Conscious Discipline: The Art and Necessity of Wishing Well
What is “Wishing well” and how is it helpful day to day?
Wishing well is a way to instantly calm ourselves, and offer love and caring to others.
It is in our very building blocks to be helpful. When others are upset we want to make it better, but do not often have the tools to do so!
“Wishing Well” is a way for children to help others when there is no tangible way to offer their help.
To wish well:
1) Put your hands over your heart.
2) Take a deep breath in.
3) Pause and picture something precious in your mind
4) breathe out while opening your arms and sending those precious, loving thoughts out to the person you are wishing well.
The Wish Well Board is used for the class-wide Wish Well Ritual that you can also utilize at home. When a child is absent, moving to another school, has arrived late or is in need of support for other reasons, place the child’s picture or name in the heart inside your Wish Well Board. At home, you can “wish well” those whom you miss, who are sick, who are experiencing big events (tests, new jobs, tryouts, a new home, a new school, or a new baby arriving), and anyone who seems to be struggling.
During your Wish Well Ritual a song can be key to making connections with the other people in your group and cementing the good feelings into the wish! Conscious Discipline has songs like “We Wish You Well” on Songs for I Love You Rituals Volume 2 or “I Wish You Well” on It Starts in the Heart (in English and Spanish).
You may purchase a Wish Well Board, or create your own using a magnetic cookie sheet and magnets or foam board and velcro.
How to Use Wish Well in the Elementary Age Bedroom
Life can be complicated, families and friends can be separated by vast distances, and personal struggles abound. Yet, there is always something we can do to demonstrate our loving concern and connect with those we care for: We can wish them well. The Wish Well Board provides a visual way to aid children in wishing others well and helps adults remember to take a quiet moment, too.
Families can use the Wish Well Board from Conscious Discipline or a homemade one. Wishing well generates an internal cascade of feel-good neurochemicals and hormones that boost positive feelings.
Your Wish Well Ritual is easily incorporated into your morning routine as part of a Brain Smart way to start the day, but some children will also benefit from a personal Wish Well Board or routine in their rooms. This enables them to “visit” with the photos of loved ones and offer loving wish wells privately as well as in a group setting with the whole family.
From the bottoms of our hearts, we wish you well! Have a wonderful day!
Your CG Family
Concerned Parent -- Kindergarten Readiness
My daughter is a “young five.” This means that she just made the cut off for Kindergarten the year she turned five. While she is quite precocious and has a great love of learning, I was hesitant to put her into kindergarten simply because being socially and emotionally confident is just as important as being intellectually ready. Fortunately, I have had her in the incredible preschool program at Common Ground Childcare. Their play-based learning style and patient, nurturing teachers helped her really blossom into the confident student she is.
Unfortunately, she turned five during the Covid-19 pandemic.
I am a teacher, too. I have taught four and five year olds, and I know just how much these littles can change in a season. I had quite a few “young fives” in my classroom that I would have advised holding back if asked in March, only to see them blossom by summer.
Our little fours and fives of 2020 didn’t have that essential March to June nurturing period to hone their pre-kindergarten skills. They did not have the summer to tumble and play with their peers so that they would be resilient and self-assured come September. They are “young” in their classes, and it shows.
Fortunately, with the arrival of the Covid-19 vaccine we are going to be seeing a new, more familiar “normal.” The one, two, and young three year olds will likely not even feel that “pause” on their lives.
BUT…
I am so worried about the three and four year olds of 2020. What essential life lessons are they missing out on? My students absorb so much during these years, more than they ever will again, I just wonder how long it will take to catch up on those key childhood skills, especially because it is likely that kindergarteners will still be in a hybrid class system September 2021. This usually fun, joyous experience is now so disjointed and uncertain.
Resourceful parents have turned to online worksheets and apps to help catch up on pre-literacy and early number-sense exercises. There are a lot of inventive games and learning programs that do have an overall positive SUPPLEMENTAL effect on a children’s education. They are not meant to do the heavy lifting on a child’s education.
Even without COVID-19 ravaging our normal schedules, 1 in 12 kids are as fit as the average child 35 years ago. Attention spans are suffering under a sedentary education style. Sensory training, emotional regulation, physical stability, these are as key to learning as letters and numbers, and much harder to master after age 5. There is no substitute for peer to peer social training and whole body lessons with trained childcare professionals.
If any of you out there have kids that will be kindergarteners in 2021 that aren’t in a dedicated program with their peers, I would strongly advise you to consider a rising kindergarten program.
There are excellent classes around, like the Honeybees Program at Common Ground Childcare, that strictly follow Health Department regulations to protect their teachers and children from the pandemic, while still letting the kids be kids. Common Ground teachers are also preparing for that “new normal” by helping their students learn appropriate mask-discipline and basic tech usage for when they have to distance-learn.
I think it is essential that all kids have a safe preschool experience that helps them be confident and kindergarten-ready. If a child really is not ready for kindergarten, there is nothing wrong with holding them back! But even if you decide to keep them out of grade school for another year, I would still keep them in a play-based curriculum in their peers. They will go into kindergarten as a much stronger, confident kid.
