When looking at my original definitions of creativity, innovation, teaching and learning, I wanted to see if I could link them to this blog and these blog posts.
Creativity is a mindset, process, and skill. Creativity is a skill that needs to be taught and can be strengthened and nurtured through effort and experience. Creative confidence is a mindset that encourages people to take risks and have a belief in their own ability to create something new and unique. Creative process requires a novel and useful idea (that succeeds through perseverance, failure, possible ridicule and rejection. As I read my definition of creativity, I spoke about creative confidence. Creative confidence is a mindset that encourages people to take risks and have a belief in their own ability to create something new and unique. I think that I did that with this blog. For me, it would have been easier to blog about education and my educational practices as I've done in other courses (feel free to check out PME 801 as an example) but I wanted this blog to be authentic to my current experiences which is being home with Sam. For me, I took a risk in this blog and although it seemed challenging for me at times to research, I truly gained knowledge that I would not have otherwise. Innovation is the application of a new idea or process that addresses a specific challenge and that brings value to the intended audience. It can involve making changes to an existing object, process, or idea that makes it more useful to current and future users. I'm not really sure that my blog was innovative by any means. Perhaps the creativity was the idea of the blog and innovation was the actual blog itself but it does not address a specific challenge that brings value to the intended audience and so it's a bit of a stretch to say that my blog was innovative. My post on tools for eating and sleeping offered some innovative utensils, and items for babies so that would be my link to innovation. Teaching is two-fold. One way to view teaching is the intentional sharing of knowledge and experience from someone or something that has acquired the knowledge to a novice learner. The second way to view teaching is that the teacher ensures that learning is made possible for novice learners through support, guidance, and encouragement. This allows novice learners to actively and independently create new knowledge. I tried to use this blog as a learning journal for me but also as a teaching tool for other new moms. I posted the blog link on two of my online PLCs and had a few comments in return about enjoying my posts. Learning is a process that leads to change, which occurs as a result of experience and increases the potential for improved performance and future learning. The change in the learner may happen at the knowledge, attitude or behavioural level.Learning is something that students do. It’s the result of how they interpret and respond to their own experiences. We want learning to be deep and long-lasting. Deep and long-lasting learning involves understanding, relating ideas and making connections between prior and new knowledge, independent and critical thinking and the ability to transfer knowledge to new and different contexts and to see concepts, ideas, and/or society differently. Learners require multiple occasions and opportunities to develop and practice new skills. This blog offered me some great learning experiences. It helped me understand that I feel more confident as a mother when I've had a lot of exposure on a topic through different experiences. When I wanted to learn something, I researched it, watched videos, and conversed with experts. It took me multiple opportunities until I felt I really understood the topic at hand.
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Blog QuestionMy updated blog question was: "How have parenting techniques changed and evolved over the past 40 years and how have innovative ideas changed the way that we parent?" and I think I've answered this question through my blog posts in a round-about way. The answer to this question is in the ability to access best practice information at the touch of your fingertips. When I wanted to learn about feeding Sam or sleep training him, for example, I went online and found articles, reports, videos, and spoke with others to learn what to expect. I was able to access different points of view on the topic and decide for myself what would work best for Sam. This ability to access a lot of information in a short amount of time was not possible 40 years ago. I asked my mother what she did when I was a baby (almost 40 years ago) and she had a question, and she said that she would talk to family members, or look in Dr. Spock's book Baby and Child Care. If Dr. Spock didn't have the answer, she could call a public health nurse. When accessing online information, I always looked at the source and the date of publishing to ensure that I was finding credible information. I always looked up multiple sources as well to ensure that I was finding the most accurate information. These research skills are the same ones that I teach my students as they are so important in today's world. Blog ReflectionI have really enjoyed writing these blog posts about raising Sam in the 21st century. Before beginning this blog, I mostly relied on my mommy instinct or my online PLCs for information regarding Sam. That is so different than how I function as an educator. As an educator, I rely on best practices to guide my instruction and I'm always researching, reading, and collaborating to ensure the best learning for my students. Writing these blog posts have made me so much more confident as a parent in the areas of feeding, sleeping, and entertaining Sam and I'm realizing now that it's because I spent time researching and learning about best practices in these areas instead of only relying on others to offer their opinions. Moving forward, I will continue to rely on both my mommy instinct and best practices to guide my parenting. Keeping a baby entertained is hard! All he wants to do is crawl around and try to eat the dog food, pull at electrical cords and pull himself up onto everything that he can find. I want to stimulate his mind and so here are ways I've been entertaining Sam without the use of technology. Sensory PlayI had never heard of sensory play before having children. From birth to early childhood, children use their five senses to explore and try to make sense of the world around them. Goodstart.org.au, an Austrailian non profit focusing on child development writes, "It’s an important part of early childhood development, and providing opportunities for children to actively use their senses as they explore their world through ‘sensory play’ is crucial to brain development. Sensory play includes any activity that stimulates the five senses as well as anything which engages movement and balance. A lot of the times, sensory play can be as simple as letting infants pick up and play with different textures. Some of the benefits listed on the Goodstart website include:
