Your child is growing by leaps and bounds. And from time to time the thought creeps into moms and dads: “Well, you’ll grow up a little more and you’ll be able to play by yourself, and I’ll have a couple of hours for myself.” However, this is not entirely true: in order for the baby to be able to occupy himself independently for 40-50 minutes, parents should make a lot of effort. We will tell you how to teach and entice your child to play alone.
The benefits of independent play
By playing independently, the baby learns to find solutions
V. A. Sukhomlinsky: “A game is a huge bright window through which a life-giving stream of ideas and concepts about the surrounding world flows into the spiritual world of a child. Play is the spark that ignites the flame of inquisitiveness and curiosity.”
Teaching your child the skills of independent play is important not in order to take up his time and allow himself to relax. Independent game – important indicator proper development
- child. At the same time, the ability to find something to do has a significant impact on the personal growth and character of the child. In particular, playing with yourself develops:
- initiative (after all, solving specific game problems requires the little one to make quick decisions - a pyramid that unexpectedly appears on the path of the typewriter can be either moved or knocked down - the choice must be made instantly);
- the ability to overcome obstacles (this or that play activity has a certain plot, the development of which requires the child to find a way out of the current circumstances - if the baby doll wets his pants, then he needs to be changed); persistence (to get desired result
- games, the child must go through certain stages, for example, in order to assemble a beautiful puzzle boat, you should select all the elements correctly, trying to combine them); ability to navigate according to circumstances (to dress a doll for a trip to kindergarten
- , you need to choose appropriate clothes for her, put on all the details of the toilet in order);
patience (to solve puzzles, the child has to look at the task several times and select answers).
Why doesn't he play by himself or can't occupy himself with toys?
A fairly common problem is when the baby does not want to play on his own. This alarms parents, but meanwhile the reasons for this behavior of the baby lie precisely in adults. The fact is that at 2-4 years old children develop the skill role-playing game, that is, at this age dolls, cars, and animals are very interesting. Caring relatives understand this, and this is where the endless supply of toys begins. Remember your childhood: one or two dolls, a couple of cars and a wooden pyramid. But we could play with them for hours, inventing names for them, performing entire performances with such a simple set. No, you shouldn’t throw away the wonderful educational bears that teach counting, or the parking area for racing cars, just limit their number. Why? The child does not have time to become attached to the toy, feel it and unleash his imagination. In addition, children need an example. That is, if you don’t show them how to play with the car, then the child will not only not have an idea about the toy itself, but there will also be no impetus for further inventing a game plot.
As for older children, 5-7 years old, refusal to play independently at this age may indicate that the child is suffering from loneliness. If a child experiences a lack of communication with his parents, then it is absolutely logical that he will not want to be alone even with the most funny toys. It is important to let the child understand that this is yours with him. general game, it’s just that sometimes he can do it himself. Also at this age, children are very sensitive to failure. Therefore, if a child cannot complete a puzzle, he will not pore over it alone. Come and direct the toddler’s thoughts - this will give the necessary impetus to renew interest.
The baby must have at least a small, but own play area
The method of teaching a child to play independently is an inexhaustible topic of discussion among teachers and psychologists. All this research can be combined into several effective tips for adults, then it will be easier to teach your child.
The ability to play independently is an indicator of your baby’s maturation. However, there is no need to sound the alarm if he is not too eager to play alone yet. Patiently show your child how to play with this or that toy in an interesting way, so that he becomes interested in looking for new ways of entertainment. And be sure to participate in play activity praise your child - then he will grow up not only to be an independent person, but also to become a self-confident person.
In just a year, a child turns from a tiny fool into a fully developed person with all the basic skills necessary for life.
- Per month he tries to hold his head up, and he does this especially well while lying on his tummy.
- At two he manages to briefly lift his head and chest from the surface on which he lies, again, on his tummy.
- At three o'clok After a month, some manage to roll over on their side on their own.
- At four– almost all children easily change their body position, turning over from their back to their side.
- Closer to the year Most babies walk and even run well.
The peak development of children under one year old falls at approximately 5-6 months of life. At this time, they begin to understand how to control their body and are almost completely ready for new “big” skills, which means that parents will have a completely logical question: how to teach a child to sit? This is what we will try to answer.
