Kira Solomatova

Whining - whining may be hard to tolerate, it may be difficult to empathize with it and see it as the language of love. Ruth Beaglehole used to say: "whining - is a language of love". Behind every behavior is a need. If the child needs a connection. Whining may happen when your child feels: powerless or unable to cope with what is happening or while processing old disappointments and frustrations.... Lori Petro has 3 amazing tips on dealing with two-year-old children when they are whining. Tip #1 Pick up the whine CUES and REFLECT on what you hear. Tell me more and I am listening Tip # 2 Give the whine space to breathe. I hear your frustration, let’s go outside and you can get some privacy. Tip # 3 Step away from the whine and let it go. Breathe: I am safe, I am capable, I am calm How to Respond When Your Kids Are Whining https://youtu.be/-l67FoMF_DA

Happy Holidays!!

This holiday season consider simple toys that do less so your child can do more. Know that many of those expensive "educational" toys are not what infants and toddlers need most. The media,representing toy stores and consumer baby products industry, bombard parents and children with ads for flashy toys and baby paraphernalia. Parents are made to feel guilty if they don’t cave in and buy the latest item on the market. Parents’ insecurity is fed by the media-promoted idea that happiness and good feelings can be found through external sources, and that the more you have, the happier you’ll be. I want to liberate parents from this thinking. Magda Gerber YSCB 1998.

RIE Associate RuthAnne Hammond demonstrates how the Educaring Approach supports the very young child's development in early childhood care settings in a new article entitled Learning to Trust the Child's Process. "The reason Magda Gerber coined the phrase educaring was to emphasize that the education of the very young child was embedded in the caring relationship." The Educaring Approach is rooted in the importance of caregiving routines. "If sensitive caregiving is the first caveat of Magda Gerber’s Educaring Approach, offering infants the opportunity to play freely without unnecessary interruptions is the second, like heads and tails of a coin." You can learn more about the our approach to early childhood from RuthAnne this January when she teaches our professional development course Foundations. http://ow.ly/MjNs50CNdtf

Join Ruth Anne Hammond online from absolutely anywhere!

What special memories do you have from your childhood? Which traditions do you hope to carry on with your children? I always thought that my family does not have holiday traditions...well turns out that's not true - the more I think about it the more memories come to mind. I don't think my parents or grandparents ever thought about creating traditions or memories -- the traditions just happened, some stuck in our family. New Year's is the one holiday in my life that I alwa...Continue reading

A while ago my very special friend Irina Osechinskaya gave me the book, "Healing Stories for Challenging Behavior" by Susan Perrow. It took me a while, but I just finished reading it. It's a book about writing therapeutic stories for children and it is full of ideas, tips, and examples. The technique is similar to writing Social Stories and yet it's different. Unlike Social Stories, Healing Stories use metaphors rather than direct recounts of the events. I love using Social S...tories in my practice and I find them very helpful, but I feel like Healing Stories could be particularly useful for sensitive issues when it is difficult to approach them directly. They may also be useful when children have already received a lot of nudging, moralizing, and criticizing, and so a less direct approach may be more effective in this case. A Few Story Tips: - An effective story theme can often be simpler than you think! -Often we get our best ideas from our children. Listen to their interests, hopes and wishes. Try to incorporate these into your choice of metaphor and journey when writing a story for a specific child or group. - Don't be afraid to try out an idea - a story doesn't always have to be 'in print' or 'polished' to be effective! #storytime #storytelling #SocialStory