What else can I do?

What else can I do? A question for teachers, counselors and psychologists?
Most of you know that I am an in-home daycare/preschool provider. One floor of our home is my ‘one-room-school-house’. I have taught children in a classroom forum at an older age and I have to admit that this young, small group is much more humbling and demanding.

Each child and each problem is a new experience and I will do anything in my power to give MY KIDS a good start in life.

The child I am concerned about is 4 years old and I would consider him very slow. I can see a language deficiency ... he often looks at me like he doesn’t have a clue what I am talking about.

When he first came to me he was already two years old: he could not speak and only ate yogurt.

This is one of the reasons I prefer to start educating my babies from 3 months on! Because this child had/has not been exposed to the proper challenges in his life. It didn’t take me long to make some changes — he was speaking, self-feeding and potty-trained in about 6 months.

What bothers me though ... the mother doesn’t seem to think anything is out of the ordinary.
I read a lot of books to the kids ... and discuss them with 2, 3 and 4 year olds. Different types of books to entice them into THINKING!

When I ask this boy, "Is it safe for a puppy to be on the street?" , the boy will promptly say, "Yes"

I rethink and reword my question, "Should puppies be playing on the street, where there are cars?" He answered, "Yes" again! This time I had added the word CARS, to give him more of a reason to say, "NO"

We have also started the concept ‘same and different’ an important concept for this age. I had a picture of 4 umbrellas covered with a star-design, the 5^th umbrella was blank.
I ask him which umbrella is different. His answer, "Two"

I reword my question and ask, "Are these umbrellas all the same?" His answer, "Yes"

We try different concepts ... Including sheep, four white, one black. I ask him to look at them closely. Do they all look like grandma’s sheep? (Hers are all white)

He tells me they are just like Grandma’s. I say, "All of them?"

"Yep" is the answer.

I make this problem solving a bit easier. Four big blocks ... One small one. (No luck}

Finally I show him 4 spoons and one fork ... he tells me they are the same.

One of my TWO-year-olds interrupts and yells, "No, that is a fork, those are spoons."

We have the same problem with: placement of items, taller and shorter, bigger and smaller, etc.

I don’t think this child has the proper grasp on language and the sad part is, he doesn’t get a lot of exposure (f.e. never been to the zoo) and I know they don’t take time to read to him.

He owns a DSI and plays games on that thing, but I have never watched him play, so I don’t know how well he does with this.

It took a lot of patience, but he can put his own shoes on and is doing 24-puzzle pieces at my house. (At home he can’t put his shoes on .. They tell me)

I would like to see him get tested ... a language evaluation might show us how to work with him more efficiently. The problem is, his mother tells me he is fine ... he is just ‘pretending’ he doesn’t know the answers to my questions. I don’t think this is true, because he would LOVE to get a sticker! And I know how he glows when I tell him that I am proud of him.

Sometimes he even asks me, "Are you happy with me?"

I am happy with ANY child, that will try to do the task I put in front of him/her!

So ... any idea how I can help this child?

Gratitude and passion

Swept from a breeze off the vineyards
poured from a fine bodied wine
is the mystery of my sensations
undulating over my tongue
and my mind

Vibrating chords of my passion and spirit
falling under the spell of enchantment
by the elegance
of the timbre
of his voice

A spontaneous promise
scented with
fresh cloves of garlic
in the wisps
of his hair

The Albatross carries me
over the rolling hills
quilted with raw emotions
that radiate with abundance
and naked passion ...

The Best Gift

Today is my birthday and the best gift I received was a phone call early this morning, where my elderly parents were singing to me TOGETHER from their phone in the Netherlands.

Yes, they are BOTH still alive and ... YES still married together.

The last few years I was depressed on my birthday, the ‘getting old stuff’ is pretty scary to me.

Birthdays are so exciting when you are a child, yet when you mature these birthdays seem to come around faster each year. I have finally matured enough to realize, that I am happier now, than I have ever been in my entire life.