Organizations have taken the idea of sensory play and have come up with some pretty creative programming. Sam has been going once a week to a sensory class where he's played in bins full of spaghetti, peas, yogurt, water, and paper. At first, he was hesitant to touch and taste but by the end of the six weeks, he enjoyed crawling from bin to bin exploring! Here are some photos from his sensory class. Early LiteracyI think that it is so important to read to Sam every day. We started reading books to him from birth and read to him every night. I'm trying to instill solid early literacy habits. Zero to Three, a literacy organization explains that the more words children hear and come to understand, the more words they can say and the better their vocabulary and reading skills are likely to be. When I read with him, here are some strategies I use: - I point to the words as I read - I talk to him about the pictures and what I'm seeing - I make sounds as I read - I let him turn the pages, touch the pages, point to different things and then discuss what he's pointing to When Sam seems interested in a book, I read that book again and again. I often ask him to name the people and animals on the page, and last night for the first time, he was able to point to the dog! It might have been a fluke but I'll take it as a win! We have books with us wherever we go. He has one attached to his car seat, another for the bath, books in his playroom and in his bedroom. As a teacher, I tell students to take books with them everywhere and now I'm practicing what I preach! To help him develop language skills, we sing, talk and play together every day. I've been taking him to a program called Mother Goose since he was two months old and at this program, they sing songs and pair them with actions. They sing the songs each three times. Even from a young age, Sam would have favourite songs and light up when it was time to sing them. In addition to this, I talk to Sam all day long. I describe his feelings and actions, I make sounds and encourage him to copy me, and when Sam babbles, I respond to him! References:
https://www.goodstart.org.au/news-and-advice/october-2016/exploring-the-benefits-of-sensory-play https://www.zerotothree.org/resources/1281-supporting-language-and-literacy-skills-from-0-12-months There is so much talk these days about professional learning communities in education. I am a strong believer in them. I belong to many different online communities on Facebook that provide me with great teaching ideas and where I can offer my expertise to others as well. Now that I'm home with Sam, it's no different. I still belong to a bunch of online learning communities but these ones have to do with being a mom. I also belong to group chats with moms in the neighbourhood and I seek advice through both avenues. Here are the reasons why I love online PLCs: 1. I can find groups that match exactly what I'm looking for. When I was trying baby-led weaning (see more about this in my archived post), I was able to join a Baby-Led Weaning in Canada group and learn different tricks and ideas for Sam. This group had 3,334 members. I also joined a Babies due in May and June in Canada group that was 414 members strong and I joined a local mom group in my hometown online for babies due around the same time as well. 2. I can crowd-source my questions and get pretty immediate feedback. I have a lot of questions as a first time mom. I can throw my question out there and get many different opinions. I realize that these moms may not be parenting experts but I find that if I get the same advice many different times over, then there's probably some validity to it. Recently, I've been trying to find a lightweight car seat to travel with. I posted the question asking about two different car seats and got a lot of feedback. One parent even owned both of the seats I was asking about and was really specific about why she liked or didn't like certain aspects of each. 3. I can be somewhat anonymous. As you may have picked up from my earlier posts, I can be a bit anxious as a mom. Some of the questions I'm asking, I already know the answers to but I want confirmation. If I ask people in my own life, they may think I'm crazy for asking something so obvious, but online, I don't feel that same hesitation to ask questions at any hour of the day or night! 4. I can commiserate with other moms who are going through the same things I am. Sometimes I don't post questions, I just read posts from others and comment (or not). For example, today a mom posted that her 9 month old was still getting up at night and she was wondering if this was normal. Sam still gets up once a night to eat so I commented that my son was getting up too. A ton of other moms posted similar comments about their 8 and 9 months old and even though I didn't post the original message, and hadn't been wondering about this topic, it still made me feel less alone as a mom. 5. I learn new things about parenting. Today, someone posted a great article about babies sleeping patterns in a new study out of McGill that I read. Another mom posted a great artwork idea that we tried last night. I often read a comment from a mom who is suggesting something and then go off and do my own research. These online learning communities are a great new resource for moms (and dads) but there are some drawbacks. At times, too much information