This post will look at the heart of this particular problem - the extremely picky eaters. Unfortunately, the percentage of extremely picky eaters has grown exponentially in the last 5 years. Used to be, I would have maybe 1 or 2 extremely picky eaters out of 7 children. Now, I am seeing 5 or 6 extremely picky eaters out of 7 children. With each passing year the level of pickiness in the new enrollees has been beyond belief. The children come in as extremely picky eaters 90% of the time now.
What do I mean by extremely picky eaters?
These are the children that eat no vegetables at all. They might eat one or two fruits but many of them eat no fruits either. Many of these children do not eat meat that is not a nugget and some will eat no meat whatsoever. The most baffling of the trends I have seen has been the children that will not touch macaroni and cheese. These children survive off of toasted pastries, cold cereal, and fast food. A large majority of these children will not touch white milk. Some will drink flavored milk and others will only drink fruit juice and juice flavored drinks.
The Violent Protest
Along with the extreme uptick in pickiness, the level of violent protest over the food has also grown exponentially in the last several years. That first day for these children can get ugly at snack and mealtimes. Now, I understand that children coming through my door experience culture shock at snack and mealtimes. Many of these children have never seen any of the food I serve because I do not serve toasted pastries, cold cereal, or fast food of any sort. I do not even serve french fries and tater tots or hamburgers and chicken nuggets for that matter. Plus, I only serve white milk. When these children sit down at mealtimes, the wailing ensues. "I want chocolate milk!" they will wail. I will calmly tell them I do not have chocolate milk. "I want cereal!" is the next cry regardless of what meal it is. Again, I will calmly tell them I do not have cereal. Then the flailing begins. I do not understand what is causing the flailing, but my tables are hard. I have had to put these children in time-out at mealtime for their own protection because they were trying very hard to give themselves a concussion. They will fall in the floor and thrash about as if they were having a seizure, but it is not a seizure. It is a plan old hissy fit. Sometimes the flailing goes on for days before the children realize I will not change the menu because they are throwing a fit. Next comes the spewing. You coax and plead with them to just try one little bitty bite until you actually succeed in making it into the mouth only to have the child spit it in your face. If they do not spit it in your face, they immediately gag. The gaggers are the worst. These children will gag until they make themselves throw up. It has gotten to the point that if after a week a child has not begun to settle down with the food issue, I terminate them. I do not want the child to starve, but on the other hand, I will not serve less nutritious food because they are flailing, spewing, and gagging. It just is not worth it.
What Do You Do?
At this point, you may be saying, "But I cannot afford to terminate all my extremely picky eaters." I completely understand that position because the number of picky eaters has grown so fiercely. Right now I will have no turnover for over a year, and I am dreading trying to start a new child after that point. I have an extremely hard conversation at enrollment about the food with the parents now. I want them to completely understand what my menu entails and what my policies are for substitutions. They have to understand that I will only allow a substitution with a doctor's note stating a true food allergy. If issues come up immediately, I will tell them that many other childcares in this town do not have the level of nutrition that we have here. If the food is a problem, you might want to find a different childcare. Even after this hard conversation, the parents are usually not prepared for the war that will ensue especially when they start trying to make the changes at home that I suggest. It really unnerves them to see the level of viciousness coming from their precious baby over eating nutritious food. Many parents cave and give the children what they want. However, they still want me to carry on the fight and deal with the demon their precious child turns into at mealtimes. They want their child to eat better. They just do not want to deal with what that entails. Before you take on this war, understand that processed food and sugar are highly addictive. Removing these substances from the children's diets will result in a nasty withdrawal process. This is why I suggest to make changes in baby steps. However, with new enrollees that cannot be accomplished because you have already made changes in which the other children have become accustomed. It is never a good idea to go backwards after good changes have been made. Therefore, I do not know how you avoid the ugliness unless you are starting from scratch every year. I will say that after 6 to 9 months of viciousness, it will ease, but that is a long time to deal with a very unhappy child. Unless the parents understand that it will take this long, you will also be dealing with very unhappy parents.
Bad eating habits are the bane of our society.
There are not very many people that truly make the choice to take on this particular monster. One of the best pieces of advice I ever heard concerning children and good eating habits came from a father that was a chef. His advice was to withhold processed and sugary foods until a child was 4 or 5 years old. By then, good eating habits will have been established enough to withstand the occasional bit of junk food. This is great advice, but how many American parents will forego convenience to make sure their children eat properly until they are 4 or 5 years old? A very slim percentage. Therefore, this problem will permeate our society for many, many years to come. All we can do is try to do better with all that we are and pray that someday we will begin to make a difference at least in the life of one child at a time.
I hope you have enjoyed this post. Goodbye and God bless!!
Check out Natalie's children's books at: https://www.amazon.com/author/nataliewade7457
Tuesday, June 10, 2014
Saturday, June 7, 2014
Cognitive Development for 2 1/2 to 3 year olds - Early Literacy (Part 2)
This post will continue the discussion of cognitive development of 2 1/2 to 3 years in the Early Literacy area of learning. Remember I am taking my information from the Tennessee Early Learning Developmental Standards (TN-ELDS). These standards are meant to be used as a tool for the development of curriculum and not as a screening tool. Many older children may not meet all of these standards for various and assorted reasons. I chose this starting point because it represents the basic start to preschool.
First, we will look at the component - Auditory Discrimination with its three learning expectations and performance indicators. The first learning expectation involves Being aware of and identifying many sounds in the environment with the performance indicator: Identifies the source of familiar sounds in the environment and continues to notice new sounds. This particular learning expectation does occur naturally. Children are naturally curious about the sounds around them and can be extremely perceptive about familiar sounds. I can remember as a child knowing exactly when my mom was popping popcorn. I could tell the difference between popcorn hitting the pan and peas hitting the pan. Similarly, my own biological children knew exactly what we were having for breakfast when they heard me using the food chopper. That familiar sound meant homemade apple cinnamon oatmeal for breakfast. Sometimes in the childcare setting you, the provider, will notice a child that does not pick up on familiar sounds. This could be an indication of a physical or developmental problem but not always. If you do notice a child that does not pick up on familiar sounds, do some simple tests to see if the child does have a hearing issue. If they do, refer them to the appropriate professional service for diagnosis. Do not ever attempt to provide a diagnosis on your own. It is your job to refer not diagnose. Sometimes the child's hearing is fine but the child's ability to pay attention to details may not be. This can or cannot be a symptom of a developmental problem. Again a referral for testing would be appropriate. When you discover a problem in this area, discussing noises with the children on a regular basis will improve the child's ability to pay attention unless a serious developmental delay is present.
The second learning expectation is: Continues to distinguish between words with similar phonemes, such as pat and path. The performance indicator for this one: Makes accurate distinctions between words that contain very similar-sounding phonemes (e.g., path-pass, hat-pat, bug-bud, map-nap, shot-shop, hit-hat, etc.). Remember this is dealing with auditory discrimination and not speech-related development. A child should be able to tell the difference when you say path or pass even though they may say path for both for them. Whether a child reaches this particular one between 2 1/2 and 3 years old very much depends on how much language exposure the child has in his/her environment. Children that have language rich environments will reach this milestone at that age. Whereas, children from language poor environments may not reach this milestone until they are closer to 4 years old. Children that live in a language rich environment will hear 1000 different words per day through reading books and conversations. However, thanks to technology many children do not hear anywhere near that many words in their home setting. Having conversations with the children in your care is extremely important for the proper language development of those children. Read books to them and make mealtime discussions the norm at your facility. Give the children ample opportunity to hear the widest range of vocabulary possible in a day's time. It makes a huge difference.
