Over at Barista Kids they are talking about New Year’s Parenting Resolutions. Parents are resolving to spend more quality time with the kids, be a little more patient or just get silly and play with the kids!
The New Year is a great time to set parenting and personal goals and in order to do that you might need to take a look at your family routines.
Routines are important to families for logistics sure, but routines and predictability are important to young children for a whole other reason…how about brain growth and development? That’s right. Reading Goodnight Moon for the one billionth time is actually doing more good than just appeasing your toddlers pleas.
Research continues to stress that early relationships and experiences are important factors in brain growth and development for babies and toddlers. Routines allow children to begin to predict what will happen next, they can begin to see sequences and predict outcomes which can impact children’s learning in other areas such as math, music and science later in life.
Routines can be anything from regular naptimes, regular mealtimes, a bedtime routine (bath, bottle, book, bed), family dinner routines, and chores. The more a child can predict what will happen in the day the less stress the brain will experience…less stress equals more time for development!
Learning about how the brain “wires-up” is exciting and powerful information. We will be offering several trainings from the New Directions Institute in the coming months. The Kinderprep and Brain Time classes bring information on brain development and hands on activities for parents to do with children to enhance development.
I will soon post the dates available to take this class FREE of charge if you have a child under the age of five or if you care for a child/work with children under the age of five. Classes are held in the Tempe/Chandler/Ahwatukee areas and offered in English and Spanish.
So what are your family routines? Is it time to add some new ones?
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