We’ve heard, through our Kindermusik classes, how important it is to introduce your child to different styles of music. I’m guessing for most of you, opera has not been high on the list. The word “opera” can seem intimidating, but opera is simply a musical drama. Opera can offer many developmental benefits for your child and can be fun too! Introducing your child to opera helps increase language skills, teaches higher level thinking and creative problem-solving skills in real world situations, develops an appreciation for the arts, and stimulates the imagination.

How do you go about it? Let me help! I’ve been a Kindermusik Educator for a few years now, but have a degree in Vocal Performance studying opera. Just last year I performed with the Tacoma Opera company. I love children and I love music. Getting to introduce my love for opera to children is a passion for me. In fact, I did several operas in elementary schools while I was in college. They loved when we performed short Opera scenes for them, and they were the best audience a performer could ever have.

They laugh when it’s funny, show concern when it’s sad, and if there happens to be a big bad wolf in the story, they make sure to let the piggies know he is close by!! If you have school-aged children you might look into Northwest Opera in Schools, Etcetera (NOISE), and other groups that bring opera into the schools (Seattle Opera has had a program). You can set it up for them to come to your school!

For preschoolers, there are lots of ways to introduce them to opera. If you allow your child to watch a little TV during the day, there is a great show called Wonder Pets on Nick Jr. This is a show for preschoolers that has the feel of Operetta -a lighter version of opera with a frivolous story and some spoken dialogue. In Wonder Pets there is orchestral music throughout the show, and most of the dialogue is sung, rather than spoken.  You can watch it right here:

Since it’s not easy or wise to take a 2-5 year old to the opera, you can find videos of operas to watch at home, or books to read. Your children will be entranced by the big sets and costumes. They can dress up like the characters and use different voices for different singers – all things preschoolers love! Here is a link to a list of operas your children might enjoy and recommendations of productions to view.

The most practical way to introduce children to opera is through CDs. Now don’t just sit and listen, get up and let the music move you! There’s music in every opera that will make any child want to get up and run around the room. So, get up and move with them. The Humming Chorus from Madame Butterfly will have you flying like butterflies. There are softer musical moments that are fun to “fall asleep” to; snoring is a must! Here’s a great compilation of operatic works to march, dance and fly to.

You can also teach and experience emotions through music; a sad musical motif  can have you and your child weeping and wailing oh so silly-like. Use a scarf to dance around the room and weep and wail. Don’t forget to blow your silly noses! Light and happy sounding music will get you on your tip toes bouncing around the room. Of course, there are plenty of intense musical moments in opera that can be scary (show them your best scaredy-cat face), or creepy (creep around the room as if you are going to sneak up on someone). So don’t be afraid to move to the music, be silly and have a great time instilling a life-long love of music!

-posted by Miss Stacey, who leaves you with this quote: “To be completely and comprehensively educated means having a background in the arts. By introducing students to opera, we build and sustain cultural intelligence. … Passing on knowledge and understanding about the power of opera to communicate universal themes, ideas, and emotions ultimately enhances and betters our society….” – Dr. Joseph Piro, Associate Professor Curriculum & Instruction, Long Island University

I was making two dinners at once, plus preparing lunch for the next day (ultra-multi-tasking).  One recipe called for lemon juice, which I keep in a large jar in the back left of my fridge.  So I opened the fridge and pushed aside a bottle of something that was in the front of the shelf, keeping my hand on whatever it was to peer behind it. I saw yogurt, olives, feta cheese, salad dressing, vitamins and jam.  No lemon juice. 

So I pushed the bottle that was in my hand to the other side of the shelf and looked on the right side of the fridge; just cartons of milk.  Where was the lemon juice?  I always keep it on the top shelf toward the back left.  I pushed the “random bottle” in my hand back in front of the milk and peered in, getting frustrated.  The lemon juice jar would only fit on the top shelf so I knew it couldn’t be anywhere but on that shelf and I needed it now.  I could hear the garlic sizzling on the stove top, waiting for the lemon juice to be added.