The third learning expectation for the component Auditory Discrimination is: Discriminates among sounds based on volume and pitch - loud vs. soft, high vs. low, long vs short. The performance indicator for this one is: Responds appropriately when asked to speak with a different volume or to turn up or down the sound of a recording or a toy; can identify whether a sound is high or low, loud or soft, long or short when compared to another sound. This particular learning expectation will not occur naturally. This one must be instructed. This can be accomplished with simple exercises that demonstrate the opposites. I have found that recently children have come into my facility with far less experience with these concepts than even 5 years ago. A child must have exposure to these concepts to gain knowledge, and somewhere the exposure to these types of opposites has been lost in the shuffle. Therefore, you will need to give the child exposure in order for the child to become fluent with these concepts.
The last component for Early Literacy is Phonological Awareness. The learning expectation for this one: Engages in and enjoys word play with silly sounds and real and nonsense words. The performance indicator: Plays with words herself if adult models rhymes or silly-sounding words; recites one or two favorite rhymes/poems. The word "models" in the performance indicator clues you in to the fact that this one definitely does not occur naturally. Children must be exposed to rhymes and poetry in order to develop a sense of rhyming. Childhood used to be filled with nursery rhymes. Therefore, this one did seem to develop naturally years ago. Childhood these days is nearly void of nursery rhymes and poetry unless the parents and caregivers make a specific effort to expose children to these types of literature. In my facility I read at least one poem or rhyme per day. To me it is very sad that nursery rhymes have nearly disappeared from childhood. If you cannot stand the old nursery rhymes, please at least read poems and poetry to the children to give them the exposure they need.
I hope you have enjoyed this post. Goodbye and God bless!! Check out Natalie's children's books at: https://www.amazon.com/author/nataliewade7457
First, we will look at the component - Auditory Discrimination with its three learning expectations and performance indicators. The first learning expectation involves Being aware of and identifying many sounds in the environment with the performance indicator: Identifies the source of familiar sounds in the environment and continues to notice new sounds. This particular learning expectation does occur naturally. Children are naturally curious about the sounds around them and can be extremely perceptive about familiar sounds. I can remember as a child knowing exactly when my mom was popping popcorn. I could tell the difference between popcorn hitting the pan and peas hitting the pan. Similarly, my own biological children knew exactly what we were having for breakfast when they heard me using the food chopper. That familiar sound meant homemade apple cinnamon oatmeal for breakfast. Sometimes in the childcare setting you, the provider, will notice a child that does not pick up on familiar sounds. This could be an indication of a physical or developmental problem but not always. If you do notice a child that does not pick up on familiar sounds, do some simple tests to see if the child does have a hearing issue. If they do, refer them to the appropriate professional service for diagnosis. Do not ever attempt to provide a diagnosis on your own. It is your job to refer not diagnose. Sometimes the child's hearing is fine but the child's ability to pay attention to details may not be. This can or cannot be a symptom of a developmental problem. Again a referral for testing would be appropriate. When you discover a problem in this area, discussing noises with the children on a regular basis will improve the child's ability to pay attention unless a serious developmental delay is present.
The second learning expectation is: Continues to distinguish between words with similar phonemes, such as pat and path. The performance indicator for this one: Makes accurate distinctions between words that contain very similar-sounding phonemes (e.g., path-pass, hat-pat, bug-bud, map-nap, shot-shop, hit-hat, etc.). Remember this is dealing with auditory discrimination and not speech-related development. A child should be able to tell the difference when you say path or pass even though they may say path for both for them. Whether a child reaches this particular one between 2 1/2 and 3 years old very much depends on how much language exposure the child has in his/her environment. Children that have language rich environments will reach this milestone at that age. Whereas, children from language poor environments may not reach this milestone until they are closer to 4 years old. Children that live in a language rich environment will hear 1000 different words per day through reading books and conversations. However, thanks to technology many children do not hear anywhere near that many words in their home setting. Having conversations with the children in your care is extremely important for the proper language development of those children. Read books to them and make mealtime discussions the norm at your facility. Give the children ample opportunity to hear the widest range of vocabulary possible in a day's time. It makes a huge difference.
The third learning expectation for the component Auditory Discrimination is: Discriminates among sounds based on volume and pitch - loud vs. soft, high vs. low, long vs short. The performance indicator for this one is: Responds appropriately when asked to speak with a different volume or to turn up or down the sound of a recording or a toy; can identify whether a sound is high or low, loud or soft, long or short when compared to another sound. This particular learning expectation will not occur naturally. This one must be instructed. This can be accomplished with simple exercises that demonstrate the opposites. I have found that recently children have come into my facility with far less experience with these concepts than even 5 years ago. A child must have exposure to these concepts to gain knowledge, and somewhere the exposure to these types of opposites has been lost in the shuffle. Therefore, you will need to give the child exposure in order for the child to become fluent with these concepts.
The last component for Early Literacy is Phonological Awareness. The learning expectation for this one: Engages in and enjoys word play with silly sounds and real and nonsense words. The performance indicator: Plays with words herself if adult models rhymes or silly-sounding words; recites one or two favorite rhymes/poems. The word "models" in the performance indicator clues you in to the fact that this one definitely does not occur naturally. Children must be exposed to rhymes and poetry in order to develop a sense of rhyming. Childhood used to be filled with nursery rhymes. Therefore, this one did seem to develop naturally years ago. Childhood these days is nearly void of nursery rhymes and poetry unless the parents and caregivers make a specific effort to expose children to these types of literature. In my facility I read at least one poem or rhyme per day. To me it is very sad that nursery rhymes have nearly disappeared from childhood. If you cannot stand the old nursery rhymes, please at least read poems and poetry to the children to give them the exposure they need.
I hope you have enjoyed this post. Goodbye and God bless!! Check out Natalie's children's books at: https://www.amazon.com/author/nataliewade7457
Wednesday, June 4, 2014
Dealing with Picky Eaters - Strategies for Children
This post will continue the discussion of picky eating. In my last post I looked at how parents can help or hinder the process. This post will look at strategies for getting children to try new foods and some tips for the extremely picky.
The Parents
As I discussed in the last post, many times parents are as large a part of the problem as the children. Sometimes you will be able to get the parents on board with trying to instill better eating habits, but most of the time you will only get half-hearted response from parents. They will probably not fight your efforts at childcare, but they will not help the process at home at all. This will affect how you approach this in the childcare setting because every week will be almost starting over after a weekend of bad eating habits. It will feel like taking one step forward and two steps back every Monday. Changing bad eating habits in the childcare setting alone takes an enormous amount of time and patience. I want you to completely understand that before you embark on what will probably be the most thankless journey of your career. The kids will complain. The parents will complain. The state may even give you a hard time. However, tell yourself every day that you are changing those little ones' worlds for the better one small thankless change at a time.
Baby Steps
The most important part of any strategy to improve a child's eating habits is to make changes in baby steps. If you completely revamp your menu all at once, you will have mass mutiny from everyone involved. This will go far beyond the complaining you will get over the baby steps. People can get nasty about food in case you did not know. Take one item and improve it. Wait a week or a month according the level of hysteria that ensues over the one item and do another one. It might be as simple as changing from canned green beans to frozen green beans. However, let me tell you that every time you move to a fresher food, you will get more backlash than you thought possible. When I changed to frozen green beans from canned ones, everyone that had been eating green beans quit. On the green beans I had to start all over again. This will be repeated every time you make a change for the better. Please, understand the war in which you are about to embark. When you move to a fresher source, the cooler of the food is usually darker. I have found that the darker the color the stronger the war over trying it. However, once the initial hysteria subsides, the children will settle back in and slowly begin to eat the food again. Once the children get used to the baby steps, the hysteria will lessen but not go away. I will also warn you that one of the hardest changes to make will be removing flavored milk. I have had children sit in the floor and wail over white milk. When I changed the milk, I used several strategies together to help with that particular transition.
