Author: darleneweecare

3 Qualities That Your Child Should Begin to Develop in the Preschool Years

How big of a role does your child’s daycare play in stimulating their exploration and discovery of the world? Is your child in an environment that takes advantage of the fact that their brains are active and curious? This critical season of life is a time of great potential for your preschooler, and the environment where they spend their days can either help them thrive and excel, or deny them that boost and cause them to stagnate. Here are three of the qualities that our daycare program in Upper Darby believes that every preschooler should have the chance to develop.

1. Confidence

Some children have a natural swagger and an unshakeable confidence in approaching the world, and others have more of a tendency to timidity. When your child becomes an adult, the ability to exude confidence will be a beneficial factor in everything from getting a job to negotiating with people to extending hope to those around them. If children begin to develop solid confidence in their preschool years, it will already be second nature to them to be confident by the time they become adults.

Confidence is not built by being told, “You can do this.” Rather, it’s built by letting a child make an attempt at something a little harder than they’ve done before, and then letting them enjoy a successful outcome. When this happens over and over again in the early years, your child will have a great start on the path to confidence.

2. Creativity

We live in a world with growing problems, which means that we need a generation to rise up who possesses the creativity necessary to confront and solve those problems. Creativity is not just a spark of genius or something that you either have it or you don’t. Creativity can be fostered and cultivated, especially in the early years, by giving children the raw materials with which they can be creative, and then praising them for things they create. Every child should experience the the joy of creativity, and we do our best to promote that in our day care program.

3. Critical Thinking Skills

It is an advanced skill to think carefully about a puzzling problem and then see the way to solve it. Young children are developing critical thinking skills all the time in ways that we don’t notice, from discovering how to turn doorknobs to realizing how to use a stool to reach things that are higher up. However, this critical thinking ability can tend to atrophy unless children are given continual stimulation with new problems to figure out that are just at their level. If the problems are too hard, they can make a child feel dumb and want to quit, while if they’re too easy, they don’t stimulate the kind of critical thinking and problem solving that the child needs.

The great news is that here at Darlene’s Wee Care 4 Kids, we use a curriculum called the Creative Curriculum that is built to enable children to develop precisely these skills. We believe you’ll agree and see the difference when you enroll your child. Get started today!
Time To Start Thinking About Summer Camp 2017

“Mom, I’m bored!”
“Dad, I don’t have anything to do.”
“Mom, can we go swimming?”

Ever heard variations of these comments in the summer? Yep, we have, too. Summer is a season that should be fun, but not every parent can devote the time to coordinating a full schedule of summer activities for their child.

Summer will be here before you know it, and with it will come the inevitable question of how you’ll keep your kids busy. The answer is simple:

SUMMER CAMP!

If you live in Upper Darby or West Philadelphia, summer camp at Darlene’s Wee Care 4 Kids is your answer. We are excited about the summer camp program that is gearing up here at our daycare. Our full-day program is for kids age 6-13, and it is designed to be full of fun activities while also keeping your kids learning, thriving, and growing.

Go Outside

The summer is the best time to go outside, and children should spend time running, playing games, and getting sunshine during our warm Philadelphia summer days. They’ll increase their strength and endurance, heart and lung capacity, and mental toughness in our outdoor games. They’ll also build camaraderie, learn teamwork, and practice fair play with their friends. The best part? They’ll have so much fun while they’re doing it, they won’t even notice that they’re pushing themselves to new heights.

Stay On Top Of Academic Performance

It’s just a fact of life that over the summer, kids tend to forget what they’ve learned during the school year, making the first month of school a review season before hitting the books for new material. However, the kids who fall behind the most in the summer are at risk of staying behind for the whole school year, while the kids who have forgotten the least will quickly get up to speed and be the most ready to absorb the new material. Darlene’s Wee Care 4 Kids is committed to your children’s academic success, so our summer also includes crucial activities to maintain their progress in reading, math, and other subjects.

Imagine

Imagination is a great skill for kids to develop, and it has been shown to increase their capability, creativity, and problem-solving ability as adults. Sometimes, kids need an environment that stimulates their imagination in order to really let those creative juices start flowing. Our Creative Curriculum is designed to include tons of opportunities for kids to learn about the world, look at things from new perspectives, and engage in imaginative play.

Go On a Field Trip

No matter how rich or stimulating we can make our environment, there’s no way to include every possible summer experience for kids in one building, so we’ll also go on field trips. Here in Philadelphia, we’re surrounded with field trip locations that other communities simply don’t have right at their fingertips. Let your kids take advantage of the culture that is all around us when they go on our summer field trips.