From this article you will learn:
Many of us are impatient to sit down our little one, and there is a reasonable explanation for this. All that a baby sees when lying in his crib or cradle is the ceiling, the edge of the room, his parents looking in, as well as tree branches, clouds and the sky while walking.
Add variety to life little man Only changing the position of his body helps. The first thing they practice with children after “rolling” in their arms is sitting.
There is an opinion that you shouldn’t start sitting down girls until they turn 6 months. At this time, there is a risk of provoking the development of uterine bending in them. With boys things are different, already at 5 month As they develop, they can be gradually prepared for full sitting.
Determining a child’s readiness to master the science of sitting is very simple.
A round back and a fall on his side at the first attempt to sit him down indicate that the baby is not ready to change his body position from horizontal to vertical, but if he lies confidently and for a long time on his stomach, holding his head, he rises onto his arms, lifting him off the hard surface. surfaces chest, rests on his elbows and knows how to roll over from back to side and back, then we can confidently say that without help, the baby is ready to learn to sit.
We act smoothly, without rushing
Parents often train their children to sit independently by covering them with pillows on all sides, but this often ends with them simply falling over on their side.
As already mentioned above - this is evidence that the child is not ready to sit. In addition, such early experimental attempts to plant a baby can end in failure, namely the development of problems with the spine, including scoliosis, and therefore it is better to abandon them immediately.
In order for the learning process to go smoothly, there is no need to rush; it is better to start with the basics. First of all, physically prepare your baby for sitting, that is, conduct frequent short-term training with him, which will help strengthen the muscles of the back, neck and abdomen.
For these purposes, a whole set of special exercises has been developed that the baby can successfully perform together with his parents.
But, before you start the exercises themselves, it’s worth thoroughly “warming up” the baby with a simple massage and gymnastics, which you do daily.
Stroke the arms, legs, tummy and back - activate the circulatory system, spread the arms to the sides and up, cross them on the chest, gently bend and straighten the legs at the knees, spread the bent legs to the side and fold them together, according to the principle of opening a book, imitate walking , resting your feet on hard surface, touch your bent knees to the pile of the cage and do the “bicycle” exercise.
In general, conduct standard activities with your child, which take no more than 5-10 minutes.
After the body is ready to “work”, you can begin performing exercises that train the necessary muscles.
We prepare and teach the child to sit
Exercises on how to teach a child to sit are familiar to many. These include:
Pull-ups
The child is placed on his back. Mom holds out her hands to him, and the baby grabs hers. thumbs. In this position, the baby will certainly try to pull himself closer to his mother. Here it is important to fix the hand well, keep your hands motionless and give the child the opportunity to rise on his own, slightly pulling him towards you.
Since tiny arms are still weak, there is no need to overdo it with lifting. A few approaches are enough, after which the baby should rest.
Push ups
Lay a blanket on the floor and place your baby on it, tummy down. He will try to rise up on his hands, lifting his chest off the floor. This way you will get mini-push-ups, during which the child’s back will gradually become stronger.
Strengthening your back and neck
On the same blanket, in the same body position, place bright toys, colorful books, pictures, in a word, everything that might interest the baby, at a distance of twenty to thirty centimeters from the baby.
In trying to reach the target, he will have to use the main muscle groups that are necessary for sitting, which means that performing such an exercise for 2-4 minutes 2-3 times a day will significantly strengthen them and prepare the child for the next stage of training.
Remember the position
Place the child on your lap so that he rests well on you. You can stay in this position for 2-3 minutes at the initial stages of training (at the age of 5 months), and up to 20 minutes a day, with gradual increase the period of time for babies is from six months.
Day after day, this position will become more and more familiar to the baby, and you can help him hold it on his own, gradually reducing the support with your hands.
Training perseverance
This exercise can be done both on your hands and on a hard surface. Sit the baby down and secure his legs with one hand, clasp his hand with the other hand so that he firmly grasps the thumb your hand. Now the child can be gently rocked - smoothly left, right, forward, backward.
The exercise should take no more than 2-3 minutes. Such simple actions will help not only force the baby to hold his body in a straight position, thereby alternately straining the abs, oblique abdominal muscles, neck and back muscles, but will also allow him to train his vestibular apparatus.