Let Children Help with Preparation
Another strategy that helps is to have the children help with the preparation of the new food the first time it is served. However, do not think that this works like a charm. It only helps. Extremely picky eaters will throw hissy fits no matter how many strategies you employ. The extremely picky will help with the preparation, but if you think they are actually going to put that in their mouth, you are extremely naive. This strategy works for the slightly picky. The name of this game is to get as many children trying new foods in as many ways possible in order to have some positive peer pressure to kick in. However, do not be naive about positive peer pressure either. Negative peer pressure is far more powerful than positive peer pressure. One extremely picky eater can undo months of work in one meal.
A Rewards System
At my childcare we use a rewards system utilizing incentive charts. Every time a child eats ALL of a vegetable, fruit, or eggs, they receive one check on their chart. When they fill up the chart, they get a small book. This system works well once you already have the process in motion. This system does not work well to entice extremely picky eaters to try new foods. The extremely picky will not consider the reward worth the bite. However, once you have picky eaters trying new foods, this system will in time help them eat more vegetables than you thought possible. Once they discover that a food is not half bad, the check is worth eating all of it. When I changed the milk, this is one of the strategies I used. Normally, the flavored milk children are also the extremely picky eaters that never seem to get checks. When I gave them the option of getting a check for milk (after the week of wailing subsided), they tried the white milk and were soon getting a check for it. This helped them get the "check bug" and made them more open to trying other foods to get checks. After you have had this system in place for 6 to 9 months, it really produces some impressive results. However, please understand that improving the menu will take an extremely long time to accomplish. The school systems in California that are trying to change the food requirements after one year must not understand just how long it takes to get results. You must be in this one for the LONG haul.
Grow a Garden
The last strategy for this post involves having the children grow a garden. It is beneficial for the children to understand what whole food looks like. They will enjoy watching their plants grow and picking the produce. They will absolutely love to shuck the corn because that makes a wonderful mess. However, do not expect this to work like a charm either. The extremely picky will still have a meltdown if you ask them to try a bite. This strategy works for the slightly to moderately picky.
My Menu is Nonnegotiable
I actually employ all of these strategies plus the ones I will cover in next week's post on the extremely picky eaters. Unfortunately, the number of extremely picky eaters grows exponentially with every passing year. It seems to me that every time I start a new child, the war over the food becomes more intense. I will admit that children starting my childcare for the first time suffer from culture shock in a major way because I have been improving my menu for years now. The children that have been here for years eat things most Americans would not believe (beets and spinach anyone). The new children stare at the old ones in disbelief when I set down the plates for weeks. The food I serve here might as well be from Mars as far as they are concerned. It is a source of contention for months, and I have lost clients because I would not let their child eat what he/she wanted. However, I have worked too hard and too long to let one picky eater undo everything. One of the main conferences I now have with new clients involves the menu. I will tell them bluntly that the menu is nonnegotiable, and if they do not like it, they are not a good fit for this place. Many other places will feed their child junk if that is what they desire. I have seen the incredible benefits of children that eat well, and I am not interested in going back to the craziness that processed food brings with it.
I hope you have enjoyed this post. Goodbye and God bless!! Check out Natalie's children's books at: https://www.amazon.com/author/nataliewade7457
The Parents
As I discussed in the last post, many times parents are as large a part of the problem as the children. Sometimes you will be able to get the parents on board with trying to instill better eating habits, but most of the time you will only get half-hearted response from parents. They will probably not fight your efforts at childcare, but they will not help the process at home at all. This will affect how you approach this in the childcare setting because every week will be almost starting over after a weekend of bad eating habits. It will feel like taking one step forward and two steps back every Monday. Changing bad eating habits in the childcare setting alone takes an enormous amount of time and patience. I want you to completely understand that before you embark on what will probably be the most thankless journey of your career. The kids will complain. The parents will complain. The state may even give you a hard time. However, tell yourself every day that you are changing those little ones' worlds for the better one small thankless change at a time.
Baby Steps
The most important part of any strategy to improve a child's eating habits is to make changes in baby steps. If you completely revamp your menu all at once, you will have mass mutiny from everyone involved. This will go far beyond the complaining you will get over the baby steps. People can get nasty about food in case you did not know. Take one item and improve it. Wait a week or a month according the level of hysteria that ensues over the one item and do another one. It might be as simple as changing from canned green beans to frozen green beans. However, let me tell you that every time you move to a fresher food, you will get more backlash than you thought possible. When I changed to frozen green beans from canned ones, everyone that had been eating green beans quit. On the green beans I had to start all over again. This will be repeated every time you make a change for the better. Please, understand the war in which you are about to embark. When you move to a fresher source, the cooler of the food is usually darker. I have found that the darker the color the stronger the war over trying it. However, once the initial hysteria subsides, the children will settle back in and slowly begin to eat the food again. Once the children get used to the baby steps, the hysteria will lessen but not go away. I will also warn you that one of the hardest changes to make will be removing flavored milk. I have had children sit in the floor and wail over white milk. When I changed the milk, I used several strategies together to help with that particular transition.
Let Children Help with Preparation
Another strategy that helps is to have the children help with the preparation of the new food the first time it is served. However, do not think that this works like a charm. It only helps. Extremely picky eaters will throw hissy fits no matter how many strategies you employ. The extremely picky will help with the preparation, but if you think they are actually going to put that in their mouth, you are extremely naive. This strategy works for the slightly picky. The name of this game is to get as many children trying new foods in as many ways possible in order to have some positive peer pressure to kick in. However, do not be naive about positive peer pressure either. Negative peer pressure is far more powerful than positive peer pressure. One extremely picky eater can undo months of work in one meal.
A Rewards System
At my childcare we use a rewards system utilizing incentive charts. Every time a child eats ALL of a vegetable, fruit, or eggs, they receive one check on their chart. When they fill up the chart, they get a small book. This system works well once you already have the process in motion. This system does not work well to entice extremely picky eaters to try new foods. The extremely picky will not consider the reward worth the bite. However, once you have picky eaters trying new foods, this system will in time help them eat more vegetables than you thought possible. Once they discover that a food is not half bad, the check is worth eating all of it. When I changed the milk, this is one of the strategies I used. Normally, the flavored milk children are also the extremely picky eaters that never seem to get checks. When I gave them the option of getting a check for milk (after the week of wailing subsided), they tried the white milk and were soon getting a check for it. This helped them get the "check bug" and made them more open to trying other foods to get checks. After you have had this system in place for 6 to 9 months, it really produces some impressive results. However, please understand that improving the menu will take an extremely long time to accomplish. The school systems in California that are trying to change the food requirements after one year must not understand just how long it takes to get results. You must be in this one for the LONG haul.
Grow a Garden
The last strategy for this post involves having the children grow a garden. It is beneficial for the children to understand what whole food looks like. They will enjoy watching their plants grow and picking the produce. They will absolutely love to shuck the corn because that makes a wonderful mess. However, do not expect this to work like a charm either. The extremely picky will still have a meltdown if you ask them to try a bite. This strategy works for the slightly to moderately picky.
My Menu is Nonnegotiable
I actually employ all of these strategies plus the ones I will cover in next week's post on the extremely picky eaters. Unfortunately, the number of extremely picky eaters grows exponentially with every passing year. It seems to me that every time I start a new child, the war over the food becomes more intense. I will admit that children starting my childcare for the first time suffer from culture shock in a major way because I have been improving my menu for years now. The children that have been here for years eat things most Americans would not believe (beets and spinach anyone). The new children stare at the old ones in disbelief when I set down the plates for weeks. The food I serve here might as well be from Mars as far as they are concerned. It is a source of contention for months, and I have lost clients because I would not let their child eat what he/she wanted. However, I have worked too hard and too long to let one picky eater undo everything. One of the main conferences I now have with new clients involves the menu. I will tell them bluntly that the menu is nonnegotiable, and if they do not like it, they are not a good fit for this place. Many other places will feed their child junk if that is what they desire. I have seen the incredible benefits of children that eat well, and I am not interested in going back to the craziness that processed food brings with it.
