What You Need to Know

Emotions

Emotions Learning Activities

You should be aware that your children have the ability to learn new emotions if you will simply provide the environment, example, and attention. The emotions activities in this book focus on very specific and very essential emotions, and they provide you with a proven strategy which will help you increase children's emotional skills. These are the emotions that will facilitate your children's social interaction, increasing their likelihood of success in your family, among their friendships, in future jobs, and in marriage. An equally important reason for teaching children to recognize and adequately display these emotions is that children who understand such emotions become among the happiest, most satisfied people in the world.

The following sections will help you identify some of the most basic and important emotions for children to learn. The activities for each emotion may be done according to a time frame that you find appropriate, preferably within a day or two. You may be required to adapt certain activities to the abilities of your children. If certain materials are not readily available or difficult to find, please substitute them with others that you already have, such as books or songs that you currently enjoy. You may also wish to access some of the additional literature referenced at the end of certain activities for further ideas and methods to teach emotions.

By the end of this activity schedule, you should find that your children identify several different emotions. They will have at their command new vocabulary and new observational skills. They will be more aware of what they are feeling in a variety of situations and should be able to adapt their emotions appropriately to different circumstances. You may be surprised as you teach these emotions, and the best ways to cope with various feelings, that your skills improve as well. Overall, our goals are to create socially excellent individuals and to take advantage of First Steps.

Empathy, Eagerness, and Excitement

Instead of wondering why your children do or do not feel and act in certain ways, First Steps gives you the opportunity to help create the types of feelings you would like children to know about, understand, and feel. Feeling loveable, for example, is the beginning of self-esteem, self-confidence, and trust. This feeling helps children enter new situations with more comfort, expecting they will be liked instead of mistreated. It helps them to form friendships and to be good friends to others.

With a sense of importance, children are more likely to share and cooperate, talk respectfully to others, and listen to other people. This feeling is not one of superiority but of personal adequacy. It helps children respect themselves, their own ideas, and their creativity. Feeling important also helps children treat others with importance and increases children's awareness of other people. These children can learn to understand others' perspectives in addition to their own, because they assume that others enjoy feeling important, too.

Empathy is a complex emotion which usually requires considerable involvement before children are successful at it. Empathy is the ability to vicariously feel what someone else is feeling by understanding the person and the situation he or she is in. Empathy is a feeling closely associated to all positive forms of social behavior, and it is especially vital to the development of moral conduct. Empathy is involved when one person is compassionate toward another, is sensitive to another's feelings, and demonstrates a willingness to help others. It plays an important role in friendships, parent-child relationships and marriage. Many of the individuals we honor as great people are considered great because of their empathy for others.

Eagerness is a feeling which we hope children feel, but we often fail to identify by name. When children display eagerness, we often misinterpret it and think they are excited. In the world of feelings, however, eagerness is different than excitement. Eagerness involves anticipation, planning, preparation, and escalating feelings as the starting time approaches. When children are eager to learn something, for example, they are more interested than excited; they are more focused than distracted. Helping your children to feel eager is the beginning of a life motivated by desire to learn and do, think and reason, love and care. It is a wonderful feeling that tends to be contagious to others who see it and it provides inspiration to those around it.

Excitement, though different than eagerness, has its advantages. It usually is accompanied by more intense feelings, some anxiety about what may or may not happen, and the hope of some other positive feelings. Excitement, for example, is present when children try something new, participate in something pleasurable, await something they desire, and meet a loved one. Teaching your children eagerness and excitement enhances their lives because these emotions allow them to do more things while feeling positive and happy. Children who possess these emotions enjoy participating in more things, look forward to more varied experiences, and make growing up a more enjoyable time for their parents.

Compassion, Sympathy, Satisfaction, and Gratitude

Many emotions play an important part in social relationships. As children mature, parents hope their children will learn to display appropriate feelings for many different situations. For example, we hope they will display kindness when someone needs help. However, when children have little experience with a specific emotion, they do not know how to display it when a situation arises that calls for it. Many mistreated children, for instance, do not learn how to love well or to turn negative feelings into something more positive. When they marry and want to express love, they find it difficult to do so. When they are unhappy, they may have difficulty changing these feelings into happiness and hopefulness.

