This is a summary for Brinley as a preschooler from 43-44 months old.
Last time I talked about how she has moments of vacillating between wanting to be little and wanting to be independent. That continued, but so did her wanting to be a little sweet girl and a huge antagonist. The sweet won out more than the antagonize, and the antagonizing lasted only a week, but it always seems like forever! The boundary pushing is always exhausting. It was reminiscent of her pre-3.5 year old days.
SLEEPING
Sleep was great. No troubles. Brinley really likes to play PBS Kids on the computer. If she stays in bed for her nap, she gets to play for a bit after her nap. If she gets out of bed, she gets no computer time. She loves her computer time so much that she will not leave that bed for anything. One time she was calling to me and wanted some socks on her feet. She is able to get her own socks and put them on, so I told her, through her monitor, she could get out of bed and get her socks. She wouldn’t do it. She was afraid she would lose computer time. No assurance could convince her otherwise, so I helped her out.
EATING
Eating is good. Nothing major to report here.
HELPER
Brinley is still finding ways to be independent. She loves to help me do things. She has started to find a thrill in helping me cook food. She helps with a variety of things, and her favorite is when her family thanks her for making dinner.
ASK AND TELL
Before her boundary pushing time, we had a lot of days where we needed to go to the school for various things. Each of the kids had a talent show at the school. It was a simple talent show just in front of their classes, but I still wanted her to be a good audience. She tends to talk at full volume. Before we went to the first talent show, I told her where we would be going. I told her children would be performing and that she needed to sit on her chair and could not speak loudly. She needed to watch and clap when the child was done. She did it! She was fantastic.
Another day, I needed to go help in Kaitlyn’s class during math time. This was immediately before Kaitlyn’s talent show, so I wouldn’t have time to go get Brinley in between helping and the talent show starting. I decided to take a risk and bring Brinley along.
I had risked Brinley coming with me to McKenna’s class a couple of months before, and it did not go well. I knew my only chance for success was ask and tell. I told Brinley we would be going into Kaitlyn’s class. I told her we would bring some books for her to look at. I told her she would not be allowed to talk at all or to get out of her seat. She understood.
We brought about 15 books. She sat at her table in the back as good as gold for 30 minutes. Kaitlyn called out to Brinley to say hello and Brinley barely lifted her hand to wave. She was quiet and just looked through her books. Kaitlyn’s teacher came back at the end to compliment Brinley on being so well-behaved.
I also used it for our musical performances. Brinley knows and loves every song. She also insists that SHE is the main character. I talked with her before and let her know other kids were taking a turn being the various characters and that she needed to watch and enjoy it. She couldn’t get upset that other kids were singing the songs. She was great!
McKenna also had a first grade play that we needed to make sure she was good at. This was over nap time, so the time she was likely to be the most mis-behaved of all. Worked like a charm!
Guys, ask and tell works and it works wonders. And it is so very simple.
ROUTINE ORIENTED
This girl likes her routine. She really was fine until spring break. She loved having the kids home, but she also got thrown way off of her groove. She loved the fun things we did, but her response to the frequent disruptions is to get naughty. I will have to try to use the “ask and tell” idea on her before summer.
FAVORITES
This month, her favorite thing to play with has still been My Little Ponies
. She does still love LEGOs
, and still the real kind.
SCHEDULE
Here is our typical schedule:
8:30 AM–wake up/eat breakfast/scriptures
9:00 AM–get ready for day
9:30 AM–watch 30 minutes of TV
10:00 AM–Independent Playtime
11:15ish AM–Learning time
12:00 noon–Lunch
12:30 PM–free play
1:30/2:00ish PM–Nap
4:30/5:00 PM–Wake up and free play
5:30 PM–Dinner
6:00 PM–Family time
8:00 PM–Get ready for bed
8:30 PM–Bedtime
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