I have become more accepting, more forgiving and more appreciative of the small things in life, that are actually HUGE! Yes, I can see that now!

So now I can say ... Happy Birthday to me!

Wrong Hose, Honey!

Long, long time ago, when Big T was still ‘a Little T’ his parents owned two cars, one of them a very old station wagon. Even in those days gas prices were going up and down. And at the tender age of 4 he understood that his parents were not happy about this.

One day, while he was playing with his toys, he heard his mother ask his father to ‘fill up’ her car.

His dad was watching sports on tv and in no hurry to see to this task. He told his wife, that he would do it after a while and referred once more to the gas prices and the car being a guzzler.

Little T went outside. He had a great plan and he was going to surprise them. He just knew they would be tickled pink.

He opened the car door and pushed the start-button on the floor: he knew he could move the car closer to where it needed to be. After repeating this process a few times the car had rolled far enough down the drive way. Now he could get the hose in the car. He filled it ALL THE WAY!

Mission completed he went back inside to proudly tell his daddy, that he no longer had to fill up the car, because he had already taken care of it for him.

A Tiny Seed

　
It was a beautiful morning when I walked out the door with our dog at 5:45AM for our early morning walk. One of those mornings with a star-studded sky and I could make out ‘the little dipper’ and also ‘the big dipper’ but some of them were puzzling me, like a very bright star low to the west.

I try to focus, it is shaped different, with a tail ... like a seed, of a sperm, YES, A SPERM!

The dog is doing twirlies, ready to drop something smelly! He always has to do LOTS of twirlies before he gets down to business. Not a sound to be heard, except the crunching of leaves.

I keep trying to focus on that star, making my eyes water in the brisk morning air.
This short gravel road goes into the park, nobody lives here, so he can drop turds all he likes, but it is pitch-dark, only one street-light way behind us, throwing weird shadows.

When a large shape moves beside me, my heart makes a flip, and a huge buck seems to extract himself from the shadows and runs away, white flopping tail dancing as he runs.
I don’t scream, because I am trying to catch my breath, but the dog makes enough noise for both of us. I guess my dog didn’t smell we were standing right next to that deer? A lot of people walk through there with dogs to go to the park. Maybe too many smells?

Next time I walk here ... it will NOT be dark!

When I come home I have a cup of coffee to calm down ... the first kids arrive at 7 AM
Due to the vision of that special star my book-choice for the kids is ‘A Tiny Seed’, by Eric Carle. I consider Mr Carle one of the best authors of children books.
Yet today I also found a special message in there for myself.


A tiny seed, smaller than the rest is blown away by strong autumn winds.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
It doesn’t burn up, because it gets too close to the sun, it can’t fly that high
It doesn’t freeze by dropping in the snow on the mountain top, because it is not that heavy
It doesn’t fall in the desert to dry out, because it is light and keeps on flying
Also ....
It doesn’t fall in the ocean and drown
It is not eaten by the mouse (it is so small, the mouse didn’t see it)
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

When the tiny seed finally opens, it is kind of late in the season. Nobody plucks it, nobody steps on it. It grows and it grows, until finally it is taller than any flower anybody has ever seen and people are coming from everywhere to look at that
gorgeous flower.

The tallest, most beautiful flower, that was once the tiniest seed!

Is your self-esteem good , broken, healing or healed?

As we scoot through life we seldom make it ‘all-the-way’ with a good self-esteem. Just look around, or better yet, look in the mirror.

Many of us go through stages of ‘self-esteem’, because life will pull us down somewhere along the line. But if you start off with a low self-esteem as a child, anything that happens after that might tear you down even more.

Did you ever try to be helpful in school to a child that obviously had a lower self-esteem than yourself? Only to find out that this child was USING YOU to climb that pedestal to feel better? Climbing all over you, hurting you?

When I was a child, my parents were very concerned that we might think we were BETTER than others. I have no idea why, but we were told this over and over. We were expected to know our place and be respectful. Children that seemed spoiled were called ‘over het paard getild’ which translates into ‘carried OVER the horse. Only royalty and very rich people have horses in the Netherlands, so that meant you were spoiled rotten.