You will be able to enhance the probability of children's personal and social success by helping them learn compassion, sympathy, satisfaction, and gratitude. Remember, to truly learn an emotion, children must experience it many times and have an opportunity to display it in many different forms. In other words, they will need to feel compassion and then show it to others in order to entirely appreciate it and understand what it is about. For this to happen, it is important that you also feel it, understand it, and display it.

Compassion is the intense kindness one person feels toward another person who is in distress. It is a more intense form of empathy. It is the bridge that connects a child's thoughts about someone else to action, or doing something to help that person. Compassion is involved in understanding all people, but especially those in special need of attention and aid. Compassionate children are less likely to be arrogant, conceited, or rejecting. They are also less likely to be troubled by frequent bouts with anger.

Sympathy is one person's response to knowledge about another person. We feel and demonstrate sympathy after gaining knowledge about someone's circumstances. In contrast, empathy is knowing about a person's situation and the person's feelings and then feeling similarly to the other person. One person may feel distress for example, and the other may feel sympathy. Some people think sympathy precedes empathy, but others do not agree. Practically, what is important, however, is that children who feel sympathy are less likely to hurt other people; they are less likely to be insensitive to others, and are more likely to understand the consequences of their actions toward those around them.

Satisfaction is another important feeling. When children feel satisfied, they are less likely to be perfectionistic, overly anxious, and guilt-ridden about what they do. They are more likely to enjoy themselves, make reasonable decisions about themselves, and accept the good that they do. Feeling satisfied is basic to high performance because children who feel satisfied with themselves at one level aspire to feel the same feelings when facing new challenges. Children who are often unsatisfied put pressure on themselves to do better each time until their standards are so high it is nearly impossible to succeed. Thereafter, any time they try something and their abilities do not match their goals, they begin down a continual spiral of failure. Feeling satisfied, on the other hand, enables children to move gradually and confidently, while improving with each step.

Gratitude is among the most noble of feelings. This is because gratitude honors those who receive it and ennobles those who display it. True gratitude characterizes people whom we typically consider the most successful among us. Gratitude can grace anyone's life. When children learn to feel it early in life, they tend to be more acceptable to others, more appreciated themselves, and more understanding. Teaching gratitude in many forms enhances children's opportunities for success.

Proud, Happy, Helpful, Silly, Frustrated, and Encouraged

Researchers investigating emotions discovered that many emotions are organized in opposites. We are familiar with happy-sad, kind-mean, cheerful-discouraged, but some of the opposites may surprise you. Love, for example, has an opposite which is different than most think. It is fear, not hatred or indifference. In life, we either feel and pursue love or we feel fear and pursue security. Scientists suggest that this “organizing principle” of paired opposites is based on the idea that two emotions are necessary to understand either. In other words, if we truly want to understand love it is useful to understand fear as well. This idea has one important application for you and your children. Instead of thinking that you should help your children learn only positive feelings and eliminate any of the negative, it is necessary for them to understand some opposites as well. This does not mean that you should make your children feel sad, angry, or miserable in order to help them know about life—life has enough challenges without consciously adding to them.

Understanding a negative emotion has some important benefits. When children understand feelings like frustration and silliness, they will not think those emotions are “bad,” or feel ashamed or self-critical for feeling them. Knowing about negative emotions helps children develop a way to express or display them appropriately and also use them to deepen their understanding of other, more positive emotions.

These activities will help your children learn about feeling proud. Being proud is not the same thing as feeling superior. Feeling proud means that one person can appreciate his or her own achievements in addition to the good things others do. Feeling proud is the reward for achievement. Feeling honored is the companion emotion to feeling proud. Where a child may be proud of an achievement, honored is the feeling one has for a well-disciplined character that is recognized by someone else. A person may say in response to attention and praise from someone else, “I am honored that you noticed.” Both of these feelings enable children to participate in the giving and receiving of praise.

We all at least know something about happiness. It is the name most of us give to several different positive feelings. For example, when we ask someone how he is feeling and he says, “Good,” he usually means he is happy. We should note that happiness is among the most important emotions for children; happy feelings validate children's experiences. If, for instance, they can retain their innocence through happy experiences, they are more likely to also have more hope and fulfillment as adults. Happy feelings learned in childhood are repeated thereafter.

