Sunday, May 17, 2009

Day 2

When Owen was 18 months old, temper tantrums and general toddlerness kicked in. At Target, I saw the book The Happiest Toddler on the Block. I remembered Dr. Karp's technique to soothe a fussy baby from one of our child care classes from the hospital. I rolled my eyes and (literally) guffawed throughout the video, but when Owen was born, we tried it and it worked. So I bought this book, and started instituting techniques right away. And they work. So now that six months have gone by and I have recognized that this system indeed makes a difference, I am ready to teach it to Craig. Craig does not (so he says) have time to read the book, and I do believe him. He is a more thoughtful reader, and takes his time with books. In that spirit, I am providing him mini-lessons written on our chalkboard, which I intend to leave up for a week or two at a time. I am a strong believer in picking things up through osmosis.

Maybe I should just get the video instead.

5 comments:

erica said...

Could you teach me too?

mb. said...

I would not bother teaching it to him; it might just be that it will work on him as well.

mb. said...

so I just read C's comments on IO, II, OO (via you) & I feel kinda bad about saying you should use toddler-soothing methods on him. Not bad enough to delete the original comment but bad.

kimberlina said...

you must not only write it up on the board, but point the board out to him as well. unless he actually notices the board. because ant does not notice important board-like items created especially for osmosis learning unless it is pointed out to him. :) just my experience. i think he appreciates it. you know, rather than me blowing up at him, which can sometimes happen.

Radical Mama said...

(we have friends in common and I came across your blog which i read as i can not sleep... i hope you do not mind)

the toddler video is really great (although cheesy) and i believe available through the public library (i think that's where we got it). we just watched his baby video yesterday to brush up on swaddling techniques for our five day old :) good luck.