Cost Effective Home-made Baby Food

In our family, raising a baby is a team-sport! Naturally, when my first granddaughter recently reached the age where she was ready to be introduced to solids, we all took notice.

Staying within the framework of “natural, cost-effective and time-effective” seemed the sensible route to follow. We bought some veggies, steamed them, let them cool and ran them through the food processor. We scooped a few teaspoons full into a number of silicone cupcake holders, placed a piece of wax paper on top of each to keep it clean and packed them into the freezer. It was easy to pop the veggie-cubes out once they were frozen, as silicone is naturally flexible and it peels off the sides of the cubes easily.

It may be necessary to introduce a new taste and texture as many as 10 to 15 times before a baby accepts it and starts to actually swallow to the extend that one may call the experience “eating”. Many parents translate the perplexed look on their baby’s face when he tastes something new as a sign that he doesn’t really care for that kind of food. As a result, they give up far too soon. Who can blame them, considering the price tag that typically comes along with every experimental session?

It’s so much easier to defrost only a few teaspoons of the healthy good stuff when you need it.

The three biggest benefits of preparing food in this way are:

• You can control what goes into it.
• You can control the texture – serving everything 100% smooth is not ideal as you want to introduce texture as well.
• You can convert a 1 Kg pack of carrots into 18 servings. That comes to 45c per serving if you paid R8.00 for your carrots at a typical supermarket in South Africa.

I suspect that many other mothers and grandmothers must have thought of this before, but in case you haven’t – I hope this helps.

Best wishes! Lizette van Huyssteen

Written by Lizette van Huyssteen

"When we know better... we do better."

The Magic Word that Motivates a Child to Help

Assigning age-appropriate chores that impart important lessons, is important. Not only do children get to experience their world on a sensory level as they help around the house; they also develop a better working memory as they need to recall steps and attend to detail. They learn to deal with proverbial curve balls and practise managing their behaviour and emotions. In reality, in our digital age, where many children seldom spend time playing with dirt and stones, picking up toys and helping to sort the laundry may be as close as they come to spending time in the real world.

What if your little apprentice isn’t keen on getting involved? Well, there is a magic word that may make a difference, and it isn’t “please”. The word is “helper”. Researchers from the University of California in San Diego report that 3 to 6 year olds are far more likely to get involved in chores when the adult in charge mentioned earlier on that “some children choose to be helpers”.

For this particular study, 150 children from a variety of backgrounds were divided into two groups. Both groups were given the opportunity to play with toys and were presented with four opportunities where they could stop playing and help pick up a mess, open a container, put away toys, and pick up crayons that spilled on the floor.

The only difference between the two groups was in what the researchers said to them before they started to play. Children, who had heard that “some children choose to help,” acted no differently than typical children of that age do when they are confronted with a chore. However, children who had been told that “some children choose to be helpers,” responded differently. They were significantly more likely to lend a helping hand when the opportunity arose. In fact, they seemed to be keen to take on the identity of helpers and ended up acting like real little contributors.

This serves to demonstrate just how easy it is to shape a child’s identity. It emphasizes how keen children are to pursue a positive identity and how much there is to gain from choosing our words wisely.

Read more about the study: Christopher J. Bryan, Allison Master, Gregory M. Walton. “Helping” Versus “Being a Helper”: Invoking the Self to Increase Helping in Young Children. Child Development, 2014; DOI: 10.1111/cdev.12244

Written by Lizette van Huyssteen

"When we know better... we do better."

"Wherever you are, be all there." ~Jim Elliot.

It seems as if little children were deliberately put together in such a way that everything about them slows adults down. Why is that?

Well, the obvious reason is that they develop better when the important adults in their lives are not only in the room, but also in the moment. The more we talk with them and help to interpret their experiences for them, the more they learn.

Adults also benefit. Slowing down may not seem like a blessing at first, but children make adults spend time on many things that would otherwise mostly go by unnoticed. Then, years later, many older people look back and realize that those little things were really the big things.

As Angela Schwindt once said, "While we are teaching our children all about life, they are teaching us what life is all about."

Best wishes for the holiday season!

Why did I DO that?

"Why did you grab that toy? Why did you hit your sister? Why is there spaghetti in your hair?"

We ask toddlers these questions and they never come up with an answer. Why? Because they live in the moment. Their brains aren't wired to the point where they can think about their own thinking.

This ability develops over time. By the time he's about 4-5 years old, your child will be able to think and talk about his thoughts and explain why he did something. He'll even be able to imagine what other people are thinking and put himself in their shoes.

That's when parents and children can (and should) have a lot of fun talking about why a child likes this or that and why he chooses one thing and not the other. You can even ask your 4 year old's opinion about house rules!