can be overwhelming. No longer is Dr. Spock the only resource! I know I've second guessed myself after reading differing opinions online and ended up more confused than when I started. Also, sometimes ignorance can be bliss especially for a worry wart (or is it worry wort?) like myself. I can read something about what a mom is going through and then begin to worry that it will happen to Sam or I. Finally, as I mentioned before, the opinions that people give are just that- opinions. So, as I mentioned above, you really need to take what you learn at face value and then do your own research and come to your own conclusions. It was a snow day here in Burlington and not the kind of snow day that kids fantasize about where they can spend all day outdoors building snowmen and sliding down hills on toboggans. It alternated between blowing snow and freezing rain, making every surface slick and wet. So, we were stuck inside all day. After playing with toys, watching Sam crawl around and try to tip over the dog bowl, playing with more toys, I realized that we still had an hour to go before nap time and I was out of ideas. So, I popped on the television for a few minutes and watched as Sam became mesmerized. I quickly turned off the TV and focused his attention elsewhere. Fast forward to a few hours later when I was watching Sam (and texting) as he was playing in a toy car. He reached over, grabbed my phone and started to move the screen around with his fingers. Again- mesmerized. He repeated the same process while sitting on my lap as I quickly checked OnQ on my Chromebook, reaching forward to hit the keys and then trying to touch the screen to get it to move. All of these interactions made me uncomfortable as he was so quick to become transfixed and focused. I understand that technology can be a wonderful thing and I am a huge proponent of encouraging the use of technology in my elementary school classroom to augment, modify, and redefine learning. However, as a mom, I'm now wondering where I stand when it comes to Sam and his use of technology. I did some online research and came across a position statement from the Canadian Pediatric Society about the use of screen time in children under the age of five. Here are some of the things that really stood out for me in this paper: 1. The digital landscape is evolving quicker than the effects that it has on children under the age of 5 and the effects that exposure to screen media has on the developing brain is not known. As a teacher, I rely on research and best practices to guide my teaching. I need to be much more cognizant of allowing Sam to access my devices or watch TV as I'm not sure what it's actually doing to his brain. 2. There is no benefit for screen time with children younger than two years. This is because children at this age have difficulty transferring learning from 2-D (TV or other screens) to 3D (real-life). However, there is a ton of research that show that children of this age learn immensely through face to face interactions with parents and caregivers (more on that in an upcoming post). 3. After the age of two, high quality educational TV or apps can be beneficial to learning BUT are best coupled with adult interaction. When I'm showing a movie clip in my classroom, it's never done in isolation. We always have a purpose for watching it, and discuss before, during and after. As Sam gets to the age where I start to allow some screen time, I have to remember that I need to participate in the experience with him. 4. No screens before bed. This is for adults too! Watching screens around bedtime is linked with fewer sleeping hours, partly because they can suppress melatonin. So, how do I keep an active 8 month old busy all day? More on that in an upcoming post! Reference: Screen time and young children: Promoting health and development in a digital world. Canadian Pediatric Society. Retrieved from: https://www.cps.ca/en/documents/position/screen-time-and-young-children There are so many neat tools out there to help with feeding and sleeping and so I wanted to share a few of my favourites! EATINGGootensilsThese are my favourite go-to spoons for Sam. They are just the perfect size for him to self-feed. He loves to pick the spoon up and try to scoop his own food. Often the wrong end ends up in his mouth but that's ok because I'm not worried about him gagging himself. The dimpled head feels great on his tongue and he'll often bite it when he's teething. Plus, he can put any side in his mouth and still get some food! ezpz Mini MatThese silicone mats are awesome. They stick to the high chair and you can put a variety of different foods inside. For those doing baby-led weaning, it's great because you can keep the food separate. Sam has tried many times to pull the mat off of the high chair and feed it to the dog and he's been unable to do so as it suctions so well. The shape allows it to fit most high chairs really easily and it's made of silicone so it's BPA, bps, PVC, latex and phthalate free. It's lightweight and we often bring it with us when we are going to the grandparents house for dinner! Munchkin Stay Put BowlsWe have one of these bowls for self-feeding purees. It's a messy business and these suckers stay put (as long as the surface underneath is completely dry- we found that out the hard way). SLEEPINGHatch Baby Rest
Baby MonitorsI was talking to my mom recently and she told me that back when I was little, they just relied on listening at the door to hear if I was crying or fussing. These days, there are so many different types of baby monitors that help you to see and hear your little one while they are sleeping. I'm actually looking at Sam right now as I type this post. We have a Motorola MPB855 and the reason I love it is because it comes with a handheld monitor but you can also log onto the Motorola app and see the baby via wireless connection. You can also play music from the monitor or app, talk to the baby, and change the camera angle. I've heard some horror stories about people breaking in through the wireless access and actually talking to the baby and moving the camera around the room so if you are going to access the monitor via wireless, I'd make sure your password is very strong!
