The S Word – Toddlers Learning To Share – By Janet Lansbury

We are all desperate for our children to share. Sharing is vital. The future of the world depends upon our children’s spirit of generosity. We fear that if we don’t remind our children to share, they might become selfish, stingy outcasts. Or, we worry that we will be judged an indulgent, inconsiderate and ill-mannered parent.

On the eve of the American Physical Society’s annual March meeting, a Sunday “stitch ‘n bitch” session convened during happy hour at a lobby bar of the Westin Boston Waterfront hotel.

In the beginning, very young children’s capacity for self-regulation is limited, and they are very dependent on their teachers for co-regulation. For those working with infants and toddlers, warm and responsive interactions are truly foundational for the development of self-regulation

Empathy, an important component of social and emotional development, emerges within consistent and caring relationships over several years. Much of the groundwork is laid during early attachments formed in infancy:

Does your child have a favorite book they want to read over and over again? Or worse, wants you to read over and over again? I bet you’ve memorized every word. You loved its adorable illustrations and clever text when you first brought it home, but now...

“Childhood — and parenting — have radically changed in the past few decades, to the point where far more children today struggle to manage their behavior.

The most famous painting of children at play is  “Children’s Games,” the 1560 work by Pieter Bruegel the Elder of a town square in which children from toddlers to adolescents (scholars have counted 246) are playing a range of timeless games.

These 21st-century storytellers turned to cardboard for the same reasons that children have long preferred the box to the toy that came in it: cardboard is light and strong, easy to put up, quick to come down and, perhaps most important, inexpensive enough for experiment.

The leaves in our front yard were piling up. Thinking my 10-month-old would enjoy getting some fresh air and watching neighbors pass by while I raked, I loaded him into the backpack and headed outside. Little did I know how much he would enjoy the leaf-raking itself. This chore that seemed so simple to me captivated my son.

Parents are sometimes concerned about having a picky eater and they might be encouraged to try all kinds of tricks or maybe even put for the parents… put their child in front of the TV while they’re eating, give them all this food so they don’t really know what they’re eating.

It’s no secret that hearing our kids cry makes us uncomfortable. Just think about how anxious you feel when your little one tears up without an obvious reason. We know that a newborn’s main way to communicate is to cry, yet we still look at it as something to be “fixed”. Once that infant becomes a walking, talking toddler, we sometimes expect them to process emotion the way we do, rather than the way they have always done: through crying.

Learn more about the benefits of reading to your kids and how to get them interested in books

Researchers say that singing is among the most meaningful activities we share with children.

The TV legend possessed an extraordinary understanding of how kids make sense of language.

A newly published study gives some insight into what may be happening inside young children's brains in each of those situations. And, says lead author Dr. John Hutton, there is an apparent "Goldilocks effect"...

When you sing a lullaby to your baby, you convey love and language and dreams of the future — and also, of course, you are trying to help your baby to a more immediate future of being asleep.