I stared to stand up and call out an accusation of “Who took the lemon juice?” when I looked at the bottle that I’d pushed back and forth and was “holding” in my hand while I looked for the lemon juice. Yep, you guessed it…it was the jar of lemon juice itself.  I was so focused on it being in the “back left” of the fridge that I hadn’t even noticed that the very thing I needed was in my hand.

After rolling my eyes and saying a silent “thank you” that I hadn’t yelled at some innocent person (my husband) about the missing juice, I thought about how often something is right before my eyes but I become so focused on the long view that I loose sight of what’s right in hand.

Parenting can be this way. We can become so focused on our long range goals for our kids that we forget about the here and now.  Don’t get me wrong– I think we have to have long-range goals for our children.  Perhaps they’re academic (already eyeing a particular college), moral (instilling a particular religious belief), financial (wanting to raise a child who will be self-sufficient) or physical (training them in a particular sport).  For others, the goal of parenting may simply be “getting them out of the house in one piece at age 18” or getting them through the teen years “without strangling them.” 

Sometimes our focus is on the “end” of a season or time in our lives.  “When they’re finally potty-trained I’ll be able to…” or “When the turn five, things will be better…” is a common mom-thought and can become a goal that we’re focused on.

Serious or silly, years away or just a season of life away, where is your focus?  I encourage you not to become so focused on the long range or “someday” that you forget what you have in hand now.  You have a precious, unique opportunity today – to spend time being silly with your child, rolling on the floor, playing their favorite game for the tenth night in a row, answering their endless slew of questions, talking about what’s important to them (even if it’s about toy trucks, the names of the Transformers, or the large collection of stuffed kitties), fixing their veggies, cutting their food, wiping their noses and singing Farmer Jason.  These are precious times and will be over before you know it.  And you can’t get them back.

 Your child’s future – the long range – might be what you’re focused on, but take time to realize that the goal of parenting—enjoying each day with your child– is already in your hand.  Don’t push it aside looking for something in the back of the fridge.

-posted by Donna Venning, who knows that the cleaning, cooking and chores will always be there, but her five year old won’t be.

These ideas in the Games for Babies Series can be played with babies 9 months and up, but my children play these well into their preschool years.

Croquet

What you’ll need:
Ping pong balls
Wooden spoons

In its simplest form, you use the wooden spoons to play a “free-form” version of croquet all around the living room. With little ones, it takes a lot of hand-eye coordination just to hit the ball!

You can also sit facing your child (with legs spread to contain runaway balls), and hit the ping pong ball back and forth between you.

As your child gets older, create a little “wicket” course with blocks or books or boxes. Have fun with it!

Chicken Ball

What you’ll need:
Feather dusters
Balloons

I have to give credit for the invention of this game to my nephew, Jared. Blow up a balloon (or two), and hit the balloon with the feather duster. Sound silly? It is. But unbelievably fun.

For older ones, place a making tape line on the floor and play with the classic rule, “Don’t let the balloon touch down on your own side”.

-posted by Miss Analiisa, whose own children and their cousins launched rocket balloons over the loft balcony attempting to land them in the growup’s coffee cups this weekend at Grandma and Poppa’s beach house. (Another fun game, but not for babies!)

I recently blogged about the benefits of parenting in community.  So, I thought I’d share some of the great ideas that my friends have come up with.  I think it’s fun to hear what ideas have worked well for others. I hope you find something helpful for your current parenting stage and needs! Of course I’ll have to add a few of my own ideas too.

Melani—“One thing that I remember doing was taking my daughter out frequently for an hour or two.  We often went to the mall to walk around — it kept both of us from getting bored, but the outings were short enough that they didn’t take a lot of preparation.”

Selena—“I loved getting my exercise before the kids woke up and before my husband left for work. I had a gym membership and I loved the feeling I was doing something to get my body back, not to mention that it gave me more energy.  Also, taking naps when they took naps gave me renewed energy.