The World Health Organization (WHO) recommends that babies are breast-fed exclusively for the first six months of life. During this time, they get all the nutrients that they need to grow and develop. After six months, breast milk no longer supplies the amount of iron that the growing babies need and so parents are encouraged to start introducing food. However, the WHO recommends that babies are complimentary breast fed until two years of age! The information above was relayed to me at mommy class, through my doctor and in the baby development books I read. When Sam was young, it was easy enough to feed him. I was able to breast feed easily and I could do so anywhere, at any time. As he started to near 4 months, I started hearing more and more about the need to start him on solids at six months and so I began to conduct different research. There seemed to be two distinct thoughts on feeding your baby. One was the traditional pureed food method where someone spoon feeds the baby and then there was another newer, innovative approach called baby-led weaning where the baby moves right into finger-sized whole foods. Everyone I talked to (or chatted with in my online learning communities) seemed to think that the baby-led weaning method was the only way to feed babies. Even the “parenting expert” of the region of Halton was pushing this method. So, like any normal (extremely neurotic) parent would do, I hired a baby led weaning expert to come over to my house to teach me about this new method of feeding. Before I tell you about that experience, let’s back up and learn a little bit more about baby-led weaning as it’s only been the rage in the past 10-15 years. In the article, Baby-led weaning: what a systematic review of the literature adds on, Author Enza D’Auria writes: “The term “baby-led” weaning (BLW) was first coined by Gill Rapley in 2005 [6]. BLW is an alternative method of infant feeding which promotes infant self-feeding from six months of age, instead of conventional parent spoon-feeding.” In a Guardian.com article, Rapley was quoted as saying, “ Sound scientific research and government advice now agree there is no longer any window of a baby's development in which they need something more than milk and less than solids.” She believes that the baby food industry persuades parents to give pureed food even though it’s not necessary. The key features of BLW are as follows:
It all sounded great to me. So, fast forward to my baby-led weaning teaching session. I invited a few moms to join me who had babies that were a similar age to Sam. We sat in my living room while the expert set up posters and charts about baby led weaning. I distinctly remember one of the photos was a baby eating a giant lamb chop. She began to take us through the same information you read about above. The importance of choice for babies, that they eat the same foods that parents eat, that it makes mealtime a family event, etc. She showed us different ways to serve foods like in the following photos. She told us that the babies would gag but that was a normal part of the learning process I was hooked! After she left, I went out and bought a bunch of plates, spoons and was ready to get started. Before we actually fed Sam, I wanted to learn more about gagging/choking so I went online and watched a bunch of videos that explained the difference. I even sent the videos to all my family so that they would know what to do in the case of a choking event. You can see those videos below:
We were ready to begin. The first day, I sat Sam down in his new high chair, wearing a smock (because I knew things were going to get messy), and I put some roasted sweet potato and broccoli on his plate. We had the camera ready for this exciting moment. Sam reached forward, grabbed the piece of sweet potato in his little fist and put it half of it his mouth. My husband got ready to take the photo but Sam’s eyes got big, started to water and my heart began to race. He was gagging. I knew that gagging was a normal response to BLW feeding but as he sat there gagging up the piece of sweet potato, I convinced myself (even after watching all those videos) that he was actually choking (he wasn’t), and so I grabbed the plate of food away and said out loud, “We are never doing this again.” I tried again the next day, and same response. More gagging, more heart racing and I began to doubt myself and the BLW method. Was this really the best way for my little guy? In the article,Baby-led weaning: what a systematic review of the literature adds on, a literature review of 12 articles and and 12 studies was conducted to critically examine the current evidence about baby-led weaning approach and to explore the need for future research. They concluded that there is still insufficient evidence to draw conclusions about the BLW approach, in terms of adequacy of energy and nutrient intakes, due to the low quality of the evidence. They also found that there was not much evidence of pediatricians backing of the concern of choking in BLW. The authors of the study determined that more research needs to be conducted and that anyone who is going to attempt the BLW needs to make sure they understand how to safely prepare foods and ensure that their children are getting enough nutrients. Because baby-led weaning is a relatively new concept, there is not much evidence to support or refute this method of feeding. Melanie Potock, speaks to this lack of evidence, in her article: Baby Led Weaning: A Developmental Perspective. She writes that moving straight to large pieces of food (as opposed to a gradual method of thinner to thicker methods) may be skipping a crucial step in the developmental