Dear Family Members,

Hang in there. Spring's coming and the children can get outside!

This week parent reminded me about the Love and Logic parenting series that has been my personal favorite for years. The parenting advice is always (guess what?) logical. Check the public library or my library for one of the most sensible books around.

We have been talking about Tattling vs. Reporting in the primary grades. It's hard for children to know when to tell and when to try to solve the problem themselves. In general, we teach the children to always tell an adult if someone is being hurt or is going to get hurt, if someone is hurting an animal, or if someone is destroying property. We want them to learn to handle situations that are "kid sized" problems, to know what problems really belong to them, and what to say that will help. For instance one strategy they can use if another child is teasing them, they can say, "I don't like that teasing. Please don't do that." If the teaser doesn't stop they can say, "That's two times you've done that to me. If you do it again, I have to tell a grown up." It's a lot like 1-2-3-Magic for kids.

In the upper grades we're doing Worry Walls. The children write a worry on a paper hand and place it on the wall. The little worries (the ones) are placed at the bottom of the wall and the really big worries (the tens) are placed at the top. The children look at their worry the next day and if it doesn't seem as important now, they may move their worry down to a lower number. If the children couldn't think of a worry of their own, they imagined what children their age might worry about.

Spring Break will be here soon. I hope you enjoy your time off from early mornings and homework :)

Mrs. Earls