Find a playgroup!  Get connected with other moms and give kids chance to have friends; it helps with combating depression and isolation.”

Veronica—“When my kids reached toddler age, we put them to bed at a certain time, i.e. 7:30pm, but I didn’t require that they go to sleep.  As long as they were in their beds, they could listen to stories on tape or look at books or play quietly in their beds, with a small lamp or lights dimmed in their room.  It gave me some time to myself, and they fell asleep when they were ready.  I’d check on them later and turn off the lights.

Now I have to tell my two older kids to turn out their lights and go to sleep because they can stay up really late!  Most of the time, my youngest still falls asleep when she’s ready.

Donna—“After my second was born, I always took a shower in the morning—even if it had to be a quickie because one of the kids was fussy.  I learned that the benefit to my attitude was worth letting a baby cry for 5 minutes while I did my splash and dash routine.  When I stayed in my pj’s until the baby napped, as I did with the first, I often felt less than my best.  But I must add that I’ve never been a pajama lounger.  So just be yourself!

I’ll add onto this list of “best ideas” throughout the coming months. If you have a “best idea” you’d like to share, email me at donna.detweiler@comcast.net.

-posted by Donna Detweiler, who loves to collaborate on just about anything in life—the more the merrier, as they say.

The word “discrimination” tends to get a bad rap. It’s actually a very important skill. Especially when it comes to your sense of hearing. For instance, I don’t want to open my front door, call my children by name in to dinner, and have all the neighborhood kids appear. (Well, that might be a compliment to my culinary skills, but that’s not the point.)

Here are some fun and easy activities for you do with your child to help develop auditory discrimination:

Infants (newborn to around 18 months):
You’ll do most of the work at this age. Point out the noises around you. Sounds have to be alone, rather than layered or mixed in with others. When more than one sound occurs simultaneously, infants cannot discriminate between them, even if they are very different noises.

• Say, “Listen. That is a dog barking.” Then, you imitate the dog. “Woof. Woof. A dog says, ‘woof, woof’”. Eventually, your baby will hear a dog barking and say, “Dog.”
• Ask and answer your own question. “What sound does a truck make? A truck goes ‘vroom, vroom.’” One day in the future when your little one is playing with a truck, you’ll hear “vroom, vroom”, emanating from her mouth.

In this stage, your baby is learning to associate a particular sound with a particular object. Later, he’ll use this skill to match a sound to a letter symbol.

Note: When you speak in full sentences to your baby, you’ll be demonstrating vocabulary, good grammar, and correct sentence structure. What you put in her mind will, at some point, come out naturally!

Toddlers (18 months to 3 years):
As toddlers, children continue to discriminate single sounds best. You’ll still need to name new sounds, but now they will readily imitate them back to you. Toddlers are also likely to ask what an unidentified sound is.

• You can ask questions like, “What is making that sound?” (a cow) “Can you moo like a cow?” “What does a ­­­­­­­­­­­­_______ say?”
• Toddlers can now associate sound with a process or event. “What’s that sound? … Yes, someone is knocking on the door. What does that mean?”… You are right. Grandma is here!” Also, think microwave beeping, clothes drying timer sounding, keys rattling in the lock, phone ringing.

Save the learning of letter sounds for later. And letter names have nothing to do with reading. Auditory discrimination is the best first step towards reading readiness.

Preschoolers (3 to 6 years):
At 3 and 4, preschoolers are now ready for simple layered sounds. That is, identifying a sound (like a lawnmower, and then hearing a bus drive past), and being able to recognize the sound of the bus while the lawnmower is still making noise.

• Focus now on picking out sounds. Make a game of it. Let’s say you are taking a trip to the beach. What are the things that you, the grownup can hear? Birds, waves, people talking, laughing, a ferry boat… Have your child identify a sound. He picks laughing. You listen for it, too. Now you say, “Can you also hear the waves?” He has to use his filters – turn off his ears to laughing, and listen for the waves. That is auditory discrimination.
• For 4 ½ and up, I love the Kindermusik CD called Ned Redd, World Traveler. Every song on the CD is from a different country, and the narrator at the beginning of each track will give you a choice of three different sounds to listen for, and how many times each sound occurs. There are three different “levels”, so younger and older kids (and their grownups!) can play together.