It is important to teach your children about feeling relieved so they will understand about the ending of pressure or stress, as well as what it feels like to be helped by others. Feeling relieved is also the opposite of feeling scared. Young children have many scary experiences, and these can be moderated or reduced when you teach them to feel relieved.

The importance of feeling helpful is probably clear to you. Being helpful is one of the most important forms of social behavior, in addition to being one of the most valuable. Feeling helpful is the willingness to extend ourselves to others and contribute to them. When children learn this at a young age, it improves their opportunities as a family member and as a friend.

Silly feelings have an important place in the family of emotions. They can be used to help children learn about the need to adapt themselves to different situations. To be silly, of course, means to misinterpret something more sobering and significant and to display funny, joking, and care-free behavior that does not fit the situation. Helping your children to understand silly feelings can also help them know when, where, and how to express other, perhaps, more appropriate feelings.

You may wonder why this program includes negative feelings like frustration. Frustration will be felt by most people at some point in their lives. We are either frustrated because of what we do, external events, or what someone else does. Understanding frustration can help your children learn how and when to express this emotion in the most effective way. By itself, frustration is neither good nor bad. It merely deserves to be recognized and expressed so that it does not harm anyone.

Encouraged—This big word has a lot of big possibilities. Feeling encouraged means that someone is less afraid and has more hope. Learning how to feel encouraged helps your children avoid depression, discouragement, and anxiety, which prevent children from learning or doing something new. Every life has its down moments. Children who know how to feel encouraged are better at crossing these small canyons until they reach the other side where things are better. Among all the things you can teach your children, feeling encouraged is among the greatest.

Understood, Amused, Content, Optimistic, and Exhilarated

Brain researchers were surprised to find that the brain has “integration centers,” clusters of brain cells designed to integrate several parts of the human experience. For instance, these centers appear to link thoughts with feelings, memories of actions with feelings, and so forth. When you think about a family holiday or other childhood memory, your brain automatically includes the feelings which were, and still are, associated with that experience.

This particular brain function suggests something equally significant. If thinking about a memory revives associated feelings, then thoughts can induce or create feelings. Therefore, at least some of what we feel is caused by ourselves rather than always caused by what someone else does or the impact of some event. We can, and should, learn what feelings we can create ourselves. When we do this, we are less likely to be susceptible to the idea that we are powerless and have no control over our own lives.

Suppose you wish to prepare your children to create some of their own feelings. This means that you would, when they are very young, link certain types of feelings with other parts of their lives. Repeatedly connecting these feelings with the various things they do will make it easier for them later on to acquire increased control of themselves. The emotions in this section are some of the emotions which allow all of us to feel more in control of ourselves.

Feeling understood allows us to dismiss the idea that we are wholly unique, strange, different (even weird) and share little of life with others. Ironically, when we feel like we are understood by others, it is safer for us to assume responsibility for ourselves.

Feeling understood requires that children reveal some part of themselves so that others can understand them. It requires that children recognize the interest and willingness others have to know and appreciate them.

Feeling amused lets us find the fun in what we do and helps us to believe that most situations and experiences have some good in them. The capacity for amusement allows children to seek for things that might be enjoyable or provide some positive benefit when others think the same situation is entirely bad. Those children and adults who rebound from difficulty or enjoy life the very most tend to have higher developed abilities to find amusement, not at another's expense, but in the practical parts of life. Ability to find amusement is especially valuable when something is less pleasant than hoped for.

Feeling content enables your children to enjoy the positive and peaceful moments which their life may hold. Contentment occurs when there is no pressure and when peace and safety abound. It is an essential emotion because it is the signal for those times when there is no need to worry, no need to fret, and no need to be angry. All children deserve to know and understand contentment.

Optimism is a combination of hopefulness and encouragement. It is the willingness to see positive things in the future and the ability to try to achieve them. Optimism marks the lives of the most successful people. Most of these people have overcome childhood adversity and have learned that optimism will carry them through difficult times and lead to greater accomplishment. Interestingly, researchers found that optimistic people are more likely to believe in an “inner voice” which inspires and provides direction for them.

