Archive for the Category 'Other'

Melissa & Doug floor puzzles are great

Thursday, March 04th, 2010

If you have a toddler, we’re probably preaching to the choir here about how great the Melissa and Doug floor puzzles are.  They don’t get every puzzle right; they have tried a few variants of their standard formula, with mixed results.  But in general, the quality has been excellent: the puzzles are well-constructed (pieces are a good weight and fit together nicely), the pictures are beautiful, and the challenge level just right.

A good example recent one we received was the Safari puzzle (shown above). It’s 100 pieces. Although our toddler just under 4 has a few 100 piece puzzles, some require parental assistance more than others, so it’s right at his level and we can see subtle techniques that make a difference. Uniqueness of pieces is one - that has to do partly with the construction of the puzzle itself to produce distinct pieces. It also has to do with the picture that the puzzle presents as a whole; how distinguished are the components? Another factor is what percent of the puzzle consists of edge pieces. These tend to be more helpful to most people, and for toddlers they help hold the puzzle in place better, so that it frustrates them less and gives them encouragement to stick with it. The Safari one above excels in all these categories and it’s a great example why most of the Melissa & Doug floor puzzles are so good.

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Some thoughtful pediatric advice

Tuesday, March 02nd, 2010

I found this site the other day when I was doing some reasearch on toddler aggression. Dealing with anger or behaviors like hitting and biting is always a sensitive parenting subject. I don’t know one parent that finds it easy - though may can talk the talk succintly, few can walk the walk without bumps in the road. It’s just hard for us to deal with our little one when they get into that state - it clashes with everything we usually associate with them.

Anyway, the post about aggression on the site seemed very thoughtful. I’ve never tried the technique, and I can’t vouch for the whole site, but based on what I can tell, it seems like a very reasonable stream of advice. Dr. Roy (the author of the site) has also written some books, which seem well-received, so the site as a whole may indeed be worth checking out.

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Pre-school “goals”

Thursday, February 18th, 2010

Having started our child in pre-school, we frequently monitor his feelings about the place, and occasionally reflect upon the effect the whole experience is having.

Our main goal with pre-school was the socialization aspect — it is great to see our child increasingly confident and social with other children and we feel this will serve him well as he grows older.  We are not the most social family, so it is good that the school allows him opportunities every day to interact with others outside of his immediate family.

Occasionally, it occurs to us that maybe we should be expecting more from the school in terms of academics.  They certainly do other activities there besides social ones — there is work on crafts and encouragement of individual exploration of puzzles, etc. there, but I’m talking more about basic academic skills like reading and writing.  Clearly, as most parents do, we feel those are critical tools in surviving in the world, so while we don’t overly push those things (we prefer until we feel the child is ready), we nevertheless value such skills quite highly.  We planned to do most of this on our own.  But again, we wondered — to what extent should we expect the pre-school to help out here?

In thinking about this, we’re also aware that we can fall into the trap of the “overaggressive parent”, pushing things on their kids before they are necessarily ready.   A good antidote for that was a recent article from Scholastic.

We will be, no doubt, thinking about all this more, but it’s useful to sometimes take a step back and think about the bigger picture.

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cam2pc - nice freeware that simplifies transferring images

Tuesday, February 16th, 2010

We have lots of family pictures on our digital cameras.  However, getting them to our archives (and bypassing photo edit software) is an interesting challenge.  Camera vendors give you software, usually, for this.  However, it sometimes doesn’t work the way you want or comes with added ware that you don’t need.  Plus, it can be a space hog.

Enter cam2pc, a nice freeware utility that will detect your camera type (it’s storage protocol, we think) and then allow you a simple way to specify where and how (including wildcard-style naming for files/folders).

In addition to an intuitive GUI (the options tab is straightforward and has all you need),  a nice feature of this tool is that it will show you thumbnails as it transfers the photos.  The software doesn’t push anything on you — it defaults to a lightweight config mode and allows you to opt out of anything (like auto transformation of pictures for orientation).

cam2pc is a great little utility that simplifies a general problem.  We recommend it.

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Preschool thoughts (part one)

Sunday, December 27th, 2009

Having started our son at preschool 4 months ago, we thought we’d pass along some things we learned, based on both advice and experience.

A safe, (reasonably) clean, and healthy environment is important. It shouldn’t be a toy jungle, bathrooms should be clean, snacks can be fun within reason

The teacher/caregiver and administrators can be much more important than the school itself. Just like a great teacher at your local community college can be MUCH better than a bad teacher at a famous university. We initially thought of putting our child in a well-known (and expensive) Montessori program. We still might, simply because it’s just a great environment at that school. However, our son didn’t really take to the teacher at that school and clung on to my wife and I. So we decided to wait and try in a few more months. Unfortunately, there wasn’t enough room in the school next time around. But we found a different school that we very nice; perhaps not quite the same “academy like” environment of the first school, but a good old-fashioned preschool with caring administrators and teachers (their retention rate is amazing). We lucked out and got a great teacher - she knew very quickly how to best relate to our son, and he really took to her. Since then, school has been a breeze. We may still move our son later, but right now he’s having fun where he’s at.

Social development and confidence is the main goal. If you care about your child and are reasonably motivated to help them read, etc., focus on the school being a place where your child learns to interact and respect others. You won’t find another opportunity like it. Sure, they can help teach your child to read, their ABCs, etc. but you can also do that - but you can’t replicate the social environment of the school and the chance for your child to build self-confidence without you around.

Too structured can be problematic. Although our son is very sructured and routine-oriented, there’s a limit to that and if the school encourages too much structure, it can seem more like “work” than “fun”. Our son very much prefers structure to unstructured, but everyone needs some breathing room.

Too unstructured can be problematic. Some folks swear by the more artsy approach of an unstructured environment where the kids can run around and do whatever they want - the school just supplies the materials. We ran into one school that was pretty much a house full of rooms of materials that the children could use for whatever projects they wanted to build. When we toured the school, kids were running the hose in the front and building a huge lake. For us, this just didn’t make sense. In our hearts, we feel some routine and structure is vital - the breathing room around the structure allows one to create and improvise.

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Welcome!

Friday, December 26th, 2008

Welcome to our site! This blog is an attempt to talk about parenting ideas - products, resources, and strategies - that aid in child raising.

As first time parents, my wife and I often found ourselves searching online for suggestions and recommendations on strategies with various topics or good parenting aids. Sometimes we were looking on suggestions on how to get our son to sleep through the night. Other times we wanted to find a good story book that others recommended. Still other times we were looking for suggestions on what to look for in a preschool. In all cases, what we were hoping for was to find were sites that would offer unbiased input on possibly useful parenting resources, be it for purposes of learning, play, or general growth and advancement.

As we said, our site focuses on “parenting ideas” - these will range from great books & toys, to social and academic growth, to general life with baby and toddler. Sometimes we’ll touch on more serious issues, but only lightly (we’re sure you’ve gotten an earful of advice from family and books - you don’t need us to help with that!). Also, you’ll notice that we will tend to focus on highlighting the good (i.e., solutions that work) and less time harping on the bad. We just think it’s more helpful to concentrate on the positive.

Having said all this, we would be remiss in not saying there are many more important/fundamental things about parenting that go way beyond what we will talk about here. For example, anything we say here is almost infinitely dwarfed by the need to be a loving, patient, understanding parent. These are the truly important things; but hopefully you already know that no blog will help you with that. Our goal is to stick to the lighter side - the products, strategies, resources that can aid in child raising.

With that all said, onward we go!

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