Tilts
The lateral muscles of the core and back muscles are strengthened by bending. In order to perform the exercise correctly, you need to turn the child with his back to you and put him on his legs. With one hand the mother secures the baby above the knee, with the other she supports him under the chest.
Now you can slowly tilt the baby until the back reaches a horizontal position, after which it should be returned to its original vertical position. You can repeat the tilts 8-10 times.
Maintaining a sitting position
The last exercise on how to teach a child to sit is suitable for six-month-old children.
To complete it, you will need to sit the baby on the sofa and secure him with a high pillow, which will become his main support. As soon as the child sits up straight with his legs stretched out in front of him, invite him to hold your hands. First, try rocking him so that he can hold himself while sitting.
Now you can pose a more difficult task: invite your child to get his favorite toy. To do this, take it in your free hand and lift it slightly higher than the one the baby is holding on to. The main goal is to get him to let go of you and try to get the toy, while maintaining a sitting position.
At first it will be difficult to do this for him, but the more often you do this exercise, the better the child’s coordination of movements will become.
We have already talked about how to teach a child to sit. Complement your activities good mood And positive attitude, spend them in an unobtrusive game form. Accompany all your actions kind words, praise, song or poem. This way you will not only enjoy the exercises, but also contribute to the mental development of your baby and establish emotional contact with him.
Don't force children to sit if they don't want to. Do not break the natural course of things if the child does not like your aspirations to teach him. Coercion will not end well.
Remember that babies learn to sit, on average, at 6-8 months. Children who are weak from birth master the process of sitting later.
If you do regular exercises, the child will delight his parents with a new, honed skill by the age of 7 months, so go for it, and one fine day your child will greet the morning, sitting in his crib and smiling from the top of his toothless or toothy mouth!
How to teach children to be independent? This question worries many young parents, but it is often too late to start learning.
Most adults encounter a lack of independence and complete helplessness of their child upon entering school. Previously, they were touched that the child asked for help at every opportunity. All adult families happily rushed to feed the child, dress him or tie his shoelaces. If the baby doesn’t put the toys away, it’s okay, he has a mother, she will collect it.
Why do parents only realize their mistakes at school and think about how to teach their children to be independent? IN preschool age adults believe that the child is still small, they try to please him in every possible way, thereby showing their love. Then they tell the child that he has a new stage in life - he must be independent, not realizing that the education of such an important quality for a child should begin much earlier.
As a result, they realize with bitterness that the child is not able to complete his homework without help, cannot put together his briefcase on his own, and constantly forgets what was assigned, what he needs to take to school today. Bad grades begin, parents scold the child, but precious time has already been lost, because it was necessary to teach independence from the second year of life, when the child first wanted to put on slippers himself or awkwardly grasped a spoon while eating.
When to start training
Independence develops in early childhood when the baby for the first time wants to sit, eat or drink, assemble a pyramid or put on slippers. How to teach children independence in different life situations from the very beginning of life’s journey, we will consider further in the article.
The main thing in teaching is to be patient, not to force the child, to act gradually but systematically. If you miss the time when the baby wants to do something on his own, then very quickly he will understand that he can do nothing, his parents will do everything for him, all he has to do is be naughty or cry, do it awkwardly or slowly.
Be sure to reinforce new behavior habits with praise. The child requires evaluation of his actions in order to understand whether he is acting correctly or not. This stimulates him for new achievements.
Learning to sit
One of the first independent actions of the baby is to sit down without the help of the mother. Training begins only when the child’s muscles are sufficiently strong, at about the age of 6 months, and weakened children master the skill at 8 months.
How to teach a child to sit independently? You need to practice first so as not to harm your still fragile spine. They will help various exercises, for example, sit the child on your feet, place a large pillow behind him, and hold the baby by the hands. Get interested in a toy that mom holds a little higher. The child will have to strain and reach for it. Each exercise should not last longer than 2 or 3 minutes. Be sure to encourage your child with praise and an approving tone.
Thanks to daily activities, the child will not only act independently, he will develop the vestibular apparatus, and will be able to independently reach objects around him, which will contribute to knowledge of the world around him and mental development.
Learning to use a spoon
Before you teach a child to eat independently, you need to know the characteristics of his development. The mother begins to use a spoon during the first feeding, but this does not mean that the baby is immediately given it and requires independence. A child at such an early age does not have developed coordination of movements, even if you let him try to hold a spoon, and he accidentally got it in his mouth, then it is too early to rejoice.
