbing, jumping, running and tumbling that promote muscle fitness and flexibility. Research shows that moderate to vigorous physical activity in child care settings increased from 1% indoors to as much as 11% outdoors. When outdoor play was child led, the amount of time further increased to 17%.

ENVIRONMENTS THAT PROMOTE SLEEP: 

The environment is one of the FIRST places we should look whenever a child is struggling with their development cause often it is there we find the key to why and how to support them. Environment can mean not only their surroundings / external stimulation but also their dietary habits and other factors like routine and stressors in the home, school, life in general.  

Often when I listen to clients describing their child's sleep challenges I hear things like 'he woke up and would not got back to sleep. He was throwing a fit so we watched a TV show to calm him down but than I could not get him to go back to sleep at all he tossed and turned all night so he's basically been up since 2am.  Or I got up to go to the bathroom and found him wide awake playing with the toys in his room .Or he woke up at 2am and wanted something to eat so we gave him an egg to tie him over. While no one wants their child to throw a fit or go hungry the sad reality is that appeasing to these sort of things in the middle of the night is NOT creating an environment that promotes sleep. It is basically impeding it by fine tuning their internal clock that has become BROKEN to continue to to remain broken because their internal 'alarm' will ring again tomorrow night at 2am and want to be stimulated by the TV or fed. If we want a child to sleep through the night than we need to start by setting the expectation that we sleep through the night and create an environment and routine that promotes that. When they wake up, which is natural during a sleep cycle we need to teach them to close their eyes, relax and go BACK to sleep verses encouraging them to get 'stimulated' into a full wakeful state.  There are lots of books out there on how to 'reset' an internal clock. I have friends who swear by the No Cry Sleep Solution book.

When I was in my sleep study myself the best advice the Dr's gave me was 'a bedroom is for SLEEPING that is all you should do in there'. When I herniated my disc and could not move about so much we had moved a TV into the bedroom and I had grown into the pattern of falling asleep watching TV because when my mind was busy with the TV I did not feel the pain so much it seemed like an awesome solution at the time. However overtime this inadvertently practice broke my internal clock. My brain could not wind down on its own anymore ~ I could not fall asleep unless the TV was on. Because the TV was on the light and energy it gave off while sleeping affected the natural production of Melatonin hormones in my body as well as I was not reaching REM sleep. These two things combined to start creating a cyclical effect of sleeplessness that deteriorated my health until I found myself in a sleep clinic trying to get back to a healthy sleep cause I did not want to be on the array of 'drugs' that modern medicine was offering me to treat my symptoms that the lack of sleep had created. Research shows that optimal sleep occurs when we have NO SCREENS several hours before we are due to go to sleep as the exposure to the unnatural light at that time of day is stimulating hormones that promote wakefulness and therefore impacting our ability to achieve a good sleep! I know for myself I am so sensitive to light impacting my sleep that I actually had to get black out curtains and put a post it note over the alarm clock light. 

Create a consistent routine for bedtime that will help support sleep. 

Turn the TV and other stimulating devices off at least an hour before bedtime, if your wee one is prone to waking up middle of the night 'hungry' ensure that a hearty balanced bedtime snack is provided before bed to ensure they stay full throughout the night. 

A calorie is a calorie but not all calories are created equal ... in my experience typical offered bedtime snacks often are of the 'fast burning carbohydrate' variety which means they are filling for a short time but quickly burned and hungry again. 

A healthy bedtime snack includes complex carbohydrates, a protein and a bit of calcium.If possible have a nice warm bath perhaps with some Epsom salts and essential oils that promote 'relaxation and sleep' such as Lavender and Chamomile, 

Ideal sleep occurs in an environment that is quiet, relatively dark as light impedes the sleep hormone from activating, with no distractions to entice them out of sleep if they open their eyes mid sleep cycle and so forth.  Hence the advise of my Dr above ~ a bedroom should be for SLEEP and SLEEP only. If possible try not to have stimulating toys and so forth in a child's sleep space. Then when they wake up midnight nothing is going to 'catch their eye' and pull them out of their sleep. 

 

Spending sometime together reading before bed is always an awesome ideas ~ promotes early literacy among other benefits. If your little one is struggling with staying in bed throughout the night I highly recommend the approach of the Good Night Fairy book. First cause Renee is a local author and I love supporting local talent and second she gives some awesome tips and tricks for promoting healthy sleep on her website to accompany her book.