It may seem strange to you, but there are many children and adults who do not learn the emotions associated with success and achievement. Having never learned them, these people do not have the capacity to truly enjoy what they do, and they often think they are less successful than they truly are. Contrast this situation with those people who truly understand exhilaration. Exhilaration is connected to being thrilled, enthused, and excited. It certainly seems to be the emotion most closely associated with the ability to appreciate life's great moments such as a wedding, the birth of a child, a promotion, or successful creativity. Helping your children know exhilaration will help them create experiences where they can feel it, and most of these experiences are within the categories of success most parents would like their children to achieve.

Together, feeling understood, amused, content, optimistic, and exhilarated are five emotions which most people seek to create. Through learning to create these few feelings, children and adults are more likely to also learn they can responsibly create all their own feelings. They will be less vulnerable to the idea that there are things, people, and events beyond their control that dictate the quality of their lives.

Curious, Interested, Confident, and Puzzled

Some feelings are linked so tightly to thought processes that it is often difficult to tell the difference between them. For example, small amounts of excitement, when connected to stimulation, become curiosity. Curiosity, some researchers believe, is one of the basic drives we all inherit and is essential for success and survival. Emotional arousal and perception combine to form interest. As most understand, interest is fundamental to nearly everything we do, including learning, loving, and laughing. It is part of every successful person's social skills. The degree to which a child shows interest in a specific subject is likely to be an indication of his or her natural ability in that area.

In addition to tying some emotions and thoughts together, the brain does something else equally noteworthy. It categorizes, or puts emotions and thoughts into groups. For example, positive emotions such as glad, happy, warm, and excited might all be in the same category. As your children gain additional experiences with emotions and thoughts, emotions are placed into categories and used by your children as part of “experiential knowledge.” This form of knowledge has the greatest influence over our lives because of the unique role it plays in our decisions and actions. For instance, suppose a child is afraid at school. This feeling, or “experience,” will be linked together with other things about school. If it is strong enough, a child will start to avoid school, thinking that it is unpleasant. The real reason the child avoids school is because he or she wishes to avoid feeling the fear that is associated with school. It is the feeling that is unpleasant. If this negative situation is not changed by replacing the fear with a positive experience, the child will add more ideas and feelings to the basic assumption that school is unpleasant.

A collection of feelings and experiences becomes something researchers call a “perceptual frame.” A perceptual frame is the overall combination of knowledge and attitude children and adults have about any situation. If a child is mistreated by people and, therefore, feels fear and anger, these emotions will become part of his or her perceptual frame about people. It may influence the child's behavior toward others until, or unless, changed by some experience. In contrast, if a child experiences love and similar emotions with people, these feelings become part of the perceptual frame for situations which include other people.

As time passes, children avoid those situations which are unpleasant and participate in those with which they have had more positive experiences. They gain less knowledge about those situations they avoid and acquire more knowledge and experience about those in which they participate. Positive emotions and more complete knowledge result from the emotion of confidence. Confidence, the feeling of anticipated success and competence, is the direct result of positive experience combined with knowledge of any situation. It is fairly easy to see why confident children are more likely to succeed. They are more likely to participate than avoid; they are more knowledgeable and less afraid.

We never run out of new experiences which puzzle us, and cause us to feel uncertain. When children experience confidence, however, being puzzled and uncertain are like riddles to be solved. Confident children believe that not knowing something does not mean they are weak or have failed. It only means they are in a situation where they can learn and progress.

When children feel fear and avoid situations, being puzzled is unpleasant and miserable. Puzzled children believe that not knowing something makes them inadequate, and instead of asking someone or participating to learn, they hide the fact that they do not know in order to avoid feeling afraid. They do not learn as well and are likely to experience failure more often. Their attempts to succeed are less effective than children who accept their lack of knowledge and are confident enough to inquire and learn.

This section explains how your children can learn about feeling curious, interested, confident, and puzzled collectively. In order to enhance their opportunities, it is important they simultaneously feel curious, interested, and confident. When this combination exists and children frequently experience these feelings together, they can feel puzzled without feeling afraid, and learn instead of avoiding participation or failing to participate.