Talk to us

Now is the season to start to think about your child’s summer camp options. Contact us to get started.
Preschool + Play-Doh = A Nightmare?
If you’ve ever worked with children and play-doh, you know what a disaster it can be. You think you’re doing something fun and amazing for your kids by getting out the play-doh, but before you know it, all the colors are mixed together into a sick color of brown, there are play-doh crumbs scattered in a radius at least 10 feet around the table, and a week later, you’re still finding play-doh chunks ground into your carpet. However, play-doh time does NOT have to be a nightmare, and you might even have fun yourself by following these tips. Check out these ideas from our preschool-age daycare teachers in Upper Darby.

1. It starts with a mindset

Approach play-doh time as an opportunity to spend quality time with your preschooler, NOT as a method to give them a way to entertain themselves while you do other things. Once your children are older, they’ll be able to play with play-doh unsupervised, but for smaller children, it’s just an invitation for disaster.

2. Limit the time

Play-doh time should last 15-20 minutes max for children of preschool age, and ideally, you should stop the activity BEFORE they are bored of it. If you sense that they are starting to lose interest at the 10-minute mark, don’t keep stretching their interest. Instead, announce that it’s clean up time and show them how to put everything away with you. Even if your child’s attention is still super-absorbed at the 20-minute mark, you’ll be teaching them a valuable life skill about how to transition from one activity to another, which will serve them later in life.

3. Provide guidance and structure

Here are some ground rules we’d suggest for your play-doh time:
1. Don’t mix colors. (If necessary, only take out one color of play-doh so there’s no temptation or opportunity to mix the colors. A lesson on mixing colors can come when they’re older, but at preschool age, they will just mush all the colors together without really understanding the impact. No one wants to have only ugly brown play-doh to play with.)
2. Don’t let the play-doh touch the floor. Explain, “We’re trying to keep all the play-doh on the table. If it touches the floor, it’ll probably get full of crumbs and hair. Gross.” Children will often try their best to comply with this if you explain the importance of it up front.
4. Unleash their creativity

Playing with play-doh is valuable to preschoolers’ development because it enhances their fine motor control and it improves their artistic ability (being able to visualize a 3-D shape and then model it out of clay is a very advanced skill). However, little kids have no clue how to approach play doh without your help. Start by teaching them two basic skills: How to roll a rope and how to form a ball. Practice these skills and make them fun by doing things with your rope, like winding it into a rug or making a play-doh “bowl” and filling it with play doh “peas.” Then move to more complicated pursuits, like showing them how to make a teddy bear (a large ball for the head, small balls for the ears, eyes, and nose, a ball for the belly, and logs for the arms and legs).

Your kids will love the fact that you took the time to play with them, and you’ll set them—and yourself—up for great play-doh success. No more nightmares!

Darlene’s Wee Care for Kids is a full-service infant and child care center offering day care, early childhood education, and a safe, nurturing environment to children from 6 weeks to 13 years old. Enroll your child today!
The Importance of Attachment in Early Childhood

For most new parents, it is excruciatingly difficult to be separated from your child, and in today’s world, it seems like there’s a never-ending string of milestones or “firsts” when you have to make that separation. When your baby is a newborn, it’s hard to tear your eyes off their chubby little face for even a second to go to the bathroom or take a shower. But as they get older, you start to have to leave them alone for longer and longer amounts of time. You have the first day you have to go to work, the first day you leave your child with a babysitter, the first day you drop them off at daycare, their first day of school, and so many more.

At our daycare in Upper Darby, we are there for so many of those moments, as tearful parents drop their children off and can barely tear themselves away. However, we’d like to encourage you as a parent that if this is the case for you, that’s actually a healthy thing. What you should be concerned about is if you don’t have a close bond with your child. In this article, we’d like to look at what a healthy attachment is and how you can foster that with your child.

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What is Healthy Attachment?

Attachment in early infancy is an important skill for children to have, and there is a very small window of opportunity where children are able to form healthy attachments. If they miss this window, it’s frequently the case that they are unable to form healthy attachments later in life. You as the parent play a big role in fostering your child’s ability to form these healthy attachments, as you are the first person they attach to.

A healthy attachment is a secure bond between parent and child, causing the child to feel safe, loved, protected, and not abandoned. When it breaks your heart to leave your child alone, that’s probably a good thing. Your child is at a crucial stage of brain development where they are forming their perception of how the world works, and your presence, nurture, and love are a big part of that.

Does Leaving my Child Break That Attachment?

The first time you leave your child, it will be incredibly difficult for you and for them, but you will come back. When you repeatedly show your child that even though you sometimes have to go away, you always come back, they will remain secure and realize they don’t need to worry as much when you’re gone. Of course, it is important to choose a daycare provider who will provide that safe, nurturing, loving environment for your child while you’re away. The time you do spend with your child will work to reinforce that strong bond that you’ve had with them since birth.