 

Good Night Fairy book

I have had a few peers who have had an issue with the concept of the Good Night Fairy because as part of her visit to support sleep leaves behind a 'prize' for the child if they manage to sleep through the night. They do not feel it sends the right message to provide an external prize for sleeping ~ sleep should occur because it is needed and expected.

 

I personally feel that just like the elf on the shelf concept you have to use it in a way that works for your family. I do not think that the 'prize'  referenced in the book necessarily needs to be an actual tangible item. I honestly am not a fan of using 'external motivation' for doing what needs to be done either.  So I read this book in the daycare when transitioning toddlers from the crib to a cot. When they stay on their cot and rest their body as requested the 'prize' from the good night fairy is getting to do something fun at wake up time. She leaves a little jar with 'activity suggestions' in for them to choose from. For me this helps with the natural correlation that because we are well rested we all have the time and energy for doing something fun. On the flipside if they have undesired behavior at nap time and keep the others awake or do not allow my to get a break in cause I am redircted them back to bed than the period after wake up time is 'quiet stuff' so we can rest our body than cause ultimately we NEED rest.

The kids in the house are grown now but I still had young children I would do the same thing for the 'big sleep' at night ~ she can leave a note with a fun invitation of something to do with mom or dad the next day with all that energy they have from sleeping well. Once they are sleeping well she stops visiting so often until she is no longer needed. Just like a soother children will not be walking down the asile at their wedding needing the help of the good night fairy to get to sleep.

Image Source

For me I basically love the idea of a book and resources that are giving parents and kids tools in a fun way that will keep them in bed and empowers sleep well.

Plus I love fairies and the little add on items for the Good Night Fairy are adorable ... like this is the little crochet REMy Fairy! Again a treasure sourced locally and each handmade from the amazing Kimberly Poole Designs! Plus there are coloring books and other things to help extend the discussion around healthy sleep!

I am also excited that Renee has a NEW book The Good Night Fairy Helps her Change her Dreams in the making ~ so excited that I helped with her Kickstarter fund to help her get this one off the ground! The new book is about teaching children about the power of lucid dreaming and how we do not need to be afraid of our dreams we can actually control them!

Visit the Good Night Fairy Website to pre-order yours

And look at the amazing creations that will be available with them .... children LOVE to role play so having access to dolls that they can use to role play the messages in the book will make the message about sleep and dreams that much more powerful for them!

 Do you have any sleep tricks and tips you'd like to share?

Have an amazing day!

Margaret

Live Well, Laugh Often, Love Much

Be Totallyawake4-life

 

Halloween Party Prep

Only a few more sleeps until Halloween ~ my other half is getting stoked and the older kids in the daycare have started to show some interest in 'pumpkins and ghosts' so we've started to play some games in the program and I have added a few 'costumes' for them to explore with including the Witches hat.

Here are two of our favorites DIY Halloween games we love to play

Witches Ring Toss 

What You Need

• Witches hat ~ we got ours at the Dollar Store
• Florist Wire
• Washi Tape

What You Do

•  Make 'circles' with the florist wire and twist the ends together to close into your ring.
• To protect little fingers wrap Washi Tape (or duct tape) around the twisted ends to keep them covered while playing.
• We used my 'yoga' mat for the play surface ... children at one end of the mat and the hat at the other end and they 'tossed' the rings trying to get them onto the point of the hat. 
• So as my crew is all under 4 at the moment so they do not need to keep score in a game ~ the game is practicing taking turns and cheering others on!However with older children you could 'score' your ring toss like you would Horseshoes based on how close their ring gets to being 'on' the witches hat.

 

 Pumpkin Toss

What You Need

•  Jack O Lantern or a Cauldron or other equally fun 'Halloween Themed' bucket
• Styrofoam Pumpkins (good ole Dollar Store) you could also use 'orange socks' or soft balls or pom poms or something else to decorate as a pumpkin

What You Do

•  Again we used our trusty yoga mat as our game surface and we tossed the pumpkins into the bucket ~ my crew is all under 4 at the moment so they do not need to keep score in a game ~ the game is practicing taking turns and cheering others on! 

 Other Ideas for Party Fun with things around the house

• Witches Limbo ~ use a broom to play Limbo game to some fun Halloween Music
• Pin the Tail on the Cat ~ make a big black cat silhouette for the wall and some 'tails'... no black paper? No worries use a washable marker on a patio door to draw your cat! When you are done wash it off! 