Joyful, Ambitious, and Cheerful

The fact that humans combine their feelings and thoughts into categories creates the opportunity for you to associate confident emotions with new situations so your children will participate more successfully. This natural ability offers another opportunity you can capitalize on to help your children. This is called “emotional adaptation.” Children learn by eighteen months of age to adapt or adjust how they display their feelings. Failure to adapt successfully indicates children are not maturing well. If they have continued difficulty it may even indicate a more serious problem.

Since adaptation is so important, we should understand how to help children learn to be successful at it. For instance, children typically are more adaptable when they feel positive feelings than when they are tired, angry, sad, or unhappy. By now, you have learned the truth of this from watching your children come to the breakfast table early in the morning. When they are not feeling happy, they are less likely to handle or adapt to the times when there is not the right food, the best chair, or anything else that might affect them. If they have an argument or witness something negative before going to school, they are more likely to have difficulty and low performance that day. When they are feeling frustrated or angry, they are less able to adjust to the changes desired by their friends and, as a result, tend to create difficulty for others.

Your children can learn about an unusual combination of feelings that are further linked to the practice of adapting. These feelings are joy, ambition, and cheerfulness. As suggested, they are put together so children's brains will link them in positive ways. As children learn these feelings simultaneously, they practice how to adapt themselves. This creates some very nice possibilities as children can naturally connect joy and ambition, ambition and cheerfulness. They will learn more positive feelings when they are required to adapt, so they will be more successful whenever and wherever they are around other people.

Joy is one of life's greatest feelings. It is usually considered a deeper and more significant feeling than happiness and is much more than sensory pleasure. Joy is the feeling we experience when several emotionally significant things happen at once. Joy is accompanied by being loved and feeling peace. It results from facing moral challenges successfully.

It is felt after we have been afraid of losing something or someone dear to us and it does not happen. Joy is full and rich, and it creates lasting emotional memories. Children who feel it many times are among the happiest and most loving people.

Ambition is more than one emotion. It is a set of anticipations tied to planning, which is linked to a purpose or goal. For example, children might feel joy in an accomplishment or an achievement. They might feel joy from loving and being loved. They will then demonstrate ambition in directing activities to reproduce this joy. Like other behaviors, ambition is part natural and part learned. You can help your children become ambitious by helping them recognize the connection between what they do and their own feelings of joy. Once your children know they can create such a positive feeling, they apply this knowledge to much of what they try out in life.

Cheerfulness is both an inner experience and an outer display of pleasant and positive feelings. It is connected to optimism, hopefulness, and learning to see good things when there is a mixture of bad and good. It shows confidence that the child can bring about positive things and even overcome challenges to do so. Cheerfulness reflects a person's autonomy from the negative or frightening things of the world. This aspect of cheerfulness is often overlooked because of its obvious social benefits. When your children learn to be cheerful, they feel something they themselves created.

Lastly, cheerfulness helps your children become socially attractive to others, which usually results in greater popularity and social success. Like other feelings, it is learned partly by imitation, as well as when someone points it out to them and when they are encouraged to be cheerful in very specific situations.

You will find it easier to teach these three positive emotions when you tie them to specific situations. For instance, you can help your children understand that breakfast is a time when they are cheerful. Cleaning up after oneself is a good time to be “ambitious.” You can help your children associate joy with other significant times so they will connect each feeling to a situation and improve their abilities to adapt themselves successfully. They will learn more positive emotions and become better at adapting simultaneously.

Love and Adaptability

The last section introduced the idea of adaptability and suggested that positive feelings enable children to be more successful at adapting to different situations. Negative emotions conversely make adaptation more difficult. In this section you can learn more about the idea of adaptability, and you will hopefully understand more about its significance to your children's success.

As children mature, they participate in greater varieties of situations, each having its own requirements. The possibilities are too numerous to make a definite list. School alone has lunch, class discussions, friendships, and recess, as well as requirements such as standing in line, handing in assignments, participating in games, and so forth. In these and all other situations, children must make some adjustment to their emotional behavior in order to participate successfully.