I hope you have enjoyed this post. Goodbye and God bless!! Check out Natalie's children's books at: https://www.amazon.com/author/nataliewade7457
Saturday, May 31, 2014
Cognitive Development for 2 1/2 to 3 year olds - Early Literacy (Part 1)
This post will begin a series that will look at the content needed for children in the age range posted. Each post will look at different areas of learning within each domain of learning. I am taking my information from the Tennessee Early Learning Development Standards (TN-ELDS). However, each post will look at how to accomplish each goal and what will not accomplish each goal. I chose this age range as a beginning because in most instances this is about the point I start all children that come through my door regardless of age. I hope you understand that many 3 and 4 year olds will not be able to do many of these performance indicators. These standards were written to reflect a child's progress that has had good learning experiences from birth. Many, many children will not have the foundation necessary for many of the performance indicators. I will cover what needs to be in place in order to accomplish each performance indicator.
Obviously, many of you that read this do not live in the state of Tennessee. Therefore, explanations as to terminology and set-up are necessary. For this particular series I will only cover the cognitive and language development domains. Each domain will be divided in areas of learning. The areas of learning will be subdivided into components. The components are divided into learning expectations. For these learning expectations examples of performance indicators will be given. The domain and areas of learning will be in the title of each post. The discussion will start with a component and its learning expectations and performance indicators. I chose these standards because Tennessee prides itself on having some of the most comprehensive early learning standards in the nation. In this series I am not arguing for or against the use of these standards. I am simply giving you a good format for developing a sound curriculum for preschool children. Of course, I will throw in as much of my own expertise as an early childhood educator and former homeschooler as I can. What will make this series unique is the homeschooling element, and I will be blunt about what can and cannot be taught through play.
Our first component we will discuss is Story Reading Behaviors with the learning expectation - begins to recite from memory familiar books. The examples given for this one are (1) asks to read books to the adult and may be able to recite several books fairly accurately, especially if they are simple and predictable (2) reads familiar books aloud, rendering the text very accurately, particularly when a book is predictable.
I will tell you that 2 1/2 and 3 year olds that meet this standard are usually considered quite smart. Many, many children do not have the experience with books required to be able to quote a book accurately at this age. Children must have heard a book around 10 times to be able to quote sections of it. Unless that child has the same book read to him/her on a regular basis, this particular performance indicator will not be met. I have had 4 year olds that took some time to pick up on even very repetitive text because they had so little experience with books. Experience with books will always be the starting place with every child to develop cognitive and language development skills. READ! READ! READ!! to the children. Children will not pick up this skill by simply sitting in a library area and looking at books. Even though this should be obvious, I will take nothing for granted in this series because I have seen some wacky ideas in my day.
The last component we will discuss in this post is Early Writing Behaviors and Skills with the learning expectation - scribbles and draws with intentionality. The examples given for this one are (1) draws a circle and (2) imitates a horizontal crayon stroke.
This just happens to be one of those areas where I have heard some wacky things in my day. Some early childhood experts would have you believe that simply providing a child with crayons and paper on a regular basis will make early writing behaviors happen magically. I am afraid it is not that simple. I have seen 4 year olds that have had ample opportunity with paper and crayons and still really did not draw circles. This is one of those areas where direct instruction becomes necessary. Some children will experiment with trying to draw what they have seen others do, but they are the minority. Most children that I have seen in the last decade do not begin to really develop writing behaviors until they were directly instructed. This may be a new phenomenon that has developed in the last 5-10 years, but a great majority of the children I have had have gone from scribbling to actual deliberate writing and drawing only after I broke out the tracing pages. I know that "pages" of any sort has been completely vilified as the most horrible thing a preschool teacher can do to children. However, tracing exercises for almost all children will be necessary in order for true writing and drawing behaviors to begin to emerge. For 2 1/2 to 3 year olds, simple instruction with making circles and sticks will be all that is necessary. For 4 year olds that are still scribbling, tracing pages will be all that helps bring those children up to speed. Remember, I treat all children that walk through my door as being at this level of development until I see that they are either ahead or behind. I do not use age as an indicator anymore because I have seen way too many 4 year olds walk through my door that could not draw a circle or a stick if their life depended on it. As a homeschooler I have seen how "pages" can be extremely beneficial when coupled with one-on-one instruction. It is the one-on-one instruction that brings the benefit. Just handing a child a page has the same effect as simply handing a child paper and crayons. The instruction makes the page beneficial. You have to show children how to use crayons and pencils correctly. It does not appear out of thin air.
I hope you have enjoyed this post. Goodbye and God bless!! Check out Natalie's children's books at: https://www.amazon.com/author/nataliewade7457
Obviously, many of you that read this do not live in the state of Tennessee. Therefore, explanations as to terminology and set-up are necessary. For this particular series I will only cover the cognitive and language development domains. Each domain will be divided in areas of learning. The areas of learning will be subdivided into components. The components are divided into learning expectations. For these learning expectations examples of performance indicators will be given. The domain and areas of learning will be in the title of each post. The discussion will start with a component and its learning expectations and performance indicators. I chose these standards because Tennessee prides itself on having some of the most comprehensive early learning standards in the nation. In this series I am not arguing for or against the use of these standards. I am simply giving you a good format for developing a sound curriculum for preschool children. Of course, I will throw in as much of my own expertise as an early childhood educator and former homeschooler as I can. What will make this series unique is the homeschooling element, and I will be blunt about what can and cannot be taught through play.
Our first component we will discuss is Story Reading Behaviors with the learning expectation - begins to recite from memory familiar books. The examples given for this one are (1) asks to read books to the adult and may be able to recite several books fairly accurately, especially if they are simple and predictable (2) reads familiar books aloud, rendering the text very accurately, particularly when a book is predictable.
I will tell you that 2 1/2 and 3 year olds that meet this standard are usually considered quite smart. Many, many children do not have the experience with books required to be able to quote a book accurately at this age. Children must have heard a book around 10 times to be able to quote sections of it. Unless that child has the same book read to him/her on a regular basis, this particular performance indicator will not be met. I have had 4 year olds that took some time to pick up on even very repetitive text because they had so little experience with books. Experience with books will always be the starting place with every child to develop cognitive and language development skills. READ! READ! READ!! to the children. Children will not pick up this skill by simply sitting in a library area and looking at books. Even though this should be obvious, I will take nothing for granted in this series because I have seen some wacky ideas in my day.
The last component we will discuss in this post is Early Writing Behaviors and Skills with the learning expectation - scribbles and draws with intentionality. The examples given for this one are (1) draws a circle and (2) imitates a horizontal crayon stroke.
This just happens to be one of those areas where I have heard some wacky things in my day. Some early childhood experts would have you believe that simply providing a child with crayons and paper on a regular basis will make early writing behaviors happen magically. I am afraid it is not that simple. I have seen 4 year olds that have had ample opportunity with paper and crayons and still really did not draw circles. This is one of those areas where direct instruction becomes necessary. Some children will experiment with trying to draw what they have seen others do, but they are the minority. Most children that I have seen in the last decade do not begin to really develop writing behaviors until they were directly instructed. This may be a new phenomenon that has developed in the last 5-10 years, but a great majority of the children I have had have gone from scribbling to actual deliberate writing and drawing only after I broke out the tracing pages. I know that "pages" of any sort has been completely vilified as the most horrible thing a preschool teacher can do to children. However, tracing exercises for almost all children will be necessary in order for true writing and drawing behaviors to begin to emerge. For 2 1/2 to 3 year olds, simple instruction with making circles and sticks will be all that is necessary. For 4 year olds that are still scribbling, tracing pages will be all that helps bring those children up to speed. Remember, I treat all children that walk through my door as being at this level of development until I see that they are either ahead or behind. I do not use age as an indicator anymore because I have seen way too many 4 year olds walk through my door that could not draw a circle or a stick if their life depended on it. As a homeschooler I have seen how "pages" can be extremely beneficial when coupled with one-on-one instruction. It is the one-on-one instruction that brings the benefit. Just handing a child a page has the same effect as simply handing a child paper and crayons. The instruction makes the page beneficial. You have to show children how to use crayons and pencils correctly. It does not appear out of thin air.
