This week our Self-Love tips will focus on attention. How do we become fully present to the tasks at hand while feeling completely overwhelmed with all of these tasks!? Our parenting tips will focus on strategies for limiting screen time. Ten weeks in, and with summer on the horizon, now is a good time to re-evaluate and perhaps set some new boundaries and expectations around screen time. Our activities this week will encourage independent play and continue to hit on a curriculum area for each day of the week!
SELF-LOVE:
“What we pay attention to is no trivial matter. We are what we attend to.” -psychologist, Mihaly Csikszentmihaly.
Right now, there seems to be a lot of things competing for my attention. Whether it’s the news feeds, social media feeds, text threads, work emails, household tasks or the needs of my three beautiful children. When I think about this concept of what I attend to, I become, it helps me focus on the important things and have other things blur into the background. Try turning off the newsfeed or social media feeds on your phone settings for a couple days and just notice how what you pay attention to effects your mindset.
PARENTING TIP:
The first few weeks many parents found an unlimited or a big increase in screen time was needed to get them through the transition. Now that we are 10 weeks in and looking for ways to set up practices for the summer this might be a good time to re-evaluate. The best way to start limiting screen time is to set up a schedule. It’s OK if this changes day to do based on your schedule needs. Write this down for your child along with what will come before and after. When they ask for screen time, refer to the schedule. The best way to limit screen time is to stop allowing screens “on demand."
INDOOR ACTIVITY:
(Social Emotional) A secret, little hideaway. Help your child make their own little corner in their room, closet, or any other little nook that can be their own safe spot to go to when they need alone time. Ask them to chose special toys or activities to bring to their cozy cave. This can help with the child who is reluctant to be alone, to the child who is maybe needing some time away from siblings but doesn’t know how to get it. It can also be used as a tool to help with self-regulation/alternative to timeout as we discuss in our Positive Discipline course that hint starts this week! More info here.
OUTDOOR ACTIVITY:
Bingo daubers - A tried and true toddler favorite. Cut up some delivery boxes and watch the magic happen. Washable and reusable ones exist if you search online!