One idea regarding potential for success is related to the number of emotions children understand and display adequately. Children who know an adequate variety of emotions tend to be successful in more situations. It is better to know love, happiness, calm, cheerfulness, contentment, and excitement, for example, than to know only one or two of those positive emotions. The second idea related to children's emotions and their social success depends on how any single emotion is displayed.

You might remember, for instance, that every emotion has at least three parts. These are (1) the emotional state—the body's response, (2) the emotional experience—the subjective or personal interpretation of the feeling, and (3) the emotional display—the manner in which any person shows his or her emotions outwardly to others. When situations change and children are in the process of adapting themselves, those with more displays are those who have the most success.

Imagine that one person has 40 or 50 ways of displaying love, while another has, or knows, only four or five. When demonstration of love is called for, whether in marriage or among friends, who will likely have the most success? It is obvious that the person with the most displays will have greater opportunities because he or she will understand and have more ways of participating. This idea offers real and practical potential for parents who wish to promote their children's successful development. You can introduce your children to more positive emotions, and you can help them learn and demonstrate large numbers of displays for each of these. Then, when it is required of them to participate in friendships, family relationships, and marriage, they will know better how to participate because the displays of positive emotions are available to them.

This section combines adaptability and love so that your children will understand numerous ways to display love and understand how to adapt themselves and participate successfully. They will learn when and how and to whom any form of love could and should be displayed. For instance, love may be communicated as a touch, a hug, an embrace, a squeeze, and other forms of affection. It may be shown in listening, patience, avoiding criticism, noticing someone, and other kinds of attention. Love can also be giving something, doing something for someone, bestowing a compliment, sacrificing, caretaking, comforting, cheering up someone, and demonstrating kindness. Love is also gratitude and appreciation, warmth and tenderness, laughter and fun. It may be courage instead of fear, commitment instead of indifference, or silence instead of criticism.

Imagine the benefits to your children when they understand and display all these forms of loving as well as many others. They will more likely know how to love deeply and accept the love of other people. As adults, we sometimes worry so much about the negative things children may do that we fail to focus equal amounts of time and effort making certain they know about the positive things which will bring them success. You only need to remember that the possibilities are greater if you take advantage of the windows of learning created by a child's natural development. From birth to five or six years of age, children are in the sensitive period where those things you teach and help them experience create more of a positive effect that is life long.

Glad, Unified, Kind, and Inspired

One of the most interesting forms of emotional development is called “differentiation.” This word has two meanings. As children mature, they naturally begin to see and understand differences between emotions and can better distinguish between them.

A young child might not be able to tell the difference between frustration, anger, and rage, for example, but an older child can. To understand each of these, a child must “differentiate,” or understand the differences between them.

The second meaning of differentiation is related to the connection any individual child has to others. As individuals, for instance, we discover that we have some of the same feelings as other people, and other people have feelings which are like ours. We also learn that we are influenced by what other people do and, if we are getting more mature, we also learn that we influence other people by what we do (e.g., make someone feel better by cheering them up). Emotional health and well-being are demonstrated by knowing how we are like others and how we are different from others. When children have a strong sense of differentiation, for example, they are more likely to be assertive about their own ideas and opinions and less likely to subordinate themselves to someone else. When they understand differentiation they are more likely to demonstrate initiative rather than passivity, and positive moods rather than depression. Children are also less likely to be aggressive and mean, and more able to be considerate and cooperative.

Differentiation is demonstrated when children have a strong sense of emotional individuality (i.e., what they know or believe to be true about themselves) and possess competent social skills which permit them to form successful relationships with others. To have both of these separate abilities as they mature, children must pass through several experiences in which they differentiate themselves from other people. Each child can know how he or she is emotionally the same as others and how he or she is different from others.

These activities will help you promote differentiation in your children. Teaching a child about gladness, for instance, will permit you to also teach about times when children feel glad and when other people do, too. Gladness is a very social or collective emotion, meaning that it is often felt by many people at the same time. It is possible for you to help your children feel glad when others do and to explore glad feelings as they feel it. At the same time, as you are creating experiences related to gladness, you can help your children to feel unified with others. Feeling unified is belonging, closeness, security, and membership. It is feeling “one” with others. More specifically, it is feeling “one” with others while the other people feel the same thing. Teaching about feeling unified will enable you to show your children how their feelings are like those of other people in addition to the fact that being unified is usually a very positive thing.

