Thanks For The Advice Alecia

07/30/16 • 6 min

Harper’s Parenting Tips – From Infant To Toddler

01:18 – Maybe a reward system
02:18 – Alecia’s idea is not an extravagant reward system
03:05 – She gets to pick an extra snack
03:29 – Picking out dinner

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Hey, everybody. Harper Jones with Bow-Tiger, and you are watching our Ask Harper segment. Now last month, I switched it up a little bit. As you guys may or may not know, once a month I do an Ask Harper segment where I take your questions and I try to answer them on air. The answers that I provide you guys are from personal experience and also personal research. As being a mom, I do a lot of research on children’s topics. And then, of course, being part of the Bow-Tiger family, research is really the name of the game for me or for my position.

Okay, so last month, we will get back to last month. Last month, I switched it up, and instead of answering your questions, I actually had a question for my viewers because I was having an issue with my daughter in regards to getting her to clean up any mess whatsoever. She basically refused, so I wanted to get a little bit of insight from you guys to see maybe different things that you’ve tried or ideas that you came up with to fight this little battle that I know a lot of us must go through with our kids.

So I did get a response, and this was probably my favorite response, and it’s gonna sound a little funny to be my favorite response as I’m not normally prone to any reward system, but we will explain that in a minute. Now the response was from Alecia. And Alecia mentioned, “Maybe a reward system. Every day she helps clean, she gets a star,” that’s cool, “And if she gets a full week of stars, then she gets a small price from say a price shirt. She gets to pick an extra snack like ice cream or she gets to select or choose what everybody’s having for dinner.”

Okay, now, normally, I am not big on the reward system, and why am I not big on the reward system because I feel that a reward system sort of initiates the handout problem. Immediately, when a child thinks that they’ve done something good, they’re doing that because they expect to get something in return. Now, does the real world work like that? Absolutely not. You have to do things because you know that they need to get done. You do not always do things and expect something in return. We know that, whether it’s from work, whether it’s from people, friends, family, etc., a lot of the times you’re just doing things because you know it’s the right thing to do, not necessarily because you’re getting anything back.

And that will be why I don’t like reward systems, but what I did like about Alecia’s idea is that it’s not an extravagant reward system. It actually...it’s sort of on small scale. So this isn’t necessarily something that’s going to, you know, dent our children or give them the idea that they always need to expect something for doing something. The small price to her, I feel that I’ve... This is what I’ve started on actually, small price to her, I did stickers, did some little erasers. I did do some sugar-free candies, just different little things in there, but nothing that’s super pricey or super extravagant.

And then the second two ideas that she provided, I haven’t tried these out, but I really like this. One, if she didn’t say pick an extra snack like going out for ice cream because then it’s like a trip that the child gets to taste. You go out for ice cream and you get the big ice cream that cost you, you know, bookoos of dollars, with sprinkles and everything else. Well, no, she just gets to pick an extra snack. So maybe you guys are at the grocery store, she gets to pick out some ice cream that the family gets to enjoy during the week. I think that’s a good way to incorporate a reward. Get what you’re wanting and also get them...which is cleaning the room, and also get them something. Initiate the idea that they want to do this, the cleaning up for you or different chores that you’re trying to do. It’s not an extravagant price.

And then the last one was picking out dinner. Well, what’s great about this is this is one of those like reverse psychology rewards because your child gets to pick out what they want for dinner or what the family wants to have for dinner. Now, I will say when they’re picking out what you guys are eating for dinner, don’t just randomly say, “You can choose whatever you want.”

What she gets to do is you get to provide these different options and say, “Okay, you get to choose between these.” So regardless, you win because they were all your options initially, but she is feeling rewarded in the fact that you’re taking her opinion on what the family’s going to have for dinner. Okay, so that’s enough about the Ask Harper seg...

01:18 – Maybe a reward system
02:18 – Alecia’s idea is not an extravagant reward system
03:05 – She gets to pick an extra snack
03:29 – Picking out dinner

Download The PDF Transcript »

Previous Episode

How To Let Your Toddler Deal With Anger

01:05 – Help them understand the emotion
01:47 – Let them get out the emotion and express it
02:20 – Talk about anger itself
02:36 – Explain the good things
03:34 – Let them understand the mean and the malicious things

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Hi everybody, Harper Jones with Bow-Tiger here, and you are watching Saturdays with Harper. Do any of you guys out there deal with an angry toddler or angry child? This isn’t something that we maybe want to discuss in our parent groups or with friends, because you may feel that you are a little embarrassed if your toddler is maybe more frustrated than other toddlers, or gets more frustrated over certain situations. Of course, there are a lot of things that come into play with toddlers and the emotion of anger. So, you want to make sure at first you do go to your doctor and get everything checked out, just to make sure there isn’t any underlying medical issue that’s causing this frustration with your toddler.

Now, with that said, if all of that is clear, you need to figure out how to help your toddler through their emotions and how to help them deal with anger. Now, the best way to be able to deal with an emotion and help a child deal with an emotion, is to first help them understand that emotion. With toddlers we really have to get down to the simple basics of things, and anger to them is something that they feel, something that they can see. So, that’s the first thing you want to do with your toddler. You want ask them, have them express to you how they think anger looks like. If somebody is really red in the face, they’re squinting their eyes, maybe they pull up their fists or maybe they’re crying. Maybe they’ve run away, maybe they don’t want talk to people. That’s what anger looks like. But have your toddler express to you what they think anger looks like.