process but that we won’t know if that’s the case until more research has been conducted to determine if children who follow the BLW model eventually acquire skills traditionally learned prior to chewing chunks of food . So, I think that BLW is an option for some parents but I don’t think it’s for everyone. If you are an anxious person like me, or if you like to know that there is solid evidence backing an approach then perhaps a more graduated approach to feeding works better. That’s what we decided to do. More on that in the next post! References: D'Auria, E (2018, January) Baby-led weaning: what a systematic review of the literature adds on. Italian Journal of Pediatrics Hill, A (2007, June) Pureed food 'isn't natural for babies. Retrieved from: www.theguardian.com/society/2007/jun/17/health.medicineandhealth Potock, M(2014, February) Baby Led Weaning: A Developmental Perspective. Retrieved from: https://blog.asha.org/2014/02/04/baby-led-weaning-a-developmental-perspective/ So you might be wondering, "If she's not going to let Sam cry it out, how on earth is she ever going to get him to sleep through the night?" Well, that's a question I've asked myself many times. After attending some parenting classes through the Region of Halton, joining different learning communities on social media, and reading books, I've come to learn a few things about sleep training in the 21st century. Here is what I've learned. Perhaps you can pass these on to some sleep deprived new moms in your world:
References: Karp, Harvey (2012) Happiest Baby Guide to Great Sleep. Obleman, D (2018) The Sleep Sense Program Sleep. Retrieved from http://www.halton.ca/cms/One.aspx?portalId=8310&pageId=112412 One of the first questions I get asked by people when discussing my 8 month old son Sam is, "Does he sleep through the night?" This seems to be a benchmark of some kind, somehow tied to my success or failure as a parent. When I respond that Sam feeds a once or twice in the night, I'm bombarded with unsolicited advice on how I should teach him to sleep through the night. It also seems that the topic of sleep training can be very controversial. Some people strongly believe that children should be taught to self-soothe while others believe that children's needs should be met right away.
So I've decided that I'm going to devote the first two blog posts to sleep training. The first post will be about the historical aspects of training a child to sleep and the second post will be about sleep training in the 21st century. There are many different theories of how to train a child to sleep When I was young, my parents let me "cry it out." This meant that they put me down to sleep, closed the door and then checked on me again in the morning. In the Pshycology Today article, "Dangers of Crying it Out," author Darcia F. Narvaez Ph.D writes that the Cry It Out (CIO) method can be traced back to 1880s when people worried about transmitting germs and so parents were told not to hold their babies too much. In the early 20th century, behaviorist John Watson taught parents that too much affection would lead to dependent and whiny human beings. Parents were supposed to teach their young infants how to be independent so that they wouldn't cause too many disruptions in their parents lives. Narvaez writes that during this time, a government phamplet was published that mothers should stop holding their babies immediately if their arms were to get tired because the baby was to never inconvenience the adult. Also, babies older than six months of age should be taught to sit silently in their crib so that they don't have to be constantly watched. The CIO method eventually morphed into the Ferber method. This method was created by Dr. Richard Ferber in 1985 with some modifications in 2006. Babies are left to self-soothe for increasing amounts of time over a period of nights. The goal is that the baby will learn eventually to fall asleep and stay asleep on their own. Fast forward to the 21st century. We've made leaps and bounds with our study of the brain. Narvaez writes that letting babies cry it out causes the following in babies:
Even with all the evidence to show that we need to be more responsive to our babies needs, I am told on an almost daily basis that I need to toughen up and let my baby cry it out. Or that I need to at least let them cry for a little bit before soothing them. In a 2014 Parents magazine, an article titled "Rest Assured" was published which stated that the CIO method worked for those parents who were comfortable with it. In a rebuttal to this article, Narvaez writes that the study quoted in Rest Assured is flawed and that the children in that study weren't actually left to cry it out. The parents in that study used various other methods. Even so, you can find many different articles today in support of this old-fashioned sleep training method. I've decided that I'm not going to let Sam's sleep habits define me as a mother and I don't mind if I need to be a bit inconvenienced at night to get up and settle him back down. In my next post, I'm going to talk about 21st century methods for teaching your child to sleep. References: Narvaez, D (2014 July) Parents Misled by Cry-It-Out Sleep Training Reports. Retrieved from: https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/moral-landscapes/201407/parents-misled-cry-it-out-sleep-training-reports Narvaez, D (2011, December) Dangers of Crying it Out. Retrieved from: https://www.psychologytoday.com/ca/blog/moral-landscapes/201112/dangers-crying-it-out Ferber Method- Retreived from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ferber_method |
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