“Soon it was time for Jakie to play in his play pen, so Josiah and I got to play together. Next thing I knew, we were in trouble! Mommy came into the room and said that it looked like a tornado went through. We did it again! We got too many things out at one time. We had stuff all over the living room: Legos, cars and trucks, Duplo people, books, and stuffed animals. It took us FOREVER to clean it up---even with Kara’s help. Josiah and I had to each do an extra fifteen minute chore with Mommy because we forgot the rule about getting out too many things at one time. “
Jakie went to his playpen, and the two preschoolers went to their room to play. Recipe for disaster or thirty minutes for Mom to get something done—and thirty minutes of focused activity time for the littles? Well, you can see that Jonathan and Josiah had a little trouble with getting too many things out at one time, so I won’t act as though room time and/or play pen time is always a breeze, but I will share what I think are the benefits of such times in a toddler’s/preschooler’s day—and tomorrow I will share a few how-to’s for those who desire to learn how to implement these times in your littles’ schedule.
First, the benefits of having a daily (as much as possible) room time or play pen time:
1. Increase in focusing skills—Preschoolers are busy people! Add to their “busy-ness” all of the technological distractions, and it becomes obvious why attention spans of children seem to be getting shorter and shorter. According to Dimitri Christakis, a pediatrician at Children’s Hospital and Regional Medical Center in Seattle who studied 1,300 toddlers and preschoolers using a television survey and comparing that to a behavior checklist, frequent TV viewers in early childhood were most likely to score in the highest ten percent for concentration problems, impulsiveness, and restlessness. His survey went on to show that every added hour of watching TV increased a child’s odds of having attention problems by about ten percent. Kids watching about three hours a day were thirty percent more likely to have attention/focusing trouble than those who did not watch television. (This survey also accounted for many other factors besides television that could be linked to problems concentrating; however, the television connection continued.)
We tried to build extensive attention spans in our children at young ages (as much as it was in their control!). We did this through many means discussed on this blog—limiting electronic stimuli, reading aloud to them, providing daily audio listening time, maintaining a schedule that is conducive to learning and healthy intellectual development, exposing them to a variety of activities—AND instituting room time/play pen time for them. When children are given one activity (or a few choices) to do in a small space (without distractions and other choices), they can actually do the hard work of concentrating. (See future posts for the link between this and natural readers from a graduate school study I did many years ago!)
2. Builds many preschool skills naturally—we had a loose family policy that, even though we homeschool, we would not teach anything formally to our young children that could be taught informally. This meant that we would not use workbooks day in and day out to teach letter recognition; we would just use signs along the road and on stores. This meant that we would not have our littles complete worksheets matching the letter to the picture of the beginning sound—but we would instead point out letters and sounds everywhere—as we read aloud to them, as we drove…as we “were in the way with them”! If we offer educational activities for our littles during room time/play pen time, we give them opportunities to learn naturally and at their speed. This can be done through puzzles, blocks, book and tape sets, matching activities, beads, etc. etc. (I will provide links for some suggested activities tomorrow.)
3. Provide a small amount of time for Mom to get something else done—room time, when carried out consistently and followed through on as needed, can give Mom thirty to sixty minutes to get other things done, knowing that her littles are safe, learning, and contained! I always used room time for the second-most Mom-intensive thing on my agenda that day. (The most Mom-intensive things were reserved for nap times.)
Now that you know a couple of the benefits that we found to room time/play pen time, stay with us tomorrow as I share tips on implementing this beneficial time in the life of your little ones.
*For the complete story of “Jonathan’s Journal, follow this link: http://positiveparenting3-6-5.blogspot.com/2010/03/day-seventy-eight-introducing-jonathans.html
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