The Sunday Parenting Party

<center> <a href="http://www.tamingthegoblin.com/search/label/The%20Sunday%20Parenting%20Party"><img border="0" src="http://i.imgur.com/FJIJWl.jpg"/></a></center> Welcome to the second week of The Sunday Parenting Party. We had an amazing response in our first week with over 80 amazing posts linked up - Thank you. Please grab a button to display on your blog or post if you are linking up this week. This week I'm linking up the following: *****

(Goblin is 34 months) I have absolutely no child care qualifications but during my experiment into parenting I have discovered a few cool little tricks that for some inexplicable reason appear to work for us (OK they probably are 'explicable' by the experts). I'm not saying they will work for you, but you never know so I thought I'd share one - The ten count.  I have seen parents getting really cross and screaming in the park at their child, "If you don't come here by the time I count to three then we are going home". Then they count to three with escalating ferocity in their voice to emphasise how bad it will be for the child if they don't comply. The child often complies. So obviously this is an effective method for some. But I was looking for something that I could use before I get to the point of losing it. Also a count of three doesn't really give a child the time to process and decide whether to comply unless they do it through blind obedience (which is not something that exists in our house).  So we count in a slightly different way .... Goblin is doing something and enjoying it, but I want to move on. For example he might be mucking around at bed time when I want him to lie down so I can tuck him in, or he might be playing in a drain when we are trying to walk to the park. I don't wait until the activity has me so frazzled that I want to yell. Instead when I have decided that enough is enough and it will start to make me angry if I wait any longer, I start the ten count process. I say: "Goblin, I am counting to ten and then we need to move on" or "Goblin I am counting to ten and then you need to be lying down"  I don't state the consequence of not complying because I don't want it to sound like a threat. It is simply a fact that this is what needs to happen by the count of ten. Then I calmly count to ten. I try and keep my voice entirely free of stress and anger and focus on really slowly counting out the numbers. 

1. Count slowly
2. Count calmly
3. Count evenly (don't raise your voice or speed up as you get closer to ten)

Usually before I have reached the number ten Goblin has moved on. I say usually because if Goblin is really engrossed this trick simply won't work and then I have to resort to more direct methods like physically removing him (or in the case of bed time simply walking away).   Why does it work - I speculate that it works because:

1. Ten is long enough for the child to process the request and make a conscious decision to stop and move on
2. It gives the child enough time to carry on playing so that they don't lose face
3. It gives you enough time to figure out what you will do if you get to ten and they haven't stopped.

If you try this method please let me know how it works for you, and why you think it did or didn't - we can all practice our amateur psychology together! Features from last weeks Linky 

It was difficult to choose from so many great posts but I am featuring the following, if you haven't read them you really should:   Promoting Positive Behaviour by Play Dr Mom Getting my stuff together as a Parent by Picklebums 5 Things I wish I'd known before having kids by Mamas like Me 10 ways to stop Tantrums by Mess for Less The End Goals by Little Moments You guys can grab an "I was featured badge" from my blog buttons page.  And now to this weeks The Sunday Parenting Party Link up

Outings - Woodfest

(Goblin is 34 months)

Today we went to Woodfest in Hatfield Forest. Its a three day festival held in the middle of a forest with lots of wood carvers, pole lathers, ukelele players, head-dress makers, story tellers and lets face it, dreadlocked hippies.

There was some amazing wood based merchandise and Goblin set his sights on this wooden bulldozer which has a hinged bucket. Its such a beautiful piece that we couldn't resist buying it for him after he'd played with it on the stall for about half and hour.

The festival had an interesting combination of activities for kids, and potential kiddy death-traps with bill hooks, chainsaws and metal spikes just lying around! And with Goblin's propensity for hurtling at full speed while looking in the opposite direction I am quite amazed that he didn't impale himself on something. 

Taking full advantage of the crafts on offer, Goblin made a willow and tissue paper lantern with a little help from me, and a pipe cleaner dragonfly which he was particularly taken with because we'd seen loads of dragonflies just the other day.

But there were two main attractions for Goblin at Woodfest. The first was a quad bike being driven by one of the Forest rangers. He was letting the kids sit on it while he loaded the trailer with logs. Goblin was in total ecstasy at being allowed to sit on the vehicle. And I had to try and look knowledgable when he asked me what all the buttons were for - fortunately the ranger was there to explain to both of us.

The second major pull for Goblin was the forest its self. He loves playing in the woods and Hatfield forest is a big one. As you can see from the pictures he's not alone in his love of trees. 

And just when we thought it couldn't get any better Goblin ran into his best friend Elfin. We had been about to head home, but Goblin and Elfin have such fun together that we just had to stay.

All in all a great day!