I hope you have enjoyed this post. Goodbye and God bless!! Check out Natalie's children's books at: https://www.amazon.com/author/nataliewade7457
Wednesday, May 28, 2014
Dealing with Picky Eaters - Parent Participation
This post will look at the problem of picky eating and how parents help and hinder the process of getting children to eat better. Unfortunately in most cases of picky eating, the parents are a large part of the problem. Therefore, any attempt to improve the child's eating habits needs to be coupled with a very large amount of parent trainings, parent handouts, and any other method to improve the entire situation.
Is picky eating genetic?
Maybe, but it is definitely a learned behavior. Many times the parents of picky eaters are almost just as picky themselves. This is especially true of parents that are millennials. The peers of my biological children have terrible eating habits for the most part. Generation Xers do not eat much better unless they have learned it in adulthood. My peers growing up were the first really picky generation, and it has escalated exponentially since then with every subsequent generation being pickier than the one before it. We are going in the wrong direction on this one in a big way. Therefore, to break the cycle you must deal with the adults and children in this situation.
Where do you even begin? Cooking Skills
Actually the best place to start with parents are trainings that teach cooking skills. Many of my biological children's peers can barely boil water. It is sad. If something does not have microwave directions, it is probably beyond a great deal of millennials' cooking ability. That means they eat almost 100% processed food, and if they are parents, their children get nearly 100% processed food. Do I need to remind you that processed food makes for hyper children? Many millennials do not even know how to use a knife well enough to peel an apple. Therefore, anything that requires peeling is beyond their ability. One of the greatest gifts you could give many very young parents are cooking lessons. Teach them the proper way to use a knife. Teach them the basics of making simple foods like eggs and browning hamburger meat. Give them the skills necessary to be able to actually prepare nutritious meals for their family. Without these skills all the nutrition training in the world is wasted. I actually think one of the greatest ways to fight obesity in our country today is to require at least one full year of home economics in high school that includes learning to cook and plan nutritious meals. We are sending our children into adulthood these days completely unprepared for domestic duties, and we really need to rectify that.
Bad Habit - Grazing
Once you have established that your parents are capable of preparing nutritious meals, then you can start on the nutrition training. However, before you dive into full-fledged classes on portion sizes and meal planning, there are several very bad habits American parents have that really need to be dealt with first. The first of these bad habits involve letting your children graze all day long. These parents stock mostly junk food in the house in which their children have access, and the children basically snack all day long. They never eat a real meal. Even if the snacks are somewhat healthy, a child will never fulfill all of his/her nutritional needs through this type of snacking. I know that several years ago some pediatricians actually promoted this to get children to eat something. However, now studies have shown this to be a contributing factor to obesity in children. Encourage, coax, plead with parents to have actual meals and cut out the grazing.
Bad Habit - Fixing Separate Meals
The second very bad habit many parents have is fixing a separate meal for every member of the family. Instead of listening to their children complain about meals, many parents simply fix a different meal for each member of the house. Many times this will involve just getting fast food or popping a frozen dinner in the microwave. However, 99% of the time these meals are far from nutritious or well-balanced. This also sets an extremely bad precedent for the children. I am sorry, but children should not be allowed to eat macaroni and cheese or a bowl of cereal every day for supper just because you do not want to deal with a hissy fit. This practice has also been shown to contribute to obesity in children. Study after study has shown the value of families having sit down meals for reasons ranging from learning better eating habits to strengthening communication in a family. Children will eat better if they are expected to sit down at meals and have the exact same thing as everyone else. Will it come with monumental hissy fits? Absolutely, but eventually the hissy fits will subside and something wonderful will develop that is worth every bit of the blood, sweat, and tears it will take to get there.
Bad Habit - Juice in Sippee Cups
The third bad habit I want to deal with here is the practice of giving toddlers and preschoolers sippee cups with juice in it to sip on all day long. There are so many things wrong with this practice it is hard to know where to begin. Number one, a child should only have one small cup of juice a day not sip on juice all day long. Juice is packed with sugar even 100% juice. Study after study is now showing that overconsumption of juice is another contributing factor to obesity in children. Fresh fruit is much, much better for children than juice. Number two, if a child is allowed to consume a great deal of calories from liquids, they will not eat as well. They simply will not be hungry at meal times. Now, you may be thinking what if I substitute milk for juice? Even though milk is better than juice, a child should not sip on anything all day long. It is horrible for their teeth to constantly have something in their mouth. Number three, sippee cups should go away before a child's second birthday. I have already written a post on the problems with sippee cups. To sum up that post, overusage of sippee cups leads to speech problems. A child really needs to drink from a regular cup most of the time after their second birthday if not before. Their mouths will not develop properly without this experience. If you feel your child needs something to sip on throughout the day, have a water dispenser with small cups available.
Bad Habit - Flavored Milk
The last bad habit on my list involves flavored milk. If you really understood how much sugar is in flavored milk, you would never opt to give that to a child except on very rare occasions. This is another one of those seemingly innocent ideas from the 1990s that pediatricians somewhat pushed to get children to drink milk. Their reasoning was that it was better than not drinking milk at all and the parenting style of avoiding hissy fits at all costs was all the rage. Now they understand this is also another one of the contributing factors for childhood obesity. Children need milk but not flavored milk. They will drink white milk eventually after they protest for months. Never ever let a child use a hissy fit to get out of something they need to do. It is an ugly precedent to allow.
If the parents of the children in your care will simply learn not to have these bad habits in their homes, it will be 1000 times easier to get children to eat good food on a regular basis. Actually getting parents to remove these bad habits might take a miracle, but keep after it. When parents are a large part of the problem, the parents will have to be the starting place for correcting our epidemic of picky eaters.
I hope you have enjoyed this post. Goodbye and God bless!! Check out Natalie's children's books at: https://www.amazon.com/author/nataliewade7457
Is picky eating genetic?
Maybe, but it is definitely a learned behavior. Many times the parents of picky eaters are almost just as picky themselves. This is especially true of parents that are millennials. The peers of my biological children have terrible eating habits for the most part. Generation Xers do not eat much better unless they have learned it in adulthood. My peers growing up were the first really picky generation, and it has escalated exponentially since then with every subsequent generation being pickier than the one before it. We are going in the wrong direction on this one in a big way. Therefore, to break the cycle you must deal with the adults and children in this situation.
Where do you even begin? Cooking Skills
Actually the best place to start with parents are trainings that teach cooking skills. Many of my biological children's peers can barely boil water. It is sad. If something does not have microwave directions, it is probably beyond a great deal of millennials' cooking ability. That means they eat almost 100% processed food, and if they are parents, their children get nearly 100% processed food. Do I need to remind you that processed food makes for hyper children? Many millennials do not even know how to use a knife well enough to peel an apple. Therefore, anything that requires peeling is beyond their ability. One of the greatest gifts you could give many very young parents are cooking lessons. Teach them the proper way to use a knife. Teach them the basics of making simple foods like eggs and browning hamburger meat. Give them the skills necessary to be able to actually prepare nutritious meals for their family. Without these skills all the nutrition training in the world is wasted. I actually think one of the greatest ways to fight obesity in our country today is to require at least one full year of home economics in high school that includes learning to cook and plan nutritious meals. We are sending our children into adulthood these days completely unprepared for domestic duties, and we really need to rectify that.
