Flexiblity-It's for Everyone!

From Amanda: Have you ever planned on waking up in the morning and having everything run smoothly. You set your alarm for 6:15am and start the coffee. While the coffee is brewing you might take a shower and get ready for your day. You plan on leaving the house no later than 8:30am as you have a 9:00am doctors appointment, or possibly some errands to run. Yes! You get into your car on time and you are on your way without delay.

But wait, what is that in the distance? It's traffic as far as the eye can see. Road construction. This isn't what you planned. Your morning was supposed to be perfect. It was planned that way. What are you going to do now?! There are choices here- You can either get yourself really upset because things didn't go as planned, or you can sit back, turn on your favorite radio station, sing, and enjoy life. This is an example of flexibilty.

As parents, volunteers, and child facilitators, we often prepare a theme to bring into the room in hopes our child will go for it.Sometimes, a great deal of time goes into preparing the theme, and other times it may involve a simple prop. We might have a specific idea in our heads as to the way the game will be played, so we present this idea to our little friends ,"just the way we imagined".

Let's pretend the idea you brought into the playroom was a birthday party. You built a cake out of cardboard boxes, made a Happy Birthday banner, and printed out invitations for all of your imaginary guests. As you present this to your child, he/she suddenly takes the cake apart and puts the boxes on their head as a hat, shreds the sign in an ism, or begins to use the invitations as plates for their favorite dollies. Wait a minute! That wasn't the plan!

Just as we have choices in a traffic jam, we also have choices in the playroom. Practice being flexible when things don't go the way you hd planned. Love yourself for trying! Be flexible with your childs ideas and learn not to be attached to your own. Go with what your child is motivated for. Love what your child is motivated for. Have fun with what your child is motivated for. Our children can often sence when we are uncomfortable and rigid, so if you are flexible, you will inspire your child to become flexible.

Some of the best times we have in life are the ones we least expect!

Love,Amanda