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Really lazy craft - Cardboard Crocodile

(Goblin is 34 months)

I am essentially a lazy person so I am always on the look out for ideas that don't take much effort. And here is a great one - a cardboard crocodile for make-believe play. It combines two elements, crafts and pretend play, and requires very little parental effort. 

I cut out a cardboard crocodile shape using a big box, and set Goblin to work painting it. We used a brush to paint it green and then used bubble wrap to make yellow 'scales' - I know crocodiles don't have scales, this was artistic licence. And Goblin decided to also add some gold glitter paint, which worked quite well.

And when the crocodile was dry, we had a creature for Goblin to scare Hublet and myself with - Simples!

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Pizza, Pizza, Pizza

(Goblin is 34 months)

Last weekend we went to a BBQ with some good pals. We were all supposed to bring something and I wanted Goblin to contribute. So I decided we should make personal pizzas. Hublet has a bread maker and made some pizza dough for us (but you can buy it ready made in a can at teh supermarlet). I didn't realise how much dough rises and what started out as mini individual pizzas, once stretched a few tims and shaped, turned out to be quite big pizzas - In hind sight I could have split the dough bases: hind sight is always such a smart arse!

To make this Goblin accessible I laid out the bases on our 'cooking mat' (a giant blue plastic tarpaulin that we do all out kitchen activities on), and put all the toppings in bowls - this adds to the washing up but controls the amount of mess and destruction that Goblin can create (sort of).

First Goblin spread the Passata onto the bases, then he added cheese - he didn't quite get the idea of evenly sprinkling and went instead for piling and towering. He continued the piling approach for the mozzarella and artichoke hearts and I had to dive in and steal some from his pizza mountain to cover the other pizzas.

By the time we got to the chicken breasts Goblin had had enough and wandered off leaving me to finish up - so being quite a lazy soul I left a few vegetarian.

They went down well at the BBQ and I couldn't believe how much pride I got from telling the guys that Goblin made them himself - obviously I waited til they'd eaten them before telling them that my dribbling snot monster had cooked their food!

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Paralympic Blog Hop

Welcome to this Paralympic blog hop hosted by Taming the Goblin and Here Come the Girls. 

Today Hublet and I took Goblin to the Paralympics. It was our first chance to visit the Olympic park in Stratford, London. We both go past it on the train on our way to work in London but haven't actually set foot inside. My first impression - Its Massive! Its just so much bigger than I expected. From the train you see the Orbit tower and the stadium but that is just the tip of the iceberg, it goes back so far, there is a river running through it and some of the venues are a 20 minute walk from the station through the park! Think EuroDisney size.

We had tickets to watch the wheelchair basketball. We didn't hold out much hope for Goblin sitting still for long. The session ran from 11 - 3pm but we were anticipating maybe half an hour before we'd have to deal with a squirmy toddler. As it happens Goblin was really interested. After ten minutes of the warm up Goblin declared that wheelchair basketball was "really cool".

I couldn't agree more. The speed at which the athletes moved down the court and blocked each other was exhilarating. I have to put this in context by saying I don't watch any sport, I really don't care about sport at all, and yet I was so excited every time it looked like someone might score. For the first half of the match Columbia looked seriously outmatched. Despite having control of the ball a lot, every time they shot, they missed. By comparison Germany seemed to have the ball less often but scored nearly every time they attempted.

I noticed that each team had a mix of two types of players - Taller guys who looked able bodied from the torso up but had amputations of one or both legs. These guys were used as defence - towering over the other players they were able to block the balls that were thrown at the hoops. The other players mainly looked like they had lower body paralysis from birth judging by the muscle wastage on their legs. These guys as a result tended to sit much lower in their chairs and seemed to move faster. They tipped out less, possibly because they had a lower centre of gravity - and when they did tip out they righted themselves by flipping their chairs under them as they pushed up with super muscley arms. The taller guys seemed to struggle for longer to right their chairs possibly because their bottom halves weighed more? In any case whenever anyone tipped out I noticed players from both sides would glide by to check if the individual needed help. I really liked that camaraderie.

Eventually Goblin did have enough and started playing with his seat and accidentally kicking the poor woman infront of us, so we made a swift exit. This gave us an opportunity to explore the rest of the park. There is some incredible landscaping with meadow flowers and sculptured lawns

And the wonderful flowers attracted beautiful butterflies. Goblin was very taken with the place. But after seven hours of outing the day finally took its toll and he fell asleep on Hublet's shoulders while eating an ice-cream.

If you are in the UK and get a chance to visit the Olympic park I thoroughly recommend it. If not we have the next best thing - a Paralympic blog hop with fun activities to celebrate the sporting fortnight. If you have any Paralympic activities we'd love you to link them up below. And please display the Paralympic Blog Hop button either on the post or somewhere on your blog so that others can pop over and check out all the links. Thanks

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