Kids are sponges. We hear it all the time.
“They will repeat everything you say!”
“They learn even when they don’t seem like they are listening.”
As a teacher, I had lots of plans for teaching my daughter when she was born. I had dreams of us reading together, doing crafts and science experiments, and learning new things. I read to her while I was pregnant and built up her library. On the night she came home from the hospital, I read to her out of the same book that my parents read to me on my first night. After that, I realized I didn’t have many plans for teaching her until she was older!
Teaching your kids to brush their teeth can sometimes be a struggle. My daughter has gone through stages of loving to brush her teeth, and also hating it. At her first visit to the dentist, he told me that we would need to floss her bottom teeth because they were very close together. After a few failed attempts, she suddenly loves to floss them on her own! By making it a fun game, she took over the activity herself, and actually enjoys it. Using a fun story and imaginative characters is a great way to get kids interested in dental health. It can also help them to understand the importance of proper dental hygiene. I was thrilled when I found this awesome company which does just that. And we had a lot of fun creating these dental health activities for kids!
I am a firm believer that learning opportunities can be found anywhere. My parents often used every day situations to teach my sister and I various lessons and skills that would be helpful to us in our lives. While driving home from places, my mother would encourage us to give her directions home. When we would go on walks, they would encourage us to point out familiar things and name them. All of these lessons helped my sister and I to become avid readers and learners. I am starting to do the same with my daughter, and she is already eager to learn from the world around her.Shopping is one of the tasks which my daughter and I do together that affords us lots of fun learning opportunities. We have been learning and reading at the grocery store since she was a few months old.
Summer is here which means it is time to get outside and play! We have been spending as much time as possible out in the sun and my daughter has a newfound fascination with chalk. There are so many ways to use 
Raising kids in a digital age comes with a whole new set of difficulties. From managing screen time to monitoring what kids have access to, parenting with screens can be a difficult balance. While screens may be part of our everyday lives, and access to them is more prevalent than ever before, it is important that we remember to put down the electronics and enjoy the hear and now. We all fall into the trap of viewing important events through our screens, since we want to capture every adorable second. Corine Dehghanpisheh’s book #BabyLove: My Toddler Life, reminds us to put down the phones and enjoy the moment!
