#Redfored and Doing It All Over
My grandson has brought energy into our lives since the day he was born. This little man is 4 1/2 years old, as he will tell you. He is so bright and inquisitive and, also, a very strong personality. I am helping raise him in a village along with my husband of 37 years and our daughter (his mom) who lives with us. She has a myriad of medical issues that makes it almost impossible for her to do this on her own. So, here we are …a modern-day village. He is so darned cute but at the same time a little pistol. He is almost to public school age. As a teacher, previously, in public school, I know how important it is to have good teachers. But ladies and gentlemen, you can’t get good people to do good work without giving them something to live on. Ours is just in preschool and they, also, are not paid enough for the important work they do.
Being a teacher and living in Arizona, I have been supportive of the #redfored campaign for teachers to get support from our state government. While I am not trying to stand on a political pedestal here, I do want to say that our teachers NEED to be supported. Education is so crucial. As we are starting along the path to our grandson’s education, we were lucky to find an amazing preschool for him where the teachers are just fantastic and caring. I had once thought, when I was starting my family eons ago, that kids didn’t need preschool but I feel now that isn’t true. With parents frequently both working, having a great daycare/preschool is so important. Even if one parent is a full-time parent it is so socially important for kids to learn how to function in the world we have today.
One of the recent articles I have seen about children and education is that kids benefit so much from having a good preschool experience.
Did you know that 90% of a child’s brain develops before kindergarten?
A quality preschool can insure that your child has:
an increased chance of completing high school and college
forge a decrease in teenage parenthood, welfare dependence and arrest
They learn to be part of a society by learning empathy, communication, cooperation, resilience, and self-regulation.
They learn to be curious and search for answers.
They learn the value of respect and are exposed to diversity.
I know from our experience that our guy has learned to be a better little person by having to move through the world of other children. Has it always been easy? Heck, no! We have had many little bumps along the way but from each “trial” he learns a new lesson and we have seen such growth of his empathy with others and communication skills and acceptance of others’ differences. Thank you to those teachers who choose to work with the littlest ones of ours.
Funny story time:
So, we have been working with him for ages about ways to cope when he gets frustrated with someone or something. (hard lessons). Anyway, he was at school and they have also been talking about feelings like anger and sadness and ways to cope. One of his little friends and him were playing with Legos. There was another little child that was having a tantrum for some reason that had to do with the Legos. They took their Legos over to his teacher and she asked, “What happened?” our little guy (talking with his hands very expressively) stated that “Well, we were playing, and he tried to take our Legos and that’s when I just screamed into my pillow!” Oh my! She just about died laughing.
Kids!
Send me a note and I will try to answer back asap!!
Musically yours,
Colleen
Contact me at: taketimetolivelife@outlook.com