Toddlers, on the other hand, simply experiment with all kinds of behaviours. As they do things over and over again, and important adults in their lives consistently respond either positively or negatively, they learn about certain behaviours being either acceptable or unacceptable.

So, for now, asking your toddler to explain himself only serves to overwhelm him. And, depending on your tone of voice, the message that you're sending may very well be: "You clearly weren't THINKING when you did that! I cannot believe how STUPID you are!"

"When we know better... we do better."

Everyday may not be a good day, but ...

Today, only hours after the passing of Mr. Nelson Mandela, we can look back on what he stood for and learn so much. If we learn nothing else, let's take from his example that forgiveness is a gift that we give not only to ourselves, but also to our children.

We live in a broken world. The choices we make about whether or not to forgive people who wronged us in the past can either marinate our children in bitterness as they spend their childhood in our homes, or give them light and hope and a future. Let's, like the father of our Rainbow Nation, choose freedom. 

"When we know better... we do better"

Why you should not tell your toddler to "Stop crying!"

Psychologist Debbie Glasser advises parents not to say “Stop crying” or “Don’t be scared” when dealing with their toddlers. She says, “It's natural to want to protect a child from these feelings, but saying 'Don't be' doesn't make a child feel better, and it also can send the message that his emotions aren't valid - that it's not okay to be sad or scared."

We at Practica would like to add to this: when you give an instruction to your child that involves his body, such as: “Don’t touch the hot stove”, your toddler has a choice between two actions. He can either touch the stove, or not. Both these options are within his control.

On the other hand, when it comes to feelings, a toddler really doesn’t have a choice other than to give in to the emotion.

Your toddler is still in the process of learning other ways of dealing with intense feelings.

Interestingly, the way your toddler will learn how to soothe himself and deal with his own emotions in a more mature way is being shaped by the way that YOU deal with his big feelings now! When you soothe him, he learns to self-soothe and your compassion teaches him self-compassion.

In other words, when you say “Stop crying!” you are asking your child to do something that is developmentally still beyond his ability. When you treat his feelings as natural, soothe and hold him, and validate his feelings, you are modelling to him how to do these things for himself one day.

Before you know it your child won’t be a toddler any longer and he will be able to deal with big feelings in more mature ways.

NOTE: We are not saying that all crying is equal! This only applies to situations where a toddler has a valid reason for crying, e.g. when he is scared, frustrated, over-tired or angry to the point where he is overwhelmed by his emotions. It doesn’t apply to situations where your child is using crying to manipulate you and get his way. Read about the two kinds of tantrums here

Words: Lizette van Huyssteen

When we know better... we do better

A few tips from Lizette - 5 Things I have learnt over the years about disciplining children

“A true hero is not someone who thinks about doing what is right, but one that simply does what is right without thinking!” -Kevin Heath 

With this in mind, I thought I’d share five things that I have learnt over the years about disciplining children:

1. Be the kind of person that you want your child to become. Your child learns far more from your example (what you do) than from your convictions(how you tell them to behave and what you say you believe).

2. Ask advice. You may think you know how to raise your child because you were a child once. You don’t. You and your child most likely share a different combination of temperaments compared to what you've shared with your own parents. More importantly, you are raising a child in a totally different time. Your child is exposed to so much more than you were when you were his age. If you think it was difficult finding ‘True North’ when you were a child and a teenager, imagine how difficult it’s going to be for your child to find it living in a time where there are hundreds of different maps. Parenting isn't as simple as it used to be. Get help.

3. Invest time in training. Never tire of setting up situations where you can use positive and negative consequences to help shape your child’s thoughts, habits and character. Make the most of every opportunity. There’s no other way. No short cut. Just do it.

4. Laugh a lot. Don’t laugh when your child does something that is unacceptable – it confuses them. Don’t make jokes at their expense and never laugh at your child when he is embarrassed. At any other time, make jokes – even when you don’t really feel like it. Keep things light. If needed, Google “jokes for children”, jot a few lines down on paper and keep the notes in your handbag. See laughter as sunlight and discipline as water. Together they make things grow. It’s amazing how much easier it is for a child to be corrected by a parent that he even more often shares a laugh with.

5. Recognize that you are shaping both a heart and a relationship. In the end you will be able to count yourself successful if you end up with two things: (1) an adult child who knows his way when he gets to a fork in the road, and mostly simply does what is right without thinking and (2) an adult child who wants to spend time with you because he respects you and values your opinion. Don’t be weak. Don’t be lazy. You are in a race against time. Your child doesn't need another friend. He needs a parent.

With love,
Lizette van Huyssteen
Founder of the Practica Program

When we know better... we do better