Back to School and Your Child's Yearly Well-Child Visit

Summer break is nearing it's end, making this a great time to schedule your child's yearly pediatric well-child visit before it's time to head back to school!

Doctor Visits

Regardless of your child's age, an annual well-child exam with your pediatrician is a good idea to add on the to-dos of your "back-to-school" checklist.

Scheduling preventative (vs urgent) yearly pediatrician exams before the school year starts is a convenient way to put the wellness exam on your family's schedule before the hectic year begins. 

Annual wellness exams can be important during your child's transitional years because vital changes take place in your child's physiology and this type of check in with your pediatrician or family doctor is also an opportunity for wellness guidance and advice. 

Depending on your child's age, an annual exam may entail blood pressure and heart monitoring as well as testing for diabetes, cholesterol and anemia. A pediatric vision screening may also be part of the annual check up. Pediatricians also like to use the annual visit to discuss nutrition and exercise and review your child's immunization records.

Continuity of care with your child's physician is truly an invaluable asset because having a long-term history gives the physician an awareness of your child's development progress and it's also helpful for preventing chronic diseases from emerging. 

Back-to-school check-ups are often the only visit most children have with their pediatrician annually. Having the opportunity to have a thorough physical exam is also a good time to address emotional and social concerns. As your child grows older, these questions may become more important as the adolescent years can be emotionally challenging for many kids because of peer and societal influences - drinking, smoking, drugs, depression and sexual activity are big teenage topics.

In summary, establishing a connection with your child's physician will be an invaluable asset as your child passes through years of physical and emotional development. Finding the time for balancing school life with social activities, extracurricular pursuits, and home life can be quite a challenge for kids. All the more reason to set aside time every year for your child to foster a relationship to see the pediatrician. 

Here's to your child's full potential!

Gingerbread House Daycare

Letting Your Kids be Kids and Have Fun: Holiday Parties and More

Dear parents, the shot above has gone viral on social media and I'm sharing it here as to simply remind you that when it comes to the holidays, it’s okay to let your kids (and yourself for that matter) relax and have a little fun. There’s plenty of time for rules and routines during the rest of the year!

As with our diets, it’s easy as parents to let ourselves veer off the routine over the holidays when we don’t have to get up early for work or our kids don’t have school. It's not uncommon to have parents let their younger kids skip their naps in exchange for important time with relatives and friends they haven't seen for awhile.

It's all about finding the balance and knowing your child's temperament: is she/he easy going or easily over-stimulated? Does your child need a lot of activity? These are the things to know and respect about our kids. This will help us plan their schedules and holiday parties, but also make us better parents the rest of the time.

Best wishes for a joyful holiday season!

Wondering How to Teach Kids to Eat Better? Especially During the Holidays?

Wondering how to teach kids to eat better, especially during the holidays? Here are 25 books that will nourish creativity, teach about healthy eating, and inspire a generation of activists! https://foodtank.com/news/2017/12/childrens-books-growing-minds/

Can you imagine if every school in this world had a garden? Whether a raised bed, vertical, hydro, or container garden, it would inspire a new generation of healthy eaters and lovers of local food! 

We need to teach our kids where the food they eat comes from. We also need to encourage them to try growing food, harvesting food, and preparing food. This will get them thinking about access to healthy food and health holistically. Because when everyone in a community has easy access to healthy food, this not only helps to reduce health inequities but also can strengthen a community’s economy and foster a healthier environment.

Eating locally produced foods, shopping at the farmers or local market is important for our children's health, the economy and climate change. By supporting local foods you are enabling farmers to keep more money in their pocket with every purchase you make & in turn they reinvest your contribution into the shared economy. This empowers and builds a foundation of health, connection & community resiliency!

I especially love this! This new children's book teaches children how to love imperfect produce while helping to reduce food waste through education: https://foodtank.com/news/2017/12/the-perfectly-wonky-carrot/

Best wishes for the holidays, see you all in 2018!

Gingerbread House DayCare teachers

Sugary Drinks

Our kids drink too much sugar, with the school year starting, let's rethink their drinks! 

Are you aware that fruit drinks, sport drinks, sweetened waters and teas, energy drinks, and sodas are the primary source of added sugars in Canadian diets. In fact, sugary drinks are a huge contributing factor to the rise of childhood obesity in Canada. 

Fortunately, health groups and physicians across North America are working with policy makers to encourage educational campaigns and other initiatives to help parents make informed decisions about their kids' diets. 

The World Health Organization is urging all nations to implement a sugar tax. Many countries and US states have already begun to do so. The result has been very impressive with sugar consumption precipitously decline. 