The next thing you want to say, “Well, how does anger make you feel?” Let them kind of get out the emotion and express it, “It makes me feel sad, or it makes me feel scared.” There are a lot of different emotions that play into anger in different ways that can make our children feel. And allowing them to express that kind of give them sort of a safe feeling, or more of an understanding of how they are feeling, and maybe we can help them walk through some of these frustrations.

Now once you’ve done that, once you know and your toddler knows that they have good understanding of what being angry, what that emotion really is, you want to talk about anger itself. Anger has been known — and although this is probably not the most popular way to state anger — but anger has been known to do a lot of good in the world.

Now has anger been good for the world? You can explain to your toddler the good things that people have decided to do because they were angry about something. Not the malicious things or the mean things that people decided to do because they were angry, but the stance it made them decide to take. Maybe they decided to stand up for something or somebody, because the way a person or something was being treated, really made them angry. So, it made them take a stance. You can of course lessen it down on a level so we’re down on a toddler level, but ideas like that to let your toddler know that being angry isn’t necessarily bad, they just have to understand and figure out how to sort of harness that frustration and that power to turn it into something good. And if we can teach our kids...I say this all the time, if we can teach our kids though at the toddler age, the toddler level, to express their emotions or use their emotions for the good, it’s going to be great for their future and the future of all of all of our children.

Now, of course you do also want to make sure that they understand the mean, the malicious things that can come out being angry and the things you can and cannot do. It is not polite or right to yell at somebody and scream at somebody if you are angry. It is not right for them to hit if they are angry. They need to know that those are lines they do not cross and it’s not acceptable. Again, what we want to do is we want to help them understand how to cope with their anger, maybe with breathing techniques. Counting to 10 is a really good one where you just breathe deeply and count to 10. I do it myself, and my daughter does it as well when she’s mad. But help them understand how to work with their anger to have positive outcomes, how to harness that energy, that frustration that they are feeling, and use it for something good.

All right guys, of course if you are watching this video on Facebook or YouTube, I’d ask that you also checkout our video blog on bowtiger.com. And as always, we’ll see you...

Next Episode

What Are The Benefits Of Cooking With Our Children

01:35 – Let them sort out their senses
02:00 – Start to help them understand where different places are in the world
02:35 – It helps children understand measurement and just basic elementary math
03:15 – It helps the mind in understanding how to follow instruction
03:55 – Cooking teaches children patience

Download The PDF Transcript »

Hi everybody, Harper Jones here with Bow Tiger and you’re watching Saturdays with Harper. And today we are going to talk a bit about cooking with our children, with our toddlers. What are the benefits to having our kids in the kitchen? It sounds not fun. It doesn’t sound fun at all. But it actually can be a really fun experience. It helps you out, it helps your toddler out. Makes them feel like a part of a task that you’re doing, and it also can be really stimulating and educational for them as well. So I’m just going to go over some of the key benefits today. Of course I’m sure you viewers, you guys have some other suggestions or comments. If you do have any comments please be sure to leave these comments on the videos. You can leave them on any of our social media pages and we’ll make sure to mention it on one of our next videos as well.

Okay so we’ll dive right into it, what’s the first benefit to having your child help you out in the kitchen. Food, food is very different. Vegetable to vegetable, none are really the same, fruit to fruit etc., nothing’s really the same. Everything has different consistency, different feels, different looks, different shapes, different colors, etc. Looks shapes, colors, all these things that I’m talking about consistency, these are part of the elementary things that we need to teach our children. Now in addition that, food has different smells, different tastes, different textures. These are all senses. This is something, this is what our children, our toddlers really use to start to understand or explore the world at all. So why not make that available to them in a task that we already have to do for the day which is cooking for our family. Involve them in the task and let them sort of use those senses, let their brain develop even faster while we’re going through some of our daily chores at home.

Another thing that we can do is, food comes from different places whether it’s grown in the ground, or in a tree, in a tropical environment or in a colder environment, the places that food grows geographically, this is something that we can start teaching our kids too. Start to help them understand where different places are in the world and maybe even take out a globe so you can show them where your cherries are from, maybe in North America, where some of your fruits come from, maybe down south. All these different things can help your child start to understand geographically what they’re eating and where they’re looking at on a map. Very, very helpful when they get to the school age, they’ll have kind of a one up on everybody if you’ve been doing these kinds of tasks with them and activities with them at home.

Another thing that cooking does is it helps children understand measurement and just basic elementary math. If your child can start to understand at a young age what a full cup is, what half a cup looks like, a quarter cup, things like this you’d be amazed at how helpful that will be in their next few years and when they start to jump into school. Another thing and this is, there are two more things that I did want to mention. Providing or getting our children and our toddlers to follow instruction is sometimes the most difficult task of all. Because they kind of veer off, they don’t want to concentrate for too long or they can’t concentrate for too long. This is sort of a task that aids the mind, that helps the mind in understanding how to follow instruction. Because to get through a recipe or to get your food tasting the way it’s supposed to be, you have to follow that recipe. You have to follow instruction. So not only is this going to help their brain sort of understand and start to develop a reason for instruction, it’ll also help them in other with other daily tasks that you give them, like if you instruct them to clean up their room or if you instruct them to put the markers away, something like this.

They’ll start to understand that to get a result there has to be instruction and they have to follow that instruction. Okay so the last thing that I wanted to mention, we are running out of time, but the last thing I wanted to mention and this is the best part of all, is cooking teaches children patience. Patience is not something that a lot of toddlers have or they don’t have much of. But in cooking you have to be patient, whether you’re waiting for the cak...