Bad Habit - Grazing
Once you have established that your parents are capable of preparing nutritious meals, then you can start on the nutrition training. However, before you dive into full-fledged classes on portion sizes and meal planning, there are several very bad habits American parents have that really need to be dealt with first. The first of these bad habits involve letting your children graze all day long. These parents stock mostly junk food in the house in which their children have access, and the children basically snack all day long. They never eat a real meal. Even if the snacks are somewhat healthy, a child will never fulfill all of his/her nutritional needs through this type of snacking. I know that several years ago some pediatricians actually promoted this to get children to eat something. However, now studies have shown this to be a contributing factor to obesity in children. Encourage, coax, plead with parents to have actual meals and cut out the grazing.
Bad Habit - Fixing Separate Meals
The second very bad habit many parents have is fixing a separate meal for every member of the family. Instead of listening to their children complain about meals, many parents simply fix a different meal for each member of the house. Many times this will involve just getting fast food or popping a frozen dinner in the microwave. However, 99% of the time these meals are far from nutritious or well-balanced. This also sets an extremely bad precedent for the children. I am sorry, but children should not be allowed to eat macaroni and cheese or a bowl of cereal every day for supper just because you do not want to deal with a hissy fit. This practice has also been shown to contribute to obesity in children. Study after study has shown the value of families having sit down meals for reasons ranging from learning better eating habits to strengthening communication in a family. Children will eat better if they are expected to sit down at meals and have the exact same thing as everyone else. Will it come with monumental hissy fits? Absolutely, but eventually the hissy fits will subside and something wonderful will develop that is worth every bit of the blood, sweat, and tears it will take to get there.
Bad Habit - Juice in Sippee Cups
The third bad habit I want to deal with here is the practice of giving toddlers and preschoolers sippee cups with juice in it to sip on all day long. There are so many things wrong with this practice it is hard to know where to begin. Number one, a child should only have one small cup of juice a day not sip on juice all day long. Juice is packed with sugar even 100% juice. Study after study is now showing that overconsumption of juice is another contributing factor to obesity in children. Fresh fruit is much, much better for children than juice. Number two, if a child is allowed to consume a great deal of calories from liquids, they will not eat as well. They simply will not be hungry at meal times. Now, you may be thinking what if I substitute milk for juice? Even though milk is better than juice, a child should not sip on anything all day long. It is horrible for their teeth to constantly have something in their mouth. Number three, sippee cups should go away before a child's second birthday. I have already written a post on the problems with sippee cups. To sum up that post, overusage of sippee cups leads to speech problems. A child really needs to drink from a regular cup most of the time after their second birthday if not before. Their mouths will not develop properly without this experience. If you feel your child needs something to sip on throughout the day, have a water dispenser with small cups available.
Bad Habit - Flavored Milk
The last bad habit on my list involves flavored milk. If you really understood how much sugar is in flavored milk, you would never opt to give that to a child except on very rare occasions. This is another one of those seemingly innocent ideas from the 1990s that pediatricians somewhat pushed to get children to drink milk. Their reasoning was that it was better than not drinking milk at all and the parenting style of avoiding hissy fits at all costs was all the rage. Now they understand this is also another one of the contributing factors for childhood obesity. Children need milk but not flavored milk. They will drink white milk eventually after they protest for months. Never ever let a child use a hissy fit to get out of something they need to do. It is an ugly precedent to allow.
If the parents of the children in your care will simply learn not to have these bad habits in their homes, it will be 1000 times easier to get children to eat good food on a regular basis. Actually getting parents to remove these bad habits might take a miracle, but keep after it. When parents are a large part of the problem, the parents will have to be the starting place for correcting our epidemic of picky eaters.
I hope you have enjoyed this post. Goodbye and God bless!! Check out Natalie's children's books at: https://www.amazon.com/author/nataliewade7457
Saturday, May 24, 2014
The Social Learning Style
This post will conclude my series on learning styles. This particular learning style has been all the rage for quite a while. Learning by collaboration makes up a great deal of the learning experiences for especially high school and college level work. Group projects have come to be the norm and are seen as providing a rich learning experience for all involved.
I Hate Group Projects
Like every other learning style I have covered in this series, it remains that some people learn well using this learning style and some do not. Mention a group project in my presence, and you will probably get a very nasty look. I HATE group projects with a passion. I had to do at least one if not many more group projects every semester while getting my technical certificate in early childhood, my bachelor's degree and quite a few semesters of my master's degree. I would personally rather write a 10 page paper than have to do a group project. However, I survived many of them, but how I survived speaks a great deal to how effective this particular learning style actually is for many people.
A Level Playing Field
The effectiveness of group learning situations depends greatly on the levelness of the playing field. What I mean by this is how equally yoked are the members of the group. When a group has a fairly even level of skill, that group will be a higher functioning group than when the level of skill is varied. This is true of learning groups as well as business groups. The group project idea actually originated in the business world and has trickled down into the educational world. The business world is beginning to realize that all groups are not created equal. It used to be thought that groups will produce better results than individuals working by themselves. However, many studies have shown that does not necessarily play out in reality. The old adage that a chain is only as strong as its weakest link very much applies to groups. Only when each member is equally strong in his/her area of expertise will a group produce a result greater than what each individual could produce on his/her own. In the business world, this is called a high-functioning group. When the members of the group are unequally yoked, what results is compensation rather than collaboration. The stronger members of the group have to compensate for the lack of skills present in the weaker members, and therefore, the end result becomes the product of the overworked stronger members of the group. Overworked members rarely produce their best results. This is why I hate group projects. In all the group projects I have ever been assigned only a very few were in groups where I was not either the strongest academic member or one of a few strong academic members. In the few where I was equally yoked, those projects were impressive. We were actually able to pool the talents of all members to produce a greater result than any one of us could have produced alone. In all the others they might as well have been my projects because I either did all the work or reworked all the work to bring it up to the caliber that I knew was required, and none of those could fall into the category of my best work.
Results vs. Process
Not everyone feels the same about group projects as I do. However, that is also for various and assorted reasons. Some people like group projects because they know there will be a me in the group to do all the work, and therefore, they will get an easy "A." Some people enjoy the social aspects of working together and are not as concerned about the end results. For those people it is more about the process than the results. However, let just one member be a results person and everyone is miserable. I guess I am the results person, and prove my point about being equally yoked. All members of the group need to be either results oriented or process oriented. Mixing the two makes everyone miserable.
The Process People
People do exist that seem to thrive in the group setting. They learn and grow more from each other than they would when working alone. Process of learning typically falls higher in their priorities than results. For them the experience embodies the learning process rather than the acquisition of knowledge. I am not one of those people, but if you have read many books on early childhood learning, you will recognize that many of those writers are those type of people. However, not all children learn the same just like not all adults learn the same. Some children thrive in a process environment and some children get aggravated in a process learning environment. I would have been one of the aggravated. Give me substance, please.
Being Unequally Yoked
How does all of this translate into the early childhood world? Many curriculums and books on early childhood learning are based on social learning. It is very important to understand that not all children learn this way. Teaching young children sometimes is like a crap shoot. You have to try different methods until you find the one that works for the group of children in your care. If the children in your care are very unequally yoked, you may have to scrap a lot of social learning or only use it occasionally. I do have that situation in my very small childcare. I use a wide variety of activities to meet the needs of the widely ranging skill level of the children in my care. Group learning situations at my childcare often end up in a war of some sort. I have had to learn to individualize the group activities in order to get the same level of participation from all the children. Otherwise, one or two children participates and the others act up. I know that represents a great deal of what goes on in childcares all over the country. Many providers do not understand the unequally yoked factor of group activities and group settings. The business world has finally realized the importance of high functioning groups. Maybe the educational world will get there sometime in the next century.