It is best to wait for a conscious action when the child already understands the meaning of this cutlery. Pediatricians recommend starting to teach children to eat independently at about 1 year of age. First, you can invite the child to take pieces of fruit or cookies from the table directly with his hand.
The first attempts are accompanied by the mother's help, for example, she scoops up puree into a spoon and puts it in the baby's hands, and he himself puts it in his mouth. The puree should be tasty and make you want to eat it.
A good incentive to eat on your own will be a joint lunch with all family members. Do not teach your child to eat near the TV screen or by entertaining him with a toy. The beginning of the journey will be long, the baby may get distracted and smear food on the table or on himself. For many, the baby’s first attempts to feed on his own cause a feeling of impatience; the attempts end with the mother taking the spoon and continuing to feed herself.
You can start feeding with two spoons, that is, one is in the baby’s hands and he occasionally puts food into his mouth on his own, and the other is in the mother’s. During periods when the baby is distracted, feed him from another spoon.
Don't rush, don't act forcefully, don't scold the child if he doesn't want to eat himself. After all, even a baby can have Bad mood or well-being.
Getting used to a cup
After the baby has learned to eat on his own, you can decide how to teach the child to drink on his own.
You need to get rid of the pacifier as early as possible so as not to spoil the child’s bite. You can try drinking from a cup as early as 4 months, just act carefully so that the baby does not choke.
By the age of 1 year, give him a sippy cup with two handles. This is a special sippy cup with a narrow spout. It is better to start training with a silicone sippy cup soft nose. It looks more like a pacifier to a baby than a hard plastic one. By the age of 6-7 months, sometimes let your baby drink from such a container as a test.
Only after the child has mastered the sippy cup, begin learning to drink from a cup.
Choose a cup that is bright, colorful, and light. It is desirable that it have two handles, like on a sippy cup. This way the baby will be more accustomed to holding it with both hands.
The child should like the new cup; choose one with the image of his favorite animal. Be sure to purchase only plastic cups good quality, because a child can drop it on the floor and break it. Check that the dishes are environmentally friendly.
How to teach a child to fall asleep independently at one year old
This is perhaps the most pressing problem of many parents. Child with early age very quickly he gets used to falling asleep next to his mother, but over time this develops into big problem. Firstly, the mother has a lot of things to do, and she wants to do them while the child sleeps on his own in his crib. Secondly, problems often arise in personal relationships between father and mother when a baby is constantly present on an adult bed.
What to do to teach children to be independent? An obstacle will be the lack of an additional rocking or calming object. This could be a pacifier or rocking by mom, holding hands or stroking the head, lying next to adults. Don't miss the moment when, when falling asleep, the baby spits out the pacifier or shows reluctance to be rocked, arching his back. These are the first signs that the baby is ready to fall asleep on his own.
You need to transfer him to his crib to sleep as early as possible. With age, this becomes more and more difficult to do. You can hold the baby's hand or pat him on the head, but he should lie in bed without first rocking him to sleep. It will take mom's patience, but judging by the reviews of many parents, the task is quite solvable.
Learning to dress independently
The best age for training is 2 years. More earlier baby shows a desire to take off his hat or tights. The desire to do the work independently arises only when the child has developed hand motor skills. If you followed our advice and taught your baby to eat, drink, and hold objects in his hand, you will quickly understand on your own.
It is from the age of 2 that the child shows a desire to do something without the help of an adult. During this period, parents should give him the opportunity to express himself, not rush him, not scold him for mistakes, but encourage independence in every possible way. To start, buy clothes that are loose, without complicated fastenings, for example, a T-shirt and sweatpants with an elastic band. At first, you can help the baby in word or deed. It stimulates competition well, especially if there are older children in the family.
First, let the child, getting up from the potty, put on his underpants and pants. It's easy to wear a hat without strings or comfortable slippers without fastenings. Then you can start putting on your pants. Choose good moments, for example, when the baby wants to go for a walk. If your child wants to wear his favorite item, give him the opportunity to choose.
Conclusion
By following the tips on how to teach a 2-year-old child to independently perform self-care processes, you can further develop in your child the ability to make decisions for himself and think, which will help him in learning at school. Start developing such an important skill from an early age, then your child will grow up proactive and independent.
