Sequence Cards* http://www.lakeshorelearning.com/product/productDet.jsp;jsessionid=PGNhxm1v8Ch2TpnnyxrXX1Ls2ggLTmvgLyXvVhD5J1JF1LWMHGtf!-2074226025!-769277136?productItemID=1%2C689%2C949%2C371%2C919%2C061&ASSORTMENT%3C%3East_id=1408474395181113&bmUID=1330023930245 

Crazy Directions game* – Start with two step then move on to three and four step directions.  Make it fun.  A three step direction might be “Find the dog, touch his nose and jump up and down.  Ready, go!”  If three is too many for them to manage, go back to two.  If three is easy, move on to four.

Robot game* – Child is robot, you are the robot programer.  You are giving step by step directions and they are following them, doing ONLY what you say to do.  This can be a slow process but they are practicing listening and following directions and going slowly through the process of an activity.  For a younger child, it can be going over to pick up and return a book.  For an older child, it can be making a PBandJ.  Good to then change roles and you be the robot.

This also means getting scheduled.  Most children with attention issues do far better when given a schedule.  Plan with your child for a morning, afternoon and evening routine.  The afternoons may vary based on extra-curricular activities but have a plan that works before each day.  It may help to build in 10 minutes of free time at the end of each routine.  10 minutes to play at the end of each morning or to read at the end of each evening.  This provides a bit of a buffer and gives children something to work towards rather than against as discipline.  it can also be helpful to make a visual of the schedule.  This might be making a poster with pictures of the included activities drawings of the clock for time spent at each.  Have your child draw or copy the pictures or take pictures of your child moving through the activities.  At school this includes the child learning to use a calendar or homework notebook to manage assignments and studying.

At clean up time, sit for a minute and ask your child to plan the effort.  This includes details such as the order of the tasks and if they will work together.  Draw or write a check list and help them to stay on task.  At the end a pat on the back for completing the list.  A more fun example – ask your child to plan their next playdate.  Invite a friend over for an hour and have child (or children) come up with three or four activities they’d like to do during that time.  Help them manage the time and move through the activities.

It is also helpful to take a plan-do-review approach to outings or other activities.  If you are headed to the pumpkin patch this weekend, take some time to look at pictures from last year or visit their website, print the map and plan your trip together with your child.  Talk about all the things they are seeing and doing while their.  After, call a grandparent and encourage your child to tell them details about the trip.  Review again with your child when you print the pictures.

Many games practice listening skills including Telephone, 20 Questions, Robot, Eye Spy, Crazy Directions, Simon Says, Hullabaloo, Guess Who and Clue Jr. or Clue and Noodleboro’s Pizza Palace listening game.  As children are older there is Mystery Garden, Listening Lotto and Sound Bingo.  Play games regularly.

We talk in classes about being a good listener by keeping our bodies still, our mouths quiet and our eyes on the speaker.  You might check in with children after you speak or have given them directions by asking what you said or for the most important part or for what they should do first.  When you ask them to give you words back about what you said, better for it to be their own version rather than verbatim.

Challenge listening by reading slightly longer books with more words and fewer pictures as they grow.  Challenge listening with verbal stories or books on tape.  Occasionally practice dialogic reading with your child.  When they are younger it is asking questions about the pictures such as “What is this?”  As they are older it is asking questions about the story such as “What do you think will happen next?” or “What was your favorite part?”  The idea is to build open discussion around the reading as a habit to increase listening and comprehension.

Take Listening Walks, this is a trip around the neighborhood or on your favorite path with the idea of walking quietly and listening to all the sounds you can hear.  Afterward list together all the sounds and talk about how different it is to really listen rather than talk and play.

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/19/opinion/sunday/building-self-control-the-american-way.html?pagewanted=all

During the next week I will post ideas and activities to support developing listening skills, planning, goal setting and follow through skills, sequencing, their attention to detail, attention span and impulse control.  In agreement with the article, these will all be through play.  Here are a few guidelines as you work and play to build new skills.

Avoid Lecture

When you are teaching new skills like goal setting, listening, planning and sequencing you want to avoid lecturing as much as possible.  The best way for children to learn these types of skills is through play and experience.  This means if you are teaching listening skills you want to do this through things like puppet shows, role plays, hypotheticals, storytelling, movement games and art projects.