I hope you have enjoyed this post. Goodbye and God bless!! Check out Natalie's children's books at: https://www.amazon.com/author/nataliewade7457
I Hate Group Projects
Like every other learning style I have covered in this series, it remains that some people learn well using this learning style and some do not. Mention a group project in my presence, and you will probably get a very nasty look. I HATE group projects with a passion. I had to do at least one if not many more group projects every semester while getting my technical certificate in early childhood, my bachelor's degree and quite a few semesters of my master's degree. I would personally rather write a 10 page paper than have to do a group project. However, I survived many of them, but how I survived speaks a great deal to how effective this particular learning style actually is for many people.
A Level Playing Field
The effectiveness of group learning situations depends greatly on the levelness of the playing field. What I mean by this is how equally yoked are the members of the group. When a group has a fairly even level of skill, that group will be a higher functioning group than when the level of skill is varied. This is true of learning groups as well as business groups. The group project idea actually originated in the business world and has trickled down into the educational world. The business world is beginning to realize that all groups are not created equal. It used to be thought that groups will produce better results than individuals working by themselves. However, many studies have shown that does not necessarily play out in reality. The old adage that a chain is only as strong as its weakest link very much applies to groups. Only when each member is equally strong in his/her area of expertise will a group produce a result greater than what each individual could produce on his/her own. In the business world, this is called a high-functioning group. When the members of the group are unequally yoked, what results is compensation rather than collaboration. The stronger members of the group have to compensate for the lack of skills present in the weaker members, and therefore, the end result becomes the product of the overworked stronger members of the group. Overworked members rarely produce their best results. This is why I hate group projects. In all the group projects I have ever been assigned only a very few were in groups where I was not either the strongest academic member or one of a few strong academic members. In the few where I was equally yoked, those projects were impressive. We were actually able to pool the talents of all members to produce a greater result than any one of us could have produced alone. In all the others they might as well have been my projects because I either did all the work or reworked all the work to bring it up to the caliber that I knew was required, and none of those could fall into the category of my best work.
Results vs. Process
Not everyone feels the same about group projects as I do. However, that is also for various and assorted reasons. Some people like group projects because they know there will be a me in the group to do all the work, and therefore, they will get an easy "A." Some people enjoy the social aspects of working together and are not as concerned about the end results. For those people it is more about the process than the results. However, let just one member be a results person and everyone is miserable. I guess I am the results person, and prove my point about being equally yoked. All members of the group need to be either results oriented or process oriented. Mixing the two makes everyone miserable.
The Process People
People do exist that seem to thrive in the group setting. They learn and grow more from each other than they would when working alone. Process of learning typically falls higher in their priorities than results. For them the experience embodies the learning process rather than the acquisition of knowledge. I am not one of those people, but if you have read many books on early childhood learning, you will recognize that many of those writers are those type of people. However, not all children learn the same just like not all adults learn the same. Some children thrive in a process environment and some children get aggravated in a process learning environment. I would have been one of the aggravated. Give me substance, please.
Being Unequally Yoked
How does all of this translate into the early childhood world? Many curriculums and books on early childhood learning are based on social learning. It is very important to understand that not all children learn this way. Teaching young children sometimes is like a crap shoot. You have to try different methods until you find the one that works for the group of children in your care. If the children in your care are very unequally yoked, you may have to scrap a lot of social learning or only use it occasionally. I do have that situation in my very small childcare. I use a wide variety of activities to meet the needs of the widely ranging skill level of the children in my care. Group learning situations at my childcare often end up in a war of some sort. I have had to learn to individualize the group activities in order to get the same level of participation from all the children. Otherwise, one or two children participates and the others act up. I know that represents a great deal of what goes on in childcares all over the country. Many providers do not understand the unequally yoked factor of group activities and group settings. The business world has finally realized the importance of high functioning groups. Maybe the educational world will get there sometime in the next century.
I hope you have enjoyed this post. Goodbye and God bless!! Check out Natalie's children's books at: https://www.amazon.com/author/nataliewade7457
Wednesday, May 21, 2014
Dealing with Picky Eaters - Nutrition 101
This post will continue my discussion on picky eating. Specifically, this post will look at some nutrition basics that have somehow been lost in the shuffle. In case you are wondering, I have a master's degree in family and consumer science. Therefore, I just might know a hair bit more about nutrition than the average bear. Actually, some of my knowledge comes from two years of home economics in high school in the 1980s. A great portion of my knowledge on nutrition comes from teaching my own children health using the A Beka Book curriculum. That curriculum was actually almost as comprehensive as my graduate school work in the caliber of the information provided.
It's All About Politics
Even though a good percentage of childcare providers participate in the USDA food program, many of them do not really understand nutrition. Yearly training is required to participate in the food program, but if you really look at the menus that qualify for "nutritious," you might think something fishy is going on here. My home economics teacher would have taken the food program to absolute task over those menus. Why would a program that boasts building nutritious meals actually allow very non-nutritious meals? The answer to that is the same as why a tomato is legally a vegetable but scientifically a fruit - politics. Money and politics make the world go round and affect everything our government touches. To not understand that is to be duped into believing a whole lot of untruths.
Portion Control
Before I tear into the menus provided by the USDA, let me say that the food training does one thing very, very right. Every year at these trainings, the trainers break out the measuring tools and drill on portion sizes. In America, this is one of the best lessons we can teach the children. When children consistently see appropriate portion sizes, it makes a difference in their expectations of what they need. This will have impact as they grow older. Therefore, I say to the food trainers, "Keep breaking out those measuring tools!"
What Is a True Vegetable?
Now, let us get to the menu planning. Rule number one: Potatoes and Corn are carbohydrates not true vegetables. My high school home economics teacher drilled this into our heads. When we menu planned for her class, potatoes did not count as a vegetable and only yellow corn would count but only if we used it once per week. If we had tried to pass off french fries and tater tots as a vegetable, she would have laughed at us like we were crazy. Now, look at a USDA menu for the food program and see how many times potatoes are listed as a vegetable (with that mostly being french fries and tater tots) and whether corn is included more than once per week. While we are on the subject of nonvegetables, beans and peas are not vegetables either. They are protein and count like a meat. Baked beans and pork and beans are not vegetables even though I have seen them listed that way many times. When you remove all the nonvegetables from the USDA menu, you will not find very many true vegetables at all. Now I understand that vegetables are a very touchy subject with children, but do not claim to be nutritious in my presence with a menu that looks like that.
Protein for Breakfast
Rule number two: Children need protein for breakfast. I do not understand why the USDA does not require a protein component for breakfast when the research behind a child's need for protein in the morning has been documented for decades. The only reasoning I can see is that the compensation rate for breakfast is less than lunch, and therefore needs less components. However, children need protein in the morning to be able to maintain until lunch. It helps them think better. It stabilizes their mood all morning. Any childcare provider with any nutritional training understands that providing protein in the morning whether you are compensated for it or not gives a return that is well worth the extra expense. This can be accomplished with scrambled eggs, which is not terribly expensive. By the way, eggs just might be the world's most perfect food especially for children. Eggs contain more vitamins and minerals per serving than just about anything else.
The Need for Whole Foods
Rule number three: Whole foods over processed foods. This is where I really have issues with the USDA menus. If I had tried to pull off bologna as a nutritious component of a meal in home economics in high school, she would have flunked me. Do not even get me started about pop tarts. Really people. The more processed the food the less nutritional value it has. This is a simple nutritional fact that has been around since we started processing more and more of our food. Processed foods make for hyper children. If no one has ever told you that, then let me be the first. If you want to calm down your children, then serve foods that are as close to their natural form as possible. Fresh over all else. Frozen when you cannot do fresh. Canned only when you cannot find it any other way and only sparingly. Now I understand that fresh and even frozen is more expensive than cans. However, think of it as an investment in your own sanity. Better foods do equal better behaved children overall.
