Starting Our Experience Books!

After visiting with my Early Intervention (EI) Specialist, who had brought me handouts on starting an Experience Book with  my toddler, I vowed I would start the very next week.

One week went by....

                                  then another..........
                                                            
                                                                and another.....
                                                                                        
Finally, I bought composition books and thought, "YES, We'll start next week."

One week went by....

                                  then another..........
                                                            
                                                                and another.....

I started saving brochures from places we visited, keepsakes from a hike, tickets, etc. They are in a pile on my shelf.  The books have stayed empty.

Fall organization hit. I started cleaning out my shelves to file all of the clutter that had added up.(I'm sure there's a blog post somewhere about de-cluttering and keeping things organized that I need to read!)

And I found them! I found the handouts my sweet EI Specialist had brought me.

And I read them!

And I realized I had this whole Experience Book thing wrong.

I had been putting it off until I could print out pictures, until I could have more time to make it look nice, etc. etc. As I read the handout and the mother talked of DRAWING pictures and TRACING toys and then describing them, as well as printing out pictures and gluing in tickets, etc, it became real to me.

                                                                 

We started the next day. 

              This was no beautiful scrapbook with carefully placed pictures with elaborate captions.

This was SWEET and SIMPLE. I started by sitting down at the computer, toddler in my lap and finding pictures in clip-art. We started with those foods that were her favorite things to eat.

I let her glue. I let her write. I even let her try to cut! After all, this is her EXPERIENCE book!

Our first page!

We have done pretty well, adding an additional page every other day or so!  There is so much more I want to do. My goal now is to SAVE, SAVE, SAVE things when we go out, and to look for ANYTHING we can add to our Experience Book!

We simply traced some of her favorite toys.

I found a way to make us both smile, even at 4:30 am. The pencil is a little hard to see. This entry was made when she woke up early in the morning and would NOT go back to sleep.

Are you ready to get started??? 

Here are some great tips for that great hand out! 

(handout by Kerry Dowling, parent of a deaf child)

• Find a special home for your Experience books. A basket in a well-used room is a good place.  (I have yet to do this one. After already misplacing it twice, I know it is essential to do this!)
• Keep a list handy for ideas: when you get an idea of an entry, jot it down. Save tickets, brochures, pictures, etc. to add in. That way on days when you can't think of what to do for an entry, you have your list!
• Involve the child. Let her draw, cut, glue. Ask her favorite things and put them in the book. 
• Use double-sided tape to put all the great stuff you have saved in easily.
• Involve others. Invite others to draw in the book. Label who it was and why they came to visit or why they drew what they did.
• Incorporate goals from your child's IFSP. If you are working on colors, do a page on that, etc. You can also focus on story telling or building vocabulary, etc.
• Focus on parenting goals. Find ways to teach how to be a good friend, have good behavior, how to help clean up, or wash your hands. (absolutely LOVE this one!)
• Colored pencils or markers work better than crayons. Markers sometimes bleed through the page. Pencil is hard to see. =)
• Use the Experience Book to generate new conversations and language. Don't hold to the words that are written on the page, but instead talk about what is on the page, the memory and the understanding your child has now related to the same objects or events.
• "Later on, it's all about reading." This will be a great reading tool as known content is matched to the exact print and learning of specific words can occur. 
• Have FUN! Make this a great experience for the WHOLE family to enjoy.

The problem with ‘Good’

  I was looking through my old blogs and realized I needed to heed my own advice. This is one I wrote over a year ago. With school starting again, I think it's time to review praise and declarations and put them back into practice!

“Good job!” “That picture looks good!” “Looking good sweetie!” “You are a good brother!” “You are a good boy!”

 

Sounds ‘good,’ right? I thought so too… until the day when I told my son, “Remember – you are a good student! You are a good friend!” just before sending him off to school. 

He looked at me without saying a word, but his eyes told me plenty: “Oh, sure. Don’t worry about the bullies I just told you about and the fact that only 1 or 2 of all the kids like me. Don’t worry about the teacher that blames and punishes me with all the kids because she doesn’t know who did wrong. Don’t worry about the homework you yelled at me last night because I didn’t do it fast enough. Yeah – sure. I’m good?” 

When he was gone, I thought about what he had told me through that look. He was telling me he needed something different, but I didn’t know what. I had learned to use declarations, or positive affirmations to boost myself and my family up. I use them daily. What was wrong with saying what I said? Well, he just didn’t believe it, I thought. You are supposed to say it until you believe it. But that look had said so much MORE! I mulled and prayed.. and read.

I am reading a new favorite book of mine: Liberated Parents,Liberated Children by  Adele Faber and Elaine Mazlish. It talked about just this thing. “To a lay person it always comes as a surprise when he praises a child generously and the child then becomes obnoxious. To the psychologist it's no mystery. He knows that children must throw off global praise, it's too confining. ...when we use global praise with children, we are practically asking for trouble." (pg. 57)

And that’s when it hit me: the phrase ‘You are a good student/friend” is too confining for him. My son hates authority, rules, and doing anything any way but his own. To say he IS good is like saying he HAS to be GOOD ALL THE TIME! To him, this is too much. Instead of trying, he gave up, made mischief and had as much fun as he could. Why try when it is impossible? 

So WHAT DO I DO??? 

My new favorite book had the answer as well: descriptive praise. Not a completely new concept to me; however, I was not using it correctly or effectively. This morning that changed.

I found something positive to ‘describe’ from the day before. When I woke him up I said, “Yesterday you told me how you earned a recognition in school. You said you were trying hard to pay attention even when the kids around you weren’t. That takes discipline and focus. You did it and got your reward. I wanted to tell you I appreciate your effort.” I then gave him a sticker in our reward system at home.

He smiled, and then told me he had talked with his brother the night before until after 9:00pm, (when he was supposed to be going to sleep) about the basketball tournament last weekend. I held back criticism and simply said, “I am happy you can talk to your brother about things that are important to you!” 

I didn’t even tell him to hurry up so he wouldn’t miss the bus; instead I simply said, “It is now 6:25.” He got up and got ready for school. Just before leaving he ran to me and said, “Today, when I get home from school I am going to take a 10 min break and then get right to work!”

That afternoon he took a longer break. He took all afternoon to do his chores and his homework. This time there was no badgering from me. I am finally learning to let him make his own decisions. He did finish his responsibilities. He even cleaned up his mess when he broke my glass measuring cup without me having to ask him to do it. Then I was able to describe that to him to: “I noticed when you made a mess, you went right ahead and cleaned it up. You swept all of the pieces off the floor. Where did you learn to clean up like that?”

He thought for a moment, “I guess I watched you and Dad do it.”

“You know. I am so glad you can watch Mom and Dad. Cleaning up after your mess was responsible. Thank you for cleaning up your mess!” His eyes beamed with pleasure. They were telling me a much different story than they had just the morning before.

Just before bed he said, “Tomorrow I am only going to take a 5 min break, and then get right to work!” Will he? Well, we will see. The day he does I will tell him, “Hey! You did exactly what you said you would. Now I know I can trust that when you say you will do something, you will.”

Oh… I almost forgot… about those declarations, “I am a good student! I am a good friend!”

They now read, “I am an attentive student!” and “I am a considerate and thoughtful friend!”

Now he will know exactly how to act, and he will believe he can.