As soon as the child enters first grade, mothers realize that they actually have to study with him. And the question of how to teach a child to cope with lessons on his own becomes urgent.
Strictly speaking, in the first grade nothing is asked and no grades are given. All homework is of a so-called “recommendatory” nature. But if you don’t complete them, you’ll instantly catch a sad emoticon and some other signature from the teacher that immediately becomes clear that you’ll have to do your homework.
Tasks for our parental view, also seem simple, but the baby is not yet able to do them himself with all concentration and accuracy. So we spend hours working on copybooks and mathematical warm-ups. If you want your child to steadily develop independent work skills by the second grade, and to begin fully studying on his own by the third grade, you need to work on this from the first grade. And this is as important as developing good handwriting or reading quickly.
So, what should you do to teach your child to learn?
Define areas of responsibility. The child must know that his lessons and his grades are his responsibility. “Mom said so,” “Dad wrote it wrong,” “I asked my grandmother, she nodded” - all this does not relieve him of responsibility for his studies. Because it is he who needs knowledge. Set your child up so that his studies are like his father’s work. It’s very important and very responsible; you don’t always want to, but in any case you have to.
Set aside regular time to do homework. Time for work - an hour for fun, this is just about homework that you don’t want to do, but you still need to do it, so it’s better to do it right away and then relax with a clear conscience. Over the first few months, the child will get used to sitting down to study right after lunch, and will not wait until the last minute.
Arrange workplace. It is often more convenient for the mother of a first-grader when the baby does his homework in the kitchen; at least while he is drawing the hooks in the copybook, the mother can peel potatoes or wash the dishes. But in reality, all this is very distracting, and the necessary items are not always at hand. The child must have a workplace. Sitting down at his desk, the child knows that now is not the time for games and pampering, he needs to concentrate. If he does his homework on his knees, it will be difficult for him to take it seriously.
The child must read the assignments himself and understand them. The vicious practice of many parents is to immediately read and explain on their fingers what is required of the little student. All he has to do is execute. It does a lot of harm educational process. The child begins to understand the meaning of what is written much later. Already in the second grade, when tests and independent work, he will spend too much time trying to figure out what they want from him, and inevitably get worse grades than he could. You need to help and explain when you can’t do without it. And then first it is better to ask how he himself understood the task.
Let your child try to complete the task independently. In copybooks, of course, you can do without a draft. But it’s better to do math problems, examples, and written reading answers on a piece of paper first. And then, together with you, we will analyze the errors and rewrite them into a clean version.
Don't scold your child for grades. A B or even a C received for a lesson that he did himself is his experience. But you definitely need to praise him for an A, say that he did a great job, and you are glad that his efforts were highly appreciated. No matter what anyone says, well-deserved praise is the best motivation to do everything perfectly.
Trust your child. Of course, you need to keep your finger on the pulse, but still he’s not such a fool, since he goes to school. The more tasks he completes on his own, the more responsible he is, unless, of course, he knows that the lessons will be checked and it is useless to cheat.
How to teach a child to do homework without nerves?
The reason for painful homework is not the children, but the parents. After all, we are in a hurry, we want to quickly finish this matter and move on to others. The best solution is to take your time. It’s easier to spend one day teaching a child to tie his own shoelaces than to do it for him later before the army! And I decided that we would do the first tasks slowly, as much time as it took for my son to understand the task and solve it.
I stocked up on patience and time in advance, and we started.
It is important for children to have clear boundaries. My son and I immediately agreed that we have a division of labor in our family. I am responsible for ensuring that in the morning he finds his school clothes clean and ironed, and he is responsible for ensuring that his lessons are learned and his schoolbag is packed. It's all fair: he doesn't do my job, and I don't do the job for him. The main thing at this point is not to violate the rules of the contract. If I promised it would be like this, then it should be like this. Give some slack and you will see that children will immediately take advantage of it.
Then the question arose about the process of doing homework itself. I do not have a pedagogical education and purely worldly wisdom I didn’t have time to make any progress on this issue - my first-grader is the eldest of my children. A saying helped me: “Give a man a fish and he will eat for a day; give him a fishing rod and teach him to fish, and he will be fed for the rest of his life.” This is exactly what I wanted for my son. So that he doesn’t learn one specific task to perfection, but so that he learns how to learn. On one's own. I decided that this was one of the most important skills that I should help him develop.