Darlene’s Wee Care for Kids is a healthy, safe, clean, and loving environment for your child to come to when you have to be at work or away. We love children! If you haven’t enrolled yet, don’t wait any longer. Contact us to start the enrollment process today.
The Benefits of Early Exposure to Languages

When you are raising your child, you want to do everything you can to give them every possible advantage in life. Language skills and the ability to express oneself are skills that every human needs and that will always be useful, even in an ever-increasingly digital world. While we go about planning and promoting brain development in young children, increasing the size and efficiency of the language skills should be a priority. At Darlene’s Wee Care 4 Kids Day Care in Upper Darby, we know that increasing the verbal skills of children is very important, and so we prioritize it in our curriculum.

The Language Centers of the Brain

While older models of the language centers of the brain focused on just two language areas, Broca’s Area and Wernicke’s area, this model is considered outdated now. This model had one area for the formation of the words and another for the physical mechanisms of speech. Contemporary models identify four areas of the brain that are involved in speech. These areas control elements of language, such as syntax, semantics, and working memory. As these areas are used, they grow in efficiency, in their ability to interact with other parts of the brain, including the other hemisphere, and also in their physical size. It has been shown by many studies that exposing children to multiple languages, including American Sign Language (ASL) benefits the brains of children, and these benefits can last their whole lifetimes.

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Interestingly enough, a child does not even need to be fluent in a language to reap the benefits of being exposed to multiple languages. Imagine yourself in a foreign country where you do not speak the language, but you are a keen observer of people (as young children are). You would soon discern the meanings of intonation, rhythms of the language, and even the subtleties of relationships by observing who speaks to whom and when they do it. These are some of the things that children do when they are watching and listening to speakers of other languages. ASL, for example, is a language where the motions of the speaker relate much of the intended meaning.

Children who are exposed to other languages develop enhanced reading and speaking skills, the ability to learn other languages quickly, and the ability to express themselves well. Some of the unexpected benefits that children will reap include increased attention spans, better ability to monitor the behavior of others (and thus themselves), and the ability to see things from the perspective of others. This last benefit is quite fascinating in that it establishes a connection between language and empathy.

To learn more about how Darlene’s Wee Care Uses the introduction of languages and ASL as part of our curriculum, contact us today.
Sensory Processing Disorder Meltdown

Darlene’s Wee Care for Kids, in Upper Darby is a Top Rated Local® child care facility who offers services for special needs children. We can work with deaf children, as well as children with Autism or physical handicaps, who are developmentally delayed, and who have other special needs. Call us today for a tour of our facility.

Every parent knows that meltdowns come with the territory. They can happen anywhere and at any time and for any reason. Maybe you were the worst parent ever and cut their sandwich just the way they usually like it, maybe you told them they can’t eat the soap. Their little bodies don’t seem to be able to contain the bewildering emotions that wash over them at any moment.

As they grow older they typically grow out of meltdowns (until they are teenagers when they have new, more fun ones!), but sometimes a meltdown is more than a just meltdown, it’s a sign of something else going on. Young children can’t express themselves accurately because they are little and just learning all the words for emotions and learning to understand their experiences. Sometimes there is a sign of sensory processing issues that might not be diagnosed until later. This week we’ll discuss what sensory processing disorder is and what it can look like at different ages. We’ll cover some coping strategies and home therapy tips in upcoming blogs.

All of our senses are based on signals from the body to the brain, through the nervous system, be they smell, sight, touch, all stimulation is processed by the brain. According to the Star Institute, “Sensory Processing Disorder (SPD), exists when sensory signals are either not detected or don’t get organized into appropriate responses.” This can mean that the child either seeks out certain stimuli, avoids certain stimuli, or becomes easily overwhelmed when experiencing too much, or too little stimuli. Because this can clearly go in any direction, it can be hard to diagnose.

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What it Looks Like at Different Ages

According to Understood, an infant with SPD might not like to be held tightly, may be overly fussy, or may need to be constantly held. A toddler doesn’t like certain fabrics or shoes, or tags, for example, has more meltdowns than an average toddler. One remarkable sign in toddler and preschoolers is that they are easily overwhelmed in groups. This is relative and dependant on an individual child. Some children may find three children too many if it’s in an already stimulating context such as a ball pit/ They may react by melting down or acting inappropriately. A grade-schooler may have trouble making friends because they are awkward, they play roughly. They may have fine motor skills that, for example, makes penmanship difficult. Check back for future blogs for more information on this topic.
When you are looking for a daycare that is sensitive to your child’s needs, be they diagnosed or not, turn to Darlene’s Wee Care for Kids. We have staff that knows ASL and that have experience working with children who face challenges of all types. Call us today to schedule a tour of our facility.