Gradually Challenge

Whatever the concern, start small and work your way up.  When children are starting with puzzles, you start with simple patterns and few pieces and gradually work the way up to more challenging ones.  It is the same with skills like impulse control and listening.  These are skills that are best to gradually challenge and grow.

Highlight When They Do Well

With life skills, it can be easy to overlook when things go well.  If you have an often impulse child, it can be easy to overlook when they happen to wait patiently in line at the grocery store with you for five minutes.  It is those easy moments that you want to reinforce.  Notice that they did well.  Best to describe the behavior back to them, “you waited to quietly, that was helpful!”

Have fun and grow!

• Turn of the tv and computers – Screentime is anti-downtime.  When children are in front of a screen they are still being otherwise entertained.  If the tv is just on the background, it’s a temptation.  It can be helpful to set guidelines for screentime for the family and then really stick to it.
• Provide space – It may be setting up a play area with their favorite toys, a reading area with comfortable beanbags or a craft corner with supplies and a good size table.  Think about the activities your child prefers and then create the space around them.
• Build downtime into the schedule - If you tend to overschedule, you may have to actually put this on the calendar.  Block off the time they can be unproductive. 
• Focus on true toys – It may be helpful to provide more basic, open-ended toys such as blocks, dolls, balls, craft supplies or a cardboard box.  Once given, let children plan the play.
• Get them outside – Outside play provides trees, sticks, rocks, puddles and dirt.  There’s also room for tag and throwing balls.
• A little boredom is good – Children who can’t entertain themselves and get bored easily when given downtime, likely just need more practice.  Given space and time they will learn how to entertain themselves.  Have patience, this is a good skill to develop.   

In the weeks leading up to potty training it can be helpful to start pointing out potties when you are out.  Show them that there are potties at Target, take a tour of bathrooms at Grandma’s house.  This lets them know there are potties everywhere and people use them.

If you are planning a big trip in the next month, it may be best to wait until after to dive into potty training.  The more consistent you can be the better and tough to expect a newly trained child to be successful at DisneyLand.

To be safe, carry a full change of clothes with you for a year after potty training.  There will be accidents.  We actually carried a change of clothes for each child in the car for several years.  You never know when a big mud puddle will be the best playground entertainment.

• By design, the child is in charge.  They are the director, you are the assistant.  They decide the topic, place and pace of the play.  Your job is to stay engaged and support the play. 
• Stay on topic.  All of your questions and comments should be about the ongoing action.  Avoid introducing new ideas or taking the play in new directions.  Focus on connecting with the child in their play.
• There is no correction, no education.  It is play.  If the child decides the dog is a cow, it’s a cow while playing farm.  Just go with it.  Yes, you can go back later and read your farm books but for the time, play.
• The goal is 20 minutes per day.  Put this on the calendar, set aside the time.  This is a stretch that you turn of the tv and put down the phone.  Floortime requires you be fully engaged and attentive.  

There are many online resources that include and teach about Floortime.  For online workshops designed for parents and professionals, visit http://stanleygreenspan.com/.  Other helpful links include http://www.mindspring.com/~dgn/playther.htm and http://www.cms-kids.com/providers/early_steps/training/documents/floor_time.pdf.

• Kindergarten teachers are not often as stressed as parents about an individual child’s readiness for Kindergarten.  From the teacher’s standpoint there are two main categories, academic readiness and social readiness.  Across studies, social readiness ranks higher on teachers’ scales of importance.  Social readiness includes things like being able to listen and follow directions, being able to sit still, being able to participate in a group activity and play skills like sharing and turn taking.
• It may be important to consider the tendency to wait a year of other families in your school district.  With some children starting who turn five the day of requirement and others who bypass that by more than a year, there is a wide age range for children entering the classroom.  This increases what was already a wide range of skills.
• If you are planning to delay the start of Kindergarten for a specific reason, the next step is to start thinking about the best use of that year.  If there is a specific concern, see the right people, get the right homework, read the right books.  Make a plan to use the time wisely.

This is a topic that could stand further discussion.  Please post your related questions in the comment section below.