Have an amazing day!

Margaret
Life Well, Laugh Often, Love Much
Totallyawake4-life

Has Halloween gotten too much?

This article below from Today's Parent has really gotten me thinking ~ it is something I have struggled with my entire career working with young children .... the fun of carrying on Halloween traditions in the program verses what is developmentally age appropriate for children specially as I have moved to embracing more of a 'child led' program because the reality is that Halloween rarely comes up in play or inquiry from the child it is typically the ADULT who initiates it. They have no concept of time to know October 31st is approaching, they have not true understanding of WHY we celebrate it and so forth and aside from being pleased about the idea of 'getting candy' they have no real interest in 'inquiry' about the WHY behind the customs.  

So just WHO are we actively celebrating Halloween FOR in a childcare setting? Is it meeting the children's needs, my needs or my perceived needs of what is expected of me from clients, fellow providers or society in general? 

I know as a result of this struggle over the years I have cut back a LOT on planning the cute little Halloween crafts and so forth leading UP to Halloween with the kiddies but admit that I am just not sure I am ready to totally 'give up' the tradition of getting dressed up and doing some trick or treating on the last day of program before Halloween occurs ... getting dressed up is so much FUN even if they do not understand the why behind it or care to inquire about it past that day ... so for me when it comes to Halloween rather than being a month worth of exploration like it was in my 'childcare theme days' it is now just a DAY celebration and than we move on and let it go!

When it comes to the 'decorations' I know with operating a home childcare my spouse and I have had to come to terms with what can be placed out 'ahead of Halloween' for decorations out of respect for those parents like Lauren in the article below who feel that Halloween has gotten just too far out of control on the creepy gore factor. So I request that he please stick to a few pleasant pumpkins and black cats and maybe a ghost or two in the tree out front leading up to Halloween verses what he has to wait until the day of Halloween to put out so that my charges are not petrified walking up to the house leading up to Halloween. 

On Halloween night though fair warning that we cater to the David's of the world. So if the weather is nice, the front yard transforms into a total Walking Dead meets Freddie Kruger set ... with the full out zombie graveyard with the fog and bones and fake blood ... with the trick or treating on the actual Halloween day I figure that is totally up to parental choice if they want to bring their child out to walk through the foggy front lawn of moaning and groaning graveyard creeps in order to knock on our door that has blood dripping zombie guts around it in order to ask for a trick or treat ... cause my spouse is totally like David and loves the 'fear factor' that Halloween promote. If you want the 'treat' bad enough you need to be willing to conquer your fears in order to get it and if not that's cool too just pass our house by for the one next door that has no decor to get passed. 

Is Halloween’s blood and gore appropriate for kids?

"Two parents debate whether or not Halloween should be a celebration of blood, fear and death.

“Yes” David Eddie, dad of three

For years, our Halloween decorations included a dummy with a pillowcase for a face wearing clothes stuffed with rags, sitting on a chair on our front porch. But the neighbourhood kids all got used to it, so one year my wife inserted herself into the clothes, tucked rags at her ankles and cuffs, and sat stock-still in the chair. When kids approached the door, the “dummy” came to life—and the poor trick-or-treaters almost jumped out of their skins in fear.

Ours is not the most elaborate Halloween display in the neighbourhood, but we do try to max out the creepy factor. We’ve had live rats crawling around the porch, severed hands, witches hanging from nooses and spooky sound effects. We’ve also supported our kids when they decided to dress up as serial killers, axe murderers and, one time, a doctor whose surgery had gone terribly wrong.

Bad parenting? Bad neighbouring? Bad karma? I can see how some might say so. But here’s my feeling: In a couple of months, kids will be celebrating a holiday that’s all about family, warmth and coziness, presided over by an apple-cheeked figure who snacks on milk and cookies. Halloween is the antidote to that. It’s about the other side, the dark side, the side of life we as parents would like to pretend doesn’t exist—but it does. It’s about going out into the night and confronting your fears, a little more each year. And what’s better than facing your fears and finding out they’re not as scary as you imagined? It’s like going on a roller coaster. First time: terrifying. Subsequent times: totally fun.

I also like the honesty of Halloween. Christmas teaches kids they’ll be given stuff they want as long as they’re “nice.” Halloween teaches them to go toward the things they fear and demand what they want. Of course there might be danger or obstacles in the path—and someone they had dismissed as a dummy might suddenly jump out of a chair to terrorize them.