The Vitamin A Rule
Rule number four: Children need a source of vitamin A at two different meals each day. This particular rule is not widely known. However, vitamin A plays an important part in a child's overall wellbeing. Synthetic forms of vitamin A found in vitamin pills and vitamin drinks are not as easily absorbed by the body as natural forms. (This is true of all vitamins and minerals.) Therefore, having a source of vitamin A at two different meals will help children have healthy skin and hair among other benefits. Remember when I talked about the television program that showed simulations of what children would look like as adults when you factored in their nutrition habits? One of the biggest shocks for those parents was the hair loss. Guess what caused that hair loss - vitamin A deficiency. What are sources of vitamin A? The best sources of vitamin A are dark green leafy vegetables and deep yellow and orange vegetables. Before you get excited, lettuce unless it is the dark green leafy kind does not have vitamin A. Yellow corn and green beans have a little but will need to be coupled with another source for them to count. Apricots are a good source but peaches only have a little and must be coupled with another source. Egg yolks, red meat, and real butter are other sources of vitamin A. Margarine does not have it. In this society you can almost count it as a given that children will not get a source of vitamin A at home. Therefore, when you menu plan, you will need to make sure you are serving 2 good servings of vitamin A per day. This is where the USDA food program menus really do not measure up. Fruits are good for children but only a few contain vitamin A. Substituting fruits for vegetables at meals because children like fruit better will still cause them to be vitamin A deficient.
Bright Colors
Rule number five: It's all about bright colors. Foods that have deep color naturally are better for you than foods that do not. One of the best ways to determine if you are serving nutritious meals is to look at the vibrancy of the color of your plate. If most of the food is brown and white, your menu planning needs a lot of work. Do you serve food that is deep red like beets or dark cherries? Do you serve food that is blue or purple like blueberries or eggplant? Do you serve food that is orange like carrots and sweet potatoes? A well planned plate will have a variety of vibrant colors. The only brown you should see is from whole wheat breads and cereals. Of course, artificial colors absolutely do not count.
In this post I have only covered the nutrition basics. Getting children to eat this type of food is an entirely different matter, and will be the subject of the next several posts.
I hope you have enjoyed this post. Goodbye and God bless!! Check out Natalie's children's books at: https://www.amazon.com/author/nataliewade7457
It's All About Politics
Even though a good percentage of childcare providers participate in the USDA food program, many of them do not really understand nutrition. Yearly training is required to participate in the food program, but if you really look at the menus that qualify for "nutritious," you might think something fishy is going on here. My home economics teacher would have taken the food program to absolute task over those menus. Why would a program that boasts building nutritious meals actually allow very non-nutritious meals? The answer to that is the same as why a tomato is legally a vegetable but scientifically a fruit - politics. Money and politics make the world go round and affect everything our government touches. To not understand that is to be duped into believing a whole lot of untruths.
Portion Control
Before I tear into the menus provided by the USDA, let me say that the food training does one thing very, very right. Every year at these trainings, the trainers break out the measuring tools and drill on portion sizes. In America, this is one of the best lessons we can teach the children. When children consistently see appropriate portion sizes, it makes a difference in their expectations of what they need. This will have impact as they grow older. Therefore, I say to the food trainers, "Keep breaking out those measuring tools!"
What Is a True Vegetable?
Now, let us get to the menu planning. Rule number one: Potatoes and Corn are carbohydrates not true vegetables. My high school home economics teacher drilled this into our heads. When we menu planned for her class, potatoes did not count as a vegetable and only yellow corn would count but only if we used it once per week. If we had tried to pass off french fries and tater tots as a vegetable, she would have laughed at us like we were crazy. Now, look at a USDA menu for the food program and see how many times potatoes are listed as a vegetable (with that mostly being french fries and tater tots) and whether corn is included more than once per week. While we are on the subject of nonvegetables, beans and peas are not vegetables either. They are protein and count like a meat. Baked beans and pork and beans are not vegetables even though I have seen them listed that way many times. When you remove all the nonvegetables from the USDA menu, you will not find very many true vegetables at all. Now I understand that vegetables are a very touchy subject with children, but do not claim to be nutritious in my presence with a menu that looks like that.
Protein for Breakfast
Rule number two: Children need protein for breakfast. I do not understand why the USDA does not require a protein component for breakfast when the research behind a child's need for protein in the morning has been documented for decades. The only reasoning I can see is that the compensation rate for breakfast is less than lunch, and therefore needs less components. However, children need protein in the morning to be able to maintain until lunch. It helps them think better. It stabilizes their mood all morning. Any childcare provider with any nutritional training understands that providing protein in the morning whether you are compensated for it or not gives a return that is well worth the extra expense. This can be accomplished with scrambled eggs, which is not terribly expensive. By the way, eggs just might be the world's most perfect food especially for children. Eggs contain more vitamins and minerals per serving than just about anything else.
The Need for Whole Foods
Rule number three: Whole foods over processed foods. This is where I really have issues with the USDA menus. If I had tried to pull off bologna as a nutritious component of a meal in home economics in high school, she would have flunked me. Do not even get me started about pop tarts. Really people. The more processed the food the less nutritional value it has. This is a simple nutritional fact that has been around since we started processing more and more of our food. Processed foods make for hyper children. If no one has ever told you that, then let me be the first. If you want to calm down your children, then serve foods that are as close to their natural form as possible. Fresh over all else. Frozen when you cannot do fresh. Canned only when you cannot find it any other way and only sparingly. Now I understand that fresh and even frozen is more expensive than cans. However, think of it as an investment in your own sanity. Better foods do equal better behaved children overall.
The Vitamin A Rule
Rule number four: Children need a source of vitamin A at two different meals each day. This particular rule is not widely known. However, vitamin A plays an important part in a child's overall wellbeing. Synthetic forms of vitamin A found in vitamin pills and vitamin drinks are not as easily absorbed by the body as natural forms. (This is true of all vitamins and minerals.) Therefore, having a source of vitamin A at two different meals will help children have healthy skin and hair among other benefits. Remember when I talked about the television program that showed simulations of what children would look like as adults when you factored in their nutrition habits? One of the biggest shocks for those parents was the hair loss. Guess what caused that hair loss - vitamin A deficiency. What are sources of vitamin A? The best sources of vitamin A are dark green leafy vegetables and deep yellow and orange vegetables. Before you get excited, lettuce unless it is the dark green leafy kind does not have vitamin A. Yellow corn and green beans have a little but will need to be coupled with another source for them to count. Apricots are a good source but peaches only have a little and must be coupled with another source. Egg yolks, red meat, and real butter are other sources of vitamin A. Margarine does not have it. In this society you can almost count it as a given that children will not get a source of vitamin A at home. Therefore, when you menu plan, you will need to make sure you are serving 2 good servings of vitamin A per day. This is where the USDA food program menus really do not measure up. Fruits are good for children but only a few contain vitamin A. Substituting fruits for vegetables at meals because children like fruit better will still cause them to be vitamin A deficient.
Bright Colors
Rule number five: It's all about bright colors. Foods that have deep color naturally are better for you than foods that do not. One of the best ways to determine if you are serving nutritious meals is to look at the vibrancy of the color of your plate. If most of the food is brown and white, your menu planning needs a lot of work. Do you serve food that is deep red like beets or dark cherries? Do you serve food that is blue or purple like blueberries or eggplant? Do you serve food that is orange like carrots and sweet potatoes? A well planned plate will have a variety of vibrant colors. The only brown you should see is from whole wheat breads and cereals. Of course, artificial colors absolutely do not count.
In this post I have only covered the nutrition basics. Getting children to eat this type of food is an entirely different matter, and will be the subject of the next several posts.
I hope you have enjoyed this post. Goodbye and God bless!! Check out Natalie's children's books at: https://www.amazon.com/author/nataliewade7457
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