Skip to main content

Kindness Rules!

I'm going to just put this out there... 4 year olds are hard! At least mine is. He is very difficult, about 50% of the time. He is so emotional and angry, anything will set him off. He doesn't want to hug me with sweatshirts on, he doesn't want his food warm, but wait now he does, and now he wants it cold again. He also doesn't like to be wrong, or feel like he can't do something. It is a storm of emotions and feelings around here. I would like to formally offer an apology to my daughter at this time, but also remind her that she herself was a stinker around this age as well. With all this rage and insecurity also comes love and sweetness that is like no other. He can be the nicest most caring boy around. It is up to us as a family to show him how to equalize all these feelings. He needs to know how to be angry and upset just as much as he needs to know how to show kindness, compassion, and love. So for now we lead by example and give him as much patience and love as we can.


I am also trying to figure out a way to use the Mother Goose and her Giving Goslings that come in our Mother Goose Time curriculum. When you get your first box of Mother Goose Time you get a getting started package that comes with everything you need to create a wall display and circle time area. One of the items you get is a Mother Goose and a nest. Then every month you get a new gosling that helps teach values that support caring and kindness. You also get a feather with the months value on it. To be honest, I don't think these items are utilized as well as they could be. So it is up to me as the teacher to use the materials provided to make them relevant for us. I have kept the goslings and on the day that they are used we talk about them, but after that they just kind of sit in the nest forgotten until the next months gosling is talked about. So far we have received a loving, sharing, thankful, and this months gentle gosling.


 I really liked the idea of them so I started thinking about how I could use them to help teach my son the importance of living these values and becoming a kind person. How could I use this to help him think about his actions? Think about others actions? I decided that they needed to be talked about on a daily basis. During our morning meeting we are going to start reviewing these values. I am going to start by asking what kind of a day are we going to try to have today? How are we going to try to act to each other? I am also going to point out these values as we see them in action. I will point out that I noticed he was angry but was still gentle. I will point out when he and his sister are sharing well. Even point out when we see other kids or adults sharing when we are out. I am also going to try to talk about the feelings surrounding these actions. Hopefully he can start recognizing how acting in certain ways makes him feel. Also how acting in different ways might make others feel. I am hoping that by making this part of our daily routine that it will help reinforce the importance of this and also give him the tools he needs to act in this way and be in a little more control of his emotions.

I also have decided that we are going to use the feathers in a more meaningful way. I wasn't sure what to do with them so I gave them to each of the kids when we talked about them, but they have been lost and thrown away. I decided to use one of the metal rings that I had extra of and I put this months feather on there. We are going to keep them on the mailbox for now, as the collection gets larger I might move it. I think we might use them as a end of the night conversation starter. Maybe we can look through the feathers and talk about how we lived the values, or discuss seeing someone else doing something that lived up to the values.



I am hoping that the goslings and feathers will be a great new addition to our routine and will help both the kids to think about kindness first. Also I am hoping that it will help my husband and I to have some more positive ways to deal with the difficult behavior.


*Mother Goose Time has generously provided our curriculum to us in exchange for our stories and honest opinions*

   

Comments

  1. steph_gemJanuary 20, 2017 at 5:48 PM

    This is wonderful. I'm starting seeing this stage of emotion in Aiden. Every reaction is so dramatic sometimes I want to laugh other times I want to pull my hair out. Those moments of sweetness though are the amazing.

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Mother Goose Time Our Way

When I first started homeschooling I wrote out schedules and times for when we would do certain subjects and activities. I pretty much drove myself crazy trying to keep up with our strict schedule. I felt stressed and most of all I felt like I was failing. I've come a long way since then. Our homeschool is so much more relaxed and homey feeling. I think the biggest change I made is going by a routine instead of a schedule. A schedule is so rigid and gives you this feeling that you can't stray from the schedule. A routine, for me anyway, is so much more flexible, and  Mother Goose Time has fit in so seamlessly with our routine. In fact I will be a little sad when my kids are to old for this program because I love the way Mother Goose Time enhances what we do each day. Our morning routine pretty much starts off the same each day. We start with what I like to call Breakfast and books. This is the time that I introduce the Daily Topic for the day. Mother Goose Time provides a Da...
Post a Comment
Read more

More Literacy: Alphabet Island

We have learned so much this month with the  Mother Goose Time Alphabet Island theme. This has been sort of a wrap up month for the curriculum, we have reviewed numbers, letters, and colors that we have learned all through the year. We gotten to be pirates going on treasure hunts, ship captains discovering new islands, and cave explores searching for beautiful and amazing natural treasures. This curriculum comes with everything you need to have a well rounded and fun month of learning. And while all this is great they also offer add ons to help make this curriculum work for babies and toddlers or all the way up to about age 5 or 6. We have been receiving the More Literacy and More Math workbooks for a few months now and are really enjoying the added practice with the skills and concepts being taught. We don't use the books everyday right now, but I do see us using them more next year as part of our school day. The workbooks match the months theme and are r...
Post a Comment
Read more

Emergent Layer

This week we finished learning about the fourth and final layer of the rainforest, the Emergent Layer. This is also our fourth and final week of learning about the rainforest with  Mother Goose Time before venturing into the Arctic next month. We learned about Blue Morpho Butterflies, Kapok Trees, Hummingbirds, Mangos, and Strangler Fig Trees. We have learned so much about each layer and how it all works together to make an ecosystem. I loved the Rainforest Friends game that was included this week. It was supposed to be a matching game but when I saw the cards and the little strip that labeled the four layers I decided to use it a little differently. We used it as a review of all we have learned this month about the different layers of the rainforest and the animals that live there. First I took down the topic poster and we pointed out the four layers and recalled any information that we had learned. My son knew all the bugs lived on the forest floor, and my daughter rememb...
Post a Comment
Read more