But I ask you: Which is the better metaphor for life?

“No”
Lauren Ferranti-Ballem, mom of two

I hate Halloween. Always have.

I was the kid who nervously hung back while my friends made their fifth tear through the neighbourhood haunted house. Who preferred to observe from my well-lit foyer instead of running the streets with kids drunk on sugar and the power that darkness and a later curfew gave them.

I’ve grown into the parent who hustles her kids across the street and away from the moaning, strobe-lit, fog-shrouded spectacle, partly because it still freaks me out. To me, Halloween feels chaotic and out of control. Why would anyone seek that out? Why would we put children through it?

My kids, ages three and six, like knocking on doors for candy, so we do a polite tour of the side streets. I want them to feel safe in our neighbourhood, but I don’t see that in the way they tentatively creep up porch steps and shrink away from over-the-top displays.

I appreciate the creativity Halloween inspires—kids love to dress up, and they have hilarious ideas. I enjoy crunching through the leaves and sharing cups of mulled wine with other parents, and I feel nostalgic for the sound of jingling change in the UNICEF boxes we wore around our necks. Can’t we bring those back? Swap them for the rattling chains, rotting corpses and wailing soundtracks?

It’s not my imagination: It’s gotten worse. Halloween has mutated from the innocent white-sheet ghosts of my childhood to something gorier and more graphic. We’ve lost loved ones recently, so I’ve talked to my kids about death. But it doesn’t in any way resemble the cobwebbed tombstones and bloodied stumps that clutter front yards on our walk to school. I resent those stumps and the chumps who dig careful graves for them. I’m the one who has to wake up to my kids’ nightmares and offer weary reassurance that no, neither their dad nor I will suffer the same fate.

Life is scary enough. We don’t need a parade of pale and bloated severed limbs to remind us.

A version of this article appeared in our October 2015 issue with the headline “Is Halloween’s blood and gore appropriate for kids?” p. 112. "

So what's your thoughts? Are you with David and my spouse that Halloween has valuable lessons about conquering your fears in order to get what you want or are you with Lauren and feel that Halloween has gotten to be a little too much and we need to push society to 'scale it back' to being more developmentally appropriate for younger children? Or are you like some of the commenters on the original article and do you feel we should just rethink celebrating it at all? 

For me I have always had a love hate relationship with being 'scared' but Halloween has always been a holiday with fun memories in the long run  .... my spouse loves to watch scary movies that make me scream and cuddle closer at night. So no brainier that Halloween is totally his favorite holiday we have more Halloween home decor than we have Christmas if that is any indication to how much he loves this season! 

Have an amazing day!

Margaret
Live Well, Laugh Often, Love Much
Totallyawake4-life.com

Cinnamon Calm

The smell of Cinnamon definitely makes me think of Fall and the upcoming holidays ... it has such a nice 'comfort' feeling associated with it of love, laughter and good times with family. It also has HUGE health benefits from improving brain function, blood circulation, pain relief, blood glucose and aromatherapy speaking it is a great air cleanser and freshener and well the lists of potential benefits goes on an on. 

As a result I love both baking with it, adding it to my smoothies and PLAYING with it with the kiddies ... we also love adding the doTERRA Cinnamon Bark essential oil to our favorite play dough recipe for an amazing sensory experience ... plus the added benefit that the cinnamon helps to reduce any little 'hand germs' that might try to take up root in the dough while playing!

Gluten-Free Cinnamon Play Dough

Original base recipe for the dough comes from the Celiac Disease Foundation  I  adapt / tweak for my preference

What you need:

• ½ cup white rice flour
• ½ cup cornstarch
• ½ cup salt
• 2 teaspoons cream of tartar
• 1 cup water
• 1 teaspoon cooking oil
• Food coloring, if desired. We added a little 'orange' to ours for fall.
• 3 drops Cinnamon essential oil you can also use 1 tablespoon actual ground cinnamon but it will change your texture a bit. 

What you do:

• Mix ingredients. Cook and stir on low heat for 3 minutes or until it forms a ball. Cool completely before storing in a sealable plastic bag.

 Player's note

Cinnamon can be an allergen or skin irritant for some ~ if it is your first exposure to it please use with caution on a small area of skin.

Have an amazing day!

Margaret

Live Well, Laugh Often, Love Much

Totallyawake4-life