Category: Parent Talk
my little rugrat is almost 14 months now, and he's hit a hole bunch of mile stones here with in the last month. one of them being walking. he's walking everywhere now. he's still got that un sure stance about him, and he's still a bit wobbley, but he's been doing very well. another of the things he recently learnt is to coppy us. if we say bye, he can say it, or if we make a noize he does a pritty good job of mocking it. our recent game is he'll get one of his balls and bring it to me, i'll role it to him and he'll bring it back. I was just wondering what other games would bee good for his age groop. he's pritty much out of the caddagory of premature, but there's some things that he's still behind on, like some of the things minchened above. we were told that a child should start mimicking noizes and movements at around 7 or 8 months, and he didn't start till just now. i'd say he's pritty much ahead on every thing elce, but I just want to work with him as much as I can with his new found abilitys. so any fisical games, or word games or any thing like that to help him walk, or talk, or move better would be aussom! thanks in advance
first of all your son is in the normal range for doing anything. remember that often boys talk and verbalize later then do girls. they do walk and master physical stuff earlier. kind of like grown up men they save that communication for really special moments.
my kids loved the ball. they would sit in front of me on the floor and we'd roll them back and forth for a long time.
Remember that young toddlers attention spans are pretty short. If you try something and he loses interest quickly, bring it back and try again.
Here's one of my biasses. limit the exposure to battery toys and games. purchase things that the young child must interact with. this encourages mental and physical growth and in the future the development of the most important thing in life, his imagination.
remember kids at that age don't play games in the sense that we do. winning and losing and all that comes with it really isn't clearly understood until at least kindergarten.
one of the things my kids loved at 14 months was plastic measuring cups. they had so much fun putting water in them and pouring it out. also stacking them was great fun too.
home made playdough is fun if you don't mind the mess. it's cheaper to do then the store bought kind and if they eat it no big deal.
simple shape sorting toys are great. discovery toys has a lot of nice ones, and you can get less expensive ones at walmart. those ring stacking ones are fun too.
any kind of push or pull toy like a make believe grocery cart or one of those poppers encourages walking and helps with balance.
my son started loving trains. i got him a big one made of wooden blocks. it had a string on one end. you could hook the cars on and separate them easily.
big trucks and cars are also fun for boys. not the match box ones as they can fall apart easily. something like tonka or play school ones.
at this age they are really working on large muscle development. any activity that involves running jumping, rolling, and so forth is lots of fun.
hope i'm being helpful. if you have any questions, please let me know.
I agree with Turricane, and I'm going to make a couple strange suggestions that raised eyebrows when ours was little: A large paper grocery sack. This works if he still likes to crawl on the floor; he's likely to attempt to crawl inside it and you can scratch or tap on the outside and he'll do likewise. Don't forget what they say about Christmas: the best part of the gift for little kids is often the cardboard box it came in. If you can, get a couple cardboard boxes from the local bookstore or grocery store, take out the staples, and you'll be amazed at what they can come up with. My wife would agree with Turricane regarding the battery-operated stuff, to the point that if I brought it home from a business trip she'd say 'No!' and take it away from *me* before I'd even given it to her - but that's another story. Turricane, were / are you a schoolteahcher? My wife was, just wondering about the common denominator. But back to the original point; there are things your son will find amusing you never thought of. When my daughter was his age, she amused herself with a big boulder stuck in the ground, just getting onto and off of it from various angles and looking around. They don't amuse that easily anymore ... <g>
robozork, very perceptive observation. no i am not a school teacher, but my mom was. In fact she taught in a one room setting with all eight grades. Lordy be, whenever we complained about anything being dificult she said "try teaching 30 kids when you are 19 years old..." she went on to be a librarian. During the middle and high school years, I home schooled our two kids. If I had my life to live over again, I'd have loved to teach. Passing on knowledge and lighting the fire of curiosity is the most important stuff we parents can do.
great suggestion about the boxes. when my kids were small we had an extensive addition put on our house. the construction guys were such nice people. when we got our new dryer, they painted the box to look like an army tank. our kids played with that darn thing for months.
I promise this will be my last comment tonight. if you live in a temperate climate, you have the best toys around right now. leaves are great. when our kids were three or so, we got them small rakes. they felt like such big tough guys helping mommy and daddy. even at one year of age, they can, jump, run, bury the dog, and/or roll in the big piles of leaves.
Himm never thought about a rake. They just played. Yes, I'm sure teaching is the most important part of parenting, and frankly is the part I'm least good at. I admire people who, for instance, can come alongside and show someone how to do something, rather than say "Scoot over" and then fix it. My wife homeschooled fora year -- actually it ended up being the year she had a breakdown -- but I have to say I think I was a terrible sub. I worked from home then as I do now, but my daughter was in third grade. For some of us, it's really hard to explain in detailed steps what we do without thinking about it. I know, that's no excuse, but ... So I help her with concepts in science, and write down any vocabulary for Spanish or her other classes if she needs a study partner. Fortunately, I got the chance to read to her a lot when she was little. I should think homeschooling high schoolers would have been a real challenge, since a lot of that knowledge starts to become specialized. Quite impressive, I should think. My grandmother taught in one of those one-room schools, and I for one don't know how the teacher could keep track of it all.
of all the grades in school, my kids had absolutely the worst trouble in third. fifth was a close second. i don't know why because it was the same for my husband and I. maybe it is just the concepts they are expected to learn. Multiplication tables were the worst. Gosh, even 12 years later, I still wake up in a cold sweat hearing "12*12 is what?"
Anyway, home schooling highschoolers was challenging but worth it. i had a curriculum that was pretty much mapped out. I just had to trouble shoot and check. I have to laugh. at the end of november I'm going to oregon to get a dog in a two week accellerated, spelling, program. Everyone is "it is so stressful. How can you stand it?" I'm like let's see i used to work full time and teach full time and be a mom. in the dog school i get to learn, someone else cooks for me, i don't have to pack lunches. gosh that sounds horrible doesn't it?
Well perhaps a much-needed break. I hope it goes well for you.