How to do it?
Don't let your child outsmart you!
I quickly realized that my child had a trick. He said: “I don’t understand.” And I explained the task. In fact, she chewed it and put the ready-made answer in her mouth. And he just wrote it down.
When I realized that this would always be the case, I began to ask him to read the assignment himself. To which I received the answer: “The text marked with a circle should be read by parents to their children!”
I began to explain that this was for those children who did not learn to read on their own before school. But he is talented, intelligent, and can easily handle such a task!
The main thing here is not to give in. If she said, you’re reading, then you’re reading! But don’t push with authority either. Speak softly, with humor, and kindly.
He read, I asked what they wanted from him in this task. He didn’t understand, I asked him to read it again, but more slowly. And this could happen 5 or 6 times. Then the son realized that the faster he solved the problem, the faster he would be free.
It is important to do this without pressure, without aggression, in a calm tone. It is necessary to encourage your child from the very beginning, emphasizing how proud you are of him. At the beginning, my son was afraid that he wouldn’t be able to cope, that it wouldn’t work out. Many times I calmly told my son that I love him just like that, simply because he is my child. And I will love my children equally strongly, whether they study at five or at three.
Such conversations eventually calmed my son down, and he began to try harder.
Difficulty with writing
I must say that he liked mathematics from the very beginning, but writing was his least favorite lesson. My son was completely unable to write. There were a lot of blots, cross-outs and mistakes. In this case, nothing helped, he stubbornly insisted that he would not be able to write beautifully, that he still couldn’t do it. This continued until I quite accidentally discovered another tricky trick. I told my son that the teacher recommends doing extra work at home, writing something else for practice, but I won’t give him additional tasks if he gets it right the first time. If the task is written once cleanly and correctly, additional tasks for today are canceled. If there are more than three blots and errors in the task, then the son does this exercise again until everything is as it should be. Here again I will clarify - if you promised to repeat the task if there were errors, then the task must be repeated. As soon as you break your part of the agreement, the child automatically believes that he can break his.
Another one good idea to make the children's work easier. You need to talk about your failures and difficulties in your studies when you were his age. I told my son that for a long time I had problems with handwriting and could not learn to write accurately. She said how upset she was when she watched others write beautifully, and thought that I would never be able to do the same. My son was interested to hear a story from my childhood. He asked questions, even empathized with me. And I continued to talk.
The main thing is to intrigue the child and include him in the game. I aroused interest when I talked about the secret of the competition: you need to compare your achievements with your own yesterday’s successes and failures. We opened the exercises that were done in September, and my son saw that compared to the first day, his letters were smoother and more beautiful. This inspired the child, he caught fire.
I also revealed to him the rule of one hundred. This rule says: “Do something a hundred times, and you will definitely succeed!”
Lessons like in a classroom
There are changes at home too. If a student studies for 30 minutes, he has every right to a break of 10 minutes. During this time, the child can watch a cartoon with his younger brother, play with construction sets, just lie around - do whatever his heart desires. If a son manages to complete two subjects during a lesson, he gets a big break. This rule speeds up homework and allows mom to clear her nerves so that she can continue to be friendly and patient. Checked!
Reading: the child does not learn his homework, what to do?
It just so happened that the son categorically refused to read. A couple of times we got into such a conflict that we had to force them and blackmail them. After that I felt uncomfortable myself.
The answer came by chance. We went to a bookstore and I told my son that he didn’t have to do his reading homework for two weeks. At all. But in exchange, he needs to choose the most interesting book in the store and read it for two weeks instead of reading assignments. The son agreed with great joy. To my surprise, the child chose a recipe book for children. Over the next two weeks, he read his book aloud to me, and we even chose the recipe he liked best and prepared the dish. After some time, the son began to read and do very well homework by reading independently.
This is how we live now - he does his homework in the order he wants, at the end he brings it to me for checking, I show him the mistakes, if any, and my son collects his briefcase. For the first two months it was difficult to introduce all these rules. But when the child got used to them and realized that they are unchanged in any case and it is in his interests to complete all tasks quickly and accurately, it became easy for me!