Additionally, there's been a concerted effort to use money generated from the sugar tax to fund public health campaigns encouraging children and adults to choose healthier drink alternatives, like water, milk, plant and nut milks, and 100% juice with no added sugars or artificial sweeteners. 

Through sugar taxes, cities and states across North America and other parts of the world are working to decrease diet-related diseases, such as diabetes and heart disease. The revenue used from the sugar tax can also be used to support clean drinking water programs in schools, walking trails and bike paths, and many other health-promoting initiatives. 

Access to healthy drinks is crucial to helping kids grow up at a healthy weight and avoid diabetes and heart disease. Who doesn’t want that? 

The staff at Gingerbread House Daycare are committed to supporting parents and the government with initiatives that improve the health and welfare of children everywhere!

"How Was Your Day?"

Questions to ask your kid instead of "How was your day?"

When you pick your kids up from school, is your first question, "How was your day?" Here's the thing about this question, it's uninspiring and will likely yield an indifferent answer. So how can we engage better with our kids that will yield more of a conversation and engage those cerebral cells! 

So here's a list compiled by Sara Goldstein that is guaranteed to be met with more than an indifferently delivered, "fine." Have fun with them!

Questions a kid will answer at the end of a long school day:

1. What did you eat for lunch?
2. Did you catch anyone picking their nose?
3. What games did you play at recess?
4. What was the funniest thing that happened today?
5. Did anyone do anything super nice for you?
6. What was the nicest thing you did for someone else?
7. Who made you smile today?
8. Which one of your teachers would survive a zombie apocalypse? Why?
9. What new fact did you learn today?
10. Who brought the best food in their lunch today? What was it?
11. What challenged you today?
12. If school were a ride at the fair, which ride would it be? Why?
13. What would you rate your day on a scale of 1 to 10? Why?
14. If one of your classmates could be the teacher for the day who would you want it to be? Why?
15. If you had the chance to be the teacher tomorrow, what would you teach the class?
16. Did anyone push your buttons today?
17. Who do you want to make friends with but haven’t yet? Why not?
18. What is your teacher’s most important rule?
19. What is the most popular thing to do at recess?
20. Does your teacher remind you of anyone else you know? How?
21. Tell me something you learned about a friend today.
22. If aliens came to school and beamed up 3 kids, who do you wish they would take? Why?
23. What is one thing you did today that was helpful?
24. When did you feel most proud of yourself today?
25. What rule was the hardest to follow today?
26. What is one thing you hope to learn before the school year is over?
27. Which person in your class is your exact opposite?
28. Which area of your school is the most fun?
29. Which playground skill do you plan to master this year?
30. Does anyone in your class have a hard time following the rules?

Summer Events: Maple Ridge Farms and Cultus Lake

Hello Parents!

It's unimaginable how fast this summer has been, it's literally August and the kids return to school in a matter of weeks!

It has been an amazing summer however and our summer field trips have been off the hook awesome. If you haven't snagged a look at the pictures from our trip to Maple Ridge Farms and Cultus Lake, please do! It was such a good time for the kids to be out and adventuring. 

As much as we would like summer to last forever, with Fall around the corner, it's a good time to start planning for it. But for now, let's really, really enjoy August shall we? Here's to the last month's worth of lemonade stands and sidewalk chalk. 

Kids Love to Dance!

Kids love moving to music and there can be nothing more fun than dancing! Whether your child is in formal ballet lessons or just likes jamming out with the family to your favorite tunes, there's no doubt that a love of dance is a fantastic way for kids to have fun, express their creativity and exercise!!

If you're looking for some illustrative books that inspire and invoke the imagination of dance and movement for your little ones, here's our top list. These colorful stories will delight children that love to step, twirl, plie and jump! 

Baby Dance by Ann Taylor is a perfect book for reading aloud or dancing to! Ages: 0-2

I Can Dance by Betsy Snyder is an interactive board book with cut holes so kids can use their fingers to get into the dance groove. A great way to add fun into story time. Ages 1-3

Do Princesses Boogie? by Carmela LaVigna Coyle is a fun, rhythmic, read-aloud book that will have your child dancing along. Ages 3-5

Kitchen Dance by Maurie Manning is a celebration of family dancing together and is one of our favorite books for young readers. Ages 3-6

Flora and the Flamingo by Molly Idle is a wordless picture book about a girls amazing interaction with a flamingo. Fans of Flora will love this and the whole series. Ages 3-7

Thunderstorm Dancing by Katrina Germein is an energetic story that will get everyone moving the next time they hear thunder in the distance. Ages 4-7

Ruby Rose Off to School She Goes by Rob Sanders is full of silly humor and esxaggerated fun, your dance-loving kids will love this book. Ages 4-8

Dance Is For Everyone by Andrea Zuill is larger than life and full of laughs. The book celebrates passion wherever it may lie. Ages 4-8

Other favorites for ages 4-8: My Mama Had a Dancing Heart, Dancing in the Wings, Frances Dean Who Loved to Dance and Dance, Brontorina, Deer Dancer, Jingle Dancer, Suki's Kimono, Firebird.

