The Sunday Parenting Party - Late to the screen free party

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Its time for the Sunday Parenting Party. Please link up any parenting posts you have. We try to keep this linky exclusively for parenting issues (anecdotes, advice, pleas for help, humour) so please don't link kids activities unless they are specific to a parenting issue - e.g. how to calm your child or how to deal with messy play fears. Thanks. This week I'm linking the following: 

***** (Goblin is nearly 4)

I have come a bit late to the table with this whole screen free thing. I like TV and I think kids can learn a lot from selective viewing of certain programmes (not whatever that bloody cartoon is that makes all 3 year old boys run around trying to "Hulk Smash" each other). But TV has crept into Goblin's day to the point where it is taking over, and displacing important other types of play and interaction. 
So as part of our change in routine to try and address Goblin's new phase of super aggressive histrionics, we have agreed to cut TV time right back. The first week of less TV went fine, Goblin didn't really ask for the TV. We replaced it with imaginary play and we started playing games at the dinner table. I broke out lots of sensory play stuff that we hadn't really used in a while and Goblin really settled back into playing all day rather than zoning out in front of the TV between outings. 
I noticed that the time spent in the mornings talking to each other as we played a game and ate breakfast really set us up well for the rest of the day. I'm not saying it was a miracle cure to the dramas, but in comparison to Goblin watching TV while I sit next to him on the sofa reading Facebook on my phone, this was certainly helping to connect us first thing in the morning. And that connection stayed through the day as we played together. 
But then he got ill. And thats when he just wanted to veg out, so the requests for TV time increased. We aren't stripping TV from his life completely so we tried to oblige, but the trouble is that every time we went to turn the TV off again we were met with a tantrum. Every time, without fail, even if I said "you will have no more TV today if you throw a tantrum" I'd still get the tantrum. It becomes easier not to have the TV on at all. 
But all these 'screen free' advocates don't warn you how much hard work it is entertaining a child with no TV at all. Especially because Goblin is at the point where he doesn't nap every day. So I have 13 hours to entertain him. Aaaagh!
Don't get me wrong, I'm not actually having to play with him every second. He is actually quite good at playing by himself for periods. Its just that normally we have a play date or go out somewhere on my day with Goblin. But since he has started nursery three full days a week he doesn't want to go out on his day with me, he wants to spend it at home playing ... with me. Its really very sweet. 
But by about 4pm today I was so desperate to turn the TV on (for my sake, not his). I didn't. Instead we did some "yoga" - Goblin style, and did some glueing and sticking, and played Candy land, and cooked dinner together, and did some painting, and built with Lego, and then went up to bed and read some books. Yeah, we did all those things between 4 and 7pm. Holy cow how am I going to keep this up!!!! ******* Some great reads from last weeks link up were Mommy meltdowns ~ Fireflies and mudpies  In the land of odd ~ Don't chew on the dinner table Dear babysitter, special needs does not mean all sweetness and light ~ My skewed view

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Welcome to The Sunday Parenting Party, hosted by Dirt and Boogers, Play Activities, Crayon Freckles, Taming the Goblin, The Golden Gleam, Prickly Mom, and The Tao of Poop. The SPP is place for readers to find ideas on nurturing, educating, and caring for children, as well as honest posts about the stresses of being a parent or caregiver. Links to reviews and giveaways are welcome as long as they are relevant to the topic. All parenting philosophies are welcome with one exception: please do not link to posts promoting physical discipline, as this is something we would feel uncomfortable having on our blogs. (P.S. By linking up you agree that your post and photos are Pinterest, Sulia, G+ and FB friendly. We will be showcasing ideas on The Sunday Parenting Party Pinterest board.)

Thwarted by child led learning

(Goblin is 22 months)

Today I woke up with great plans. I was going to teach Goblin the colour green. I have been trying sporadically to teach him his colours since he was about 18 months. I think colour is a tricky concept because its quite abstract. Where as you can learn "this is a tractor", "this is a dog",  colour is much more complicated "this is a red tractor" but "this is a blue tractor" - Confusing huh! 

Last month I bought a laminator and I made some colour matching cards. I started with random pictures but soon realised that Goblin is more interested if it includes vehicles. So I made a tractor colour matching card - can you spot what I did wrong?

Yes that's right I used different tractors for each colour. There I was thinking my child was a genius because the first time I showed it to him he matched every tractor straight away. "Colours learned" I  thought - Stupid Monko. He didn't know the colours, he was matching the different shapes. Once I realised this I went back to the drawing board and made one tractor in several different colours. 

He found these much harder to match - which I find fascinating - I guess its because rather than having several visual cues he only has the one, colour. Anyway despite his tractor matching he still doesn't have a clue about colours. Hence my decision to go for it today.

So my plan was to start with some generic colour matching and then focus on the colour green by doing a colour hunt. 

A while ago I bought some coloured clothes pegs in hobby craft. I had been wondering how best to use them. Last night I made some cardboard disks in the colours that matched the pegs. So my plan was to get Goblin to stick the pegs onto the right disks - colour matching and fine motor skills. 

As you can see from the photo there is no Goblin to be seen. That is because he simply wasn't interested. He walked off about two seconds after I got this off the shelf. 

All he wanted to do was play with his stickers. But I had planned for this and moved onto my next activity. A colour hunt. To incorporate his love of stickers I gave him a sheet of green stickers. Then I excitedly ran round the room finding green things for him to stick the stickers on.  And I collected them in a green laundry basket. 

Oh look - no Goblin. You guessed it, he wasn't interested. 

Probably a while before I got to this point, if Hublet had been home he would have told me to stop being a crazy woman. But with him at work it took me a while longer to realise I needed to throw in the towel. I finally remembered a useful Montessori principle - child led learning. A child will learn best if they choose the activity rather than you imposing it on them. So I stopped my ridiculous attempts to get him to learn the colour green. Instead we settled down to play stickers. All was not entirely lost as his sticker books have lorry's in all different colours so I was able to tell him the colour of each sticker he chose. 

And after Goblin got bored with stickers - which takes a lot longer than me getting bored - we played with his fire engines. And I took the opportunity to show him which was biggest and which was smallest. Hopefully some of this stuff sinks in. 

And for those of you who think I pack every minute with activities you will be glad to hear we also watched quite a bit of TV this morning. Goblin loves "Something Special". For those of you who don't know it, Something Special (on ceebeebies) is a programme for young kids and kids with special needs. It features Justin, and Mr Tumble (the same person dressed up as a clown). Justin goes on little adventures with his friends who are usually disabled children. Mr Tumble sends Justin a spotty bag with three pictures of special things for them to look out for. And Justin teaches us the sign language for the items. Goblin gets very excited when they do the magic to send the bag ("take your finger, touch your nose, blink three times and off it goes"). He touches his nose and then looks round to make sure I am doing it too - so I can't get away with checking facebook on my phone while he's watching this one. He has also started copying some of the signs. We did some baby signing when he was younger and this is a really lovely extension of that. We record the programme every day, so this morning we watch about three of them back to back. I don't feel too guilt because I sit with him and talk to him about what they are doing on the show. Maybe Mr Tumble can teach Goblin his colours!