-Miss LJ
Holiday Events: Creative Tradition Twists and New Classics
The holidays are a time of giving. It is a time when we reflect on other’s needs, how we can show them we value their happiness over our own.
This holiday season we are encouraging you to find creative and lovely ways to celebrate that protects the health and happiness of those around you.
Is it hard? Absolutely. When we are tired and overstressed from a long and anxiety-inducing year, it can be hard to be creative and come up with new and exciting traditions.
Is it disappointing? In some very real ways! Not being able to see our grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins, etc. all around the same table is disappointing. I miss the big family rip-a-thon where we all pass over presents, knocking over each others’ hot ciders and laughing at “A Christmas Story” for the 100th time. I miss being crammed on Grandma’s old brown couch, that same green, orange, and brown quilt that is in every grandma’s house thrown over our legs. We all have dinners we are trying to justify, trips we are trying to make work, events that seem un-skippable.
Is it worth it? Yes.
Yes it is. It is worth protecting your loved ones every time. It is worth losing one year to have another decade or three of holidays ahead of you.
On December 9th the governor of Virginia implored his citizens to “use common sense” when considering any activity outside of the house.
While we do not have a policy, the health department recommends that you quarantine for 14 days both before and after travel.
That is Five Weeks away from daycare for your kids for one week of travel. There are much better ways to celebrate!
Need some ideas?
We are happy to share, and we ask that you share your ideas too! But here are some suggestions we have come up with here at Common Ground.
1. Ugly Ornament Exchange — Ship the silliest, whackiest, ugliest ornament to each other you can find. Make them personal, make them heartwarming, make them ridiculous. Then pick a day when you all sign onto Zoom and share them with each other! Vote on the absolute winner of the contest, and then the giver can REVEAL themselves the victor!
2. Group Decoration — If you’re local, pick someone’s front yard to have a tree. bring ornaments to decorate that tree together. Have the person who’s house it is post up photos as more and more ornaments get added.
3. Hanukkah Lights — Each night have someone else light the candles and lead the prayer over zoom! If you live close by you can also have one person each night make a dish for everyone and drop it off. If you don’t, or if this isn’t practical, you can also just show what you’re eating.
4. Dreidel Games — you can definitely play dreidel over zoom, discord, or anything where you can see each other!
5. Disney + has a feature where you can watch together called GroupWatch where you can all stream together at the same time! Watch your favorite holiday movies together.
6. Drive Through Holiday light shows have always been a huge tradition in my family. Check out THIS LINK for all of the safe drive-through light shows near you! You can also drive through your neighborhood with popcorn, a happy audiobook, or holiday music playing while you admire the lights.
7. Writing Letters — Let’s revive an old tradition as a new tradition. Handwriting Letters with drawings and words of affirmation has always been a way to show love from far away. There has never been a more appropriate time to do this. Make sure to pick up unique and lovely address labels from our MABELS LABELS fundraiser!!
8. Group Activity — My friends and I do the same themed party every year. This year we prepared goodie bags with paper plates and cups, stickers, party snacks, and party drinks all on theme for that party, dropped them off at everyone’s houses, and we will all be signing into discord together to be “together” anyway! It took a couple of hours of driving, but it is worth it to see everyone’s smiles.
9. Group Album — Create an online album where you all share your pictures and videos with each other. You can send each other video notes, share your #BakingFails, show off your decorations, and sing carols at various volumes. At the end of the year you can make a montage to show how you were all really together, even apart.
PLEASE share some of your new traditions and twists on old favorites! We are happy to post them all. Any way we can help make this holiday season amazing, we are willing to try!
Much Much Love,
LJ and the Common Ground Family
Non-Screen Life: Training your Inner Ear
Hey everybody! We are here to talk to you about:
PLAYING OUTSIDE!
GETTING DIRTY!
Finding that SAFE DANGER!
We know with the pandemic, 2020 has been a year of hand sanitizer and indoor quarantine. But it has also been a year of finding your own fun! Going into the woods and rolling down hills. Climbing trees and hanging upside down. Going out in fields and spinning like tops.
According to Pediatric Occupational Therapist Angela Hanscom, not only are these things incredible for attention and sensory issues, they are a KEY ROLE in developing The Vestibular System. This is the system our bodies use to know where we are in space! It is even more important than it sounds. Without serious play, children are more frail, more clumsy, less able to pay attention, and much more likely to struggle with emotional regulation.
Our children spend a long time sitting upright with little movement. Help them train their inner ears by:
Going Upside Down
Rolling Down Hills
Spinning In Circles (10x in each direction ought to do it… with hilarious results)
Climbing Trees
Jumping off Swings
Tossing them in the air
Sliding down slides on their bellies
Teachers and Parents should be life guards in play rather than consistent active participants. We want to ensure the children are safe and healthy, but too much structure and restriction has been shown to be detrimental! Let the kids fall. The dirt can offer so many essential lessons to growing up healthy!
We will be posting more on the benefits of outdoor play here so keep your eyes out! In the meantime, go have fun and WORK THOSE EARS!
For more on Angela Hanscom’s research and Timbernook Program, click here!
Common Ground is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for sites to earn advertising fees by advertising and linking to Amazon.com.