Happy dancing and reading everyone!  

Attributes of Bravery

Make time to watch "The Gutsy Girl" author Caroline Paul's talk on raising brave girls and boys. Get inspired by the power of adventure and productive risk-taking, no matter your age or gender! Parents: she provides references and resources for further learning on microbavery and resilience.

The fear we learn and the caution stays with us into adulthood -- hesitation in speaking out and our lack of confidence in our own decisions. So how do we raise brave kids?

Here are Caroline's key points on how kids become brave: 

Bravery is learned and like anything learned, it needs to be practiced. Take a deep breath and encourage your kids to skateboard, climb trees etc - studies show that risky play teaches hazard assessment, delayed gratification, resilience and confidence. When kids get outside and practice bravery, they learn invaluable life lessons.

Try and not over caution our kids, because then you're telling them that they shouldn't keep pushing themselves, that they're not good enough, that they shouldn't be brave. 

Moms and dads (especially moms) have to start practicing bravery too. We can't teach our kids unless we practice it ourselves. So practice... at home, in the office, in our relationships.

Guide your kids to access their bravery, maybe the hill is too steep, but let her be guided by courage not fear to determine what's possible and what isn't. This is not about the steep hill in front of her, but about her life ahead of her. 

Watch the Ted presentation here: http://www.ted.com/talks/caroline_paul_to_raise_brave_girls_encourage_adventure?utm_source=tedcomshare&utm_medium=referral&utm_campaign=tedspread

Prenatal Vitamins May Make Your Children Cleverer

A new study led by a research team at Harvard University has reported that taking multivitamins during pregnancy can "add the equivalent of up to a full year of schooling to a child's cognitive abilities." 

The results also found that early life factors including a nurturing environment was very important for a child's intellectual development including educational achievement and fine motor dexterity. 

The multivitamins studied contained iron, folic acid, retinol, vitamin D, vitamin E, ascorbic acid, vitamin B, niacin, zinc, copper, selenium and iodine. Maternal supplementation aided children's procedural memory by an additional 1/2 year of schooling and for anemic mothers, the effect equalled one year of extra schooling. 

In conclusion, the most impactful factors on a child's cognitive ability that trump biological factors include: nurturing home environment, parental happiness, parental education, socio-economic status. 

The research was published in the journal The Lancet Global Health. 

Empathy: Teaching Kids to Care for One Another

Denmark rates as one of the world's happiest places. It is also a country where kids are taught to care about the welfare of others.

There are several programs in Denmark aimed at increasing emotional awareness and empathy, including: how to interpret facial expressions, articulate experiences, thoughts, feelings, and senses. Danish children begin participating in these mandatory national programs as early as preschool.

One such program is called the Step by Step program where children are shown pictures of other kids' emotional expressions such as fear, anger, sadness, happiness, and so forth. The students then put into words and describe the facial expressions. Most important, the children learn not to be judgmental of the facial expressions, rather they recognize and respect them.

CAT-kit is also a very popular program that includes picture cards of faces and measuring sticks to gauge intensity of expressions as well as body pictures for the children to draw the physical aspects and location of emotions. 

My Circle is another tool used in Denmark schools. Here children draw their friends, family, and people in their community or neighbourhood as part of an exercise on learning to better understand other people, faiths, customs and more.

At Gingerbread House Daycare, our certified childhood educators draw on comparable methods to teach empathy, too. We encourage 3-5 year olds to talk about bullying and teasing and to learn to become more caring toward each other. Another less obvious manner in which our teachers help instill empathy is my subtly mixing children of different strengths and weaknesses together. Students with strong reading skills are taught alongside those who may struggle with pronunciation; shier kids with more extroverted ones; etc. The premise is for students to support each other to reach their next best level. This helps foster collaboration, teamwork, and respect.

Empathy is one of the most important life skill a person can learn. The quality fosters successful leaders, managers, and businesses. It greatly improves relationships and social connectedness. 

Maybe Canadian schools could also adopt Denmark's platform and focus on actively teaching empathy. We believe empathic kids will make happier adults.