Here’s a track from Ned Redd so you can play this game right now.

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If you’d like to download the whole album (great for a car trip!), you can right here on play.kindermusik.com.

-posted by Miss Analiisa, who developed her auditory discrimination skills by practicing band music on her euphonium in the woods at music camp right next to her violin-playing friend Gwen, while blocking out Gwen rehearsing orchestra music. I am told that it sounded rather horrible to the non-discriminating!

I am a commentator for BamRadio Network, the largest education radio network in the world. I recently participated in an interesting discussion on children and conflict.

Conflict occurs because we are all different. It’s true for both children and adults. Think about it. I think we should leave on our road trip at 8:00am, and my husband Karl says we should leave at 6:00am. My experience tells me the kids will be cranky (me, too!) if we have to wake them up to go. Karl’s point of view says that not getting caught in rush hour traffic is vital. We have different perspectives, and that creates conflict.

The same thing is true for children. Their outlook on the world is even smaller, and more ego-centric than grownups, which make them more likely to outright fight.

It is NOT your job to keep everything peaceful, and everybody happy. You can’t. However, it is your job to allow those episodes of conflict to become skill-building moments in the area of problem solving.

Here’s how:
There are phrases we all use (they often come from our own childhood) that are ineffective with children, and don’t help them solve the problem. Be nice. You need to say you are sorry. Let’s all share. You should play with Kimmy. (Sound familiar?) As much as you want to make your child say they are sorry (and yes, apologizing is important), you can’t force them to do so, anymore than you can compel them to play with a particular child. So, recognize your phrases and where they came from!

Children are concrete and specific, so we need to be, too. Don’t ask the why questions like “Why did you hit him?” That is abstract, and not how children think. You aren’t going to get an answer. Instead, ask what questions: “What is the problem?” Mark will tell you, “I want the boat”. Mark doesn’t know how to get the boat, so he uses what he knows will work – he’ll just reach over and grab it.

Now that you know what the problem is, you’ll need to validate and help them name feelings. Sometimes the very little ones (toddlers) don’t have the words, so you can help. But only if they need it! “Maddy, are you mad at Mark for taking your boat?” “I see that you are sad.” Sometimes your children’s feelings may not seem logical to you, but they are very real and logical to them! Allow them space to be mad, frustrated or to cry.

Once the children are calm (And this is important, because problem solving cannot happen when emotions are running wild. Think about it – do you find good solutions when you are hopping mad? I don’t.), then you can ask more “what” questions. What are your ideas to solve this problem? Children are remarkably brilliant at coming up with solutions. It may take a few minutes, so give them the space and time they need to figure it out.

Don’t solve the problem for them. Encourage them to devise their own solutions. Don’t offer suggestions to preschoolers. Their solution may not be the same as one you would have come up with, but that’s okay.

Toddlers may need some more questions to help them explain their behavior. Did you want the boat because it is red? (Remember not to ask why!) What if Maddy and you and I went and looked for another red boat you can play with? The toddlers Mark and Maddy may not like your first idea, but you are modeling the process of conflict resolution. So try again.

Once they’ve come up with an idea, they are much more likely to own it and stick to the solution.

On a side note, I will tell you that as my children get older, I don’t step into the middle of their conflicts very often. Many times they will resolve the problem better without my help. And I don’t have to be stuck in the middle.

In the end, conflict resolution is a foundational skill that enables our children to become confident, successful at school and work, and competent at negotiation and cooperation.

You can listen to this podcast in its entirety here.

-posted by Miss Analiisa, who reports that we ended up leaving on our road trip somewhere around 9:30am, and encountered neither traffic nor cranky children.