Give your children a solid launch—grounded in safety and love—into the world

No matter how old or young your children are, I hope they never outgrow the desire and need to be read to.  They will leave the world of a safe and loving childhood, but the experiencing of being read to is a felt memory that will anchor them in life. When they have children of their own and they begin the journey of reading and talking about the day with their children,
all the books and conversations with you will come flooding back.

As always, a poem, Talking About the Day  by Jim Daniels, says it best.

           

Each night after reading three books to my two children—

we each picked one—to unwind them into dreamland,

I’d turn off the light and sit between their beds

in the wide junk shop rocker I’d reupholstered blue,

still feeling the close-reading warmth of their bodies beside me,

and ask them to talk about the day—we did this,

we did that, sometimes leading somewhere, sometimes

not, but always ending up at the happy ending of now.

Now, in still darkness, listening to their breath slow and ease

into sleep’s regular rhythm.

                                          They are grown, you might've guessed.

The past tense solid, unyielding, against the dropped bombs

of recent years. But how it calmed us then, rewinding

the gentle loop, and in the trusting darkness, pressing play.

p.s. A dad who wanted to read to his 2 children, built this rocking chair for 3. An inspiration for a summer project...

Give your children a solid launch—grounded in safety and love—into the world

No matter how old or young your children are, I hope they never outgrow the desire and need to be read to.  They will leave the world of a safe and loving childhood, but the experiencing of being read to is a felt memory that will anchor them in life. When they have children of their own and they begin the journey of reading and talking about the day with their children,
all the books and conversations with you will come flooding back.

As always, a poem, Talking About the Day  by Jim Daniels, says it best.

           

Each night after reading three books to my two children—

we each picked one—to unwind them into dreamland,

I’d turn off the light and sit between their beds

in the wide junk shop rocker I’d reupholstered blue,

still feeling the close-reading warmth of their bodies beside me,

and ask them to talk about the day—we did this,

we did that, sometimes leading somewhere, sometimes

not, but always ending up at the happy ending of now.

Now, in still darkness, listening to their breath slow and ease

into sleep’s regular rhythm.

                                          They are grown, you might've guessed.

The past tense solid, unyielding, against the dropped bombs

of recent years. But how it calmed us then, rewinding

the gentle loop, and in the trusting darkness, pressing play.

p.s. A dad who wanted to read to his 2 children, built this rocking chair for 3. An inspiration for a summer project...

Conversations build a child's brain

A child’s brain is built word by word. We have the data that supports the importance of early childhood education for future success in and out of school. We also have the economics behind the benefits of early education because less money is later spent on juvenile courts, prisons, health care and welfare says James Heckman, a Nobel-wining economist at the University of Chicago.

The findings show that children need to be raised with lots of play and conversation. By age 4, a child of professionals has heard 30 million more words than a child on welfare.  Talking develops a child’s use and understanding of language, which is the basis of reading. Vocabulary development by age 3 has been found to predict reading achievement and has been empirically connected to reading comprehension. Heckman says, “ the best metric of child poverty may have to do not with income but with how often a child is spoken and read to. Sixty to seventy percent of the achievement gap between rich and poor kids is already evident by kindergarten.

Children's brains grow at a dazzling pace in the first years of life.  Research tells us the first three years of life offer a critical window for brain development. Each of us is born with a genetic blueprint—a basic design. The brain at birth is only 25% developed. By the age of 3 the brain is 80% developed.

Most of a baby’s 100 billion brain cells aren’t yet connected in networks. Those cells become connected when babies have stimulating experiences— reading singing, talking, playing—all language related activities.  Early language experience actually stimulates a child’s brain to grow and speech and language development require stimulation.

The time you spend reading and talking with your child is far more valuable than spending time trying to teach them to read. Reading is a developmental skill and many of the skills a child’s brain needs to enter school, ready to learn to read, are first learned in conversation. Words are the building blocks of a child’s brain.

Simply stated—children are too small to fail. Parental involvement and early childhood education protect children from failure.

Reading a book to a child sends them a love letter that will last forever.

How many love letters have you received in your life? Have you saved them? No grown up ever forgets the love they felt when they were read to as a child. The intimacy that lives inside a shared reading experience is not something one forgets.

Recalling childhood reading and their impact is to saunter down memory lane—discovering some of what made you who you are today. To read to a child is like rereading your own childhood—the one you had or the one you wished you had had. The words our parents read to us are haunted by a sense of well being.

When my sons were little, I started the habit of dating and inserting the location of where we were when we read the book. Another habit of mine is to write an inscription—it confirms that every book you give is indeed a gift.

I now pass on those books to other children and I inscribe them to the current recipient of the book. The inscriptions I wrote to my sons, still stand. The sentiment continues to be—Dare to dream. Put on your roller skates. Go and see the world and make a difference along the way. Dare to be who you are. Dare to Become who you want to be. Love, forever and a day.

My sons are now adults with children of their own. My inscriptions have not change, but I harbor one additional wish for them now—embrace the idea that the journey to Dare to become the man you want to be—never stops and books are wonderful companions to have on your journey, to know and better understand yourself and the world. Often in books, we meet the one character we are most reluctant to  know—ourselves.

The gift of summer

The first day of summer conjures up memories as well as anticipation for those long and lazy days of summer. Unfortunately, and to a child’s detriment, the idea of unstructured time is not something they have much experience with.

Think of what our world would be like without time to just Be in the moment.Those unstructured moments are a greenhouse of possibilities— encouraging children to tap into their creativity, aspirations, hopes and dreams.Those moments grow A Self

Create the space children need to replenish their heart and mind. This young girl captures the essence of what I wish summer could be for all children. Some of us remember the experience of reading as part of childhood, but everyone who has been read to, has in their memory bank, the hours, listening, watching the face of the person reading aloud to them.

Maybe this little girl will grow up and become a great tennis player, but for sure, the books she reads, the characters that are becoming her lifelong companions, promise to make her life’s journey richer and more satisfying.

Resist the temptation to keep your child programmed 24/7 this summer.

Parents and children will both thrive in those unstructured moments.