The biggest compliment my parents could get, was if people said, "Your kids were so good, we didn’t even know they were there." They would glow with pride!

The part they forgot though, is compliment us ... I can’t recall EVER receiving a compliment from my parents when I was a child.

I remember sitting on the steps after sneaking out of bed, listening to them bragging about me, when they had company. I could stay awake for that all night long.

LOVED IT!!

So basically I didn’t start of as ‘miss popularity’.

My ex took down the rest of that self-esteem. His was low (I finally see that now) so he had to put me down to feel better and bigger! The divorce didn’t help much at first, I felt like a failure.

And I got a bit cocky after that ... just for show ... it was all pretense, but I started to believe it myself after a while.

Just the other day I read a blog about obnoxious people, healing from a low self-esteem. The blogger hit the nail on the head ... a healing self-esteem is often not very pretty.

He also mentioned that he had become more understanding and forgiving, when he saw this behavior. Because he knows more now ... about people getting hurt ... and healing.
So I wonder if anyone, has always had a good self-esteem.

Are you hurting, healing or healed?

And please remember, the best gift you can give your child is a good self-esteem. All you need to do is show them, that they are worthy of your time. Be patient at different levels of development, but allow them to ‘do it themselves’!

When a young child yells, "I do it!" don’t take it away from them, but show them how.
Compliment them on their achievement, leave harsh criticism behind. Don’t say anything to your child, you would say to your friends!

Starting with a good self-esteem is so much easier than having to fix it.

Is your self-esteem good , broken, healing or healed?

As we scoot through life we seldom make it ‘all-the-way’ with a good self-esteem. Just look around, or better yet, look in the mirror.

Many of us go through stages of ‘self-esteem’, because life will pull us down somewhere along the line. But if you start off with a low self-esteem as a child, anything that happens after that might tear you down even more.

Did you ever try to be helpful in school to a child that obviously had a lower self-esteem than yourself? Only to find out that this child was USING YOU to climb that pedestal to feel better? Stepping all over you to get there?

When I was a child, my parents were very concerned that we might think we were BETTER than others. I have no idea why, but we were told over and over," You are not better than anybody else."

We were expected to know our place and be respectful. Children that seemed spoiled were called ‘over het paard getild’ which translates into ‘carried OVER the horse'. Only royalty and very rich people have horses in the Netherlands, so that meant you were spoiled rotten.

The biggest compliment my parents could get, was if people said, "Your kids were so good, we didn’t even know they were there." They would glow with pride!

The part they forgot though, is compliment us ... I can’t recall EVER to get a compliment ... directly ... but I had a way ...

I remember sitting on the steps after sneaking out of bed, listening to them bragging about us, when they had company. I could stay awake all night long for that feeling.

 LOVED IT!!

So basically I didn’t start of as ‘miss popularity’.

My ex took down the rest of that self-esteem. His was low (I finally see that now) so he had to put me down to feel better and bigger! The divorce didn’t help much at first, I felt like a failure.

And I got a bit cocky after that ... just for show ... it was all pretense, but I started to believe it myself after a while.

Just the other day I read a blog about obnoxious people, healing from a low self-esteem. The blogger hit the nail on the head ... a healing self-esteem is often not very pretty.

He also mentioned that he had become more understanding and forgiving, when he saw this behavior. Because he knows more now ... about people getting hurt ... and healing.
So I wonder if anyone, has always had a good self-esteem.

Are you hurting, healing or healed?

And please remember, the best gift you can give your child is a good self-esteem. All you need to do is show them, that they are worthy of your time. Be patient at different levels of development, but allow them to ‘do it themselves’! When a young child yells, "I do it!" don’t take it away from them, but show them how.

Compliment them on their achievement, leave harsh criticism behind. Don’t say anything to your child, you would say to your friends!

Starting with a good self-esteem is so much easier than having to fix it.