The emotions of kindness and inspiration are very important to differentiation for reasons which may not be immediately obvious. Feeling kind toward others is one of the best ways for your children to understand the differences between themselves and other people. This is because kind feelings accompanied by kind acts are clear evidence that a person is acting on personal initiative.

The kind person's feelings are not controlled or caused solely by what others do or feel. This is especially the case if a child is helped to feel kindness and act kindly even when someone else does not.

The special role of emotions in achieving differentiation is probably best demonstrated when children feel inspired. Inspiration is a feeling or sensation which comes from within. It is part intuition and, for those who believe so, part spiritual. Regardless of belief, feeling inspired is a clear indication that a person recognizes an inner experience which separates him or her from others. Where other people may also feel inspired, most inspiration is very unique and individualized. This emotion, therefore, enables your children to understand both themselves and other people. This is the objective of “differentiation.”

Relaxation, Concern, and Serenity

Teaching children about relaxation, concern, and serenity will show you just how far very young children can develop their emotional abilities. These are fairly advanced emotions, and many children do not understand or experience them until they are much older. Since the ability to understand emotions is inherited, however, most children can learn and understand these emotions and others like them. This is the case even though most young children would not include the names of these emotions in their everyday vocabulary. It brings a smile to think about a three-year-old girl saying to her mother, “I feel very serene, Mom.” She could, however, if her mother wanted to teach her.

There is another purpose for including these emotions in First Steps. Most adults know that the quality of their lives can be measured by the quality of their feelings. Life is thought of as “good” if it is filled with enough love, happiness, relaxation, concern, and serenity. Life is not so good if it is not filled with enough of these feelings and others like them. When children are young, they do not measure themselves by the type of emotions they feel. They want to play games, have friends, possess fun toys, and be with people whom they love. For young children, life is measured in concrete or more physical terms. This is not an inherited, natural trait; it is simply because we do not teach them to include something else.

You could, for example, teach your children that along with everything else they do, they could include times to feel relaxed, times to feel concern for others, and times to feel serene. At this point, you may wonder whether children who are three and four years of age can be taught this idea or if they will even care. We invite you to try and see if your children can learn. The activities included in this book will be a help to you, but you will also need to set an example so your children can imitate these emotions as you experience them.

One tired mother used the bathroom as a place and time to get out of the on-going, emotionally-charged events of parenthood. Her children came to the door and asked to come in. She finally told one inquisitive and persistent child, “I just need some peace and quiet.”

A few days later, while this child was playing with some friends in the backyard, he came into the house and went into his room. She went to him and asked, “Is anything wrong?” “No,” he replied, “I just need some peace and quiet.”

These three emotions will serve as a test for you to see how much your children can learn. By teaching and helping them understand, you will be providing an opportunity for them to learn about a balanced life and the importance of making good feelings an essential part of every day. We believe you will be surprised how much emotional knowledge your children can learn and how much they are influenced by what you teach them. Every child is born with a head start when it comes to emotions. Their inherited ability can take them farther than most of us have assumed.

Feeling relaxed means that children remove themselves from the pressures of the day and choose experiences based on the calm and pleasant feelings the experiences bring. Relaxation enables children to make better judgments about what they choose to do. Feeling concerned is awareness of others and about what other people do. Concern can be applied to themselves and to other people, and it is linked to kindness, patience, and empathy. Serenity is a calm assurance that in any situation, a person has done all that can be done. It reassures us that whatever has been done is a good, positive thing. Children who understand serenity appreciate the opportunity to participate in many experiences. These three emotions provide valued outcomes for all of us.

Appraisal

Each child inherits a few primitive emotions as well as the ability to develop others. As suggested earlier, emotions are so important to survival that newborns come with a clear-cut preference to look at the human face and respond to emotions which can be observed in facial expression and communicated by voice. This natural ability enlarges and becomes more sophisticated as children mature. The next step in development is called “social referencing,” where a child looks at others who share the same situation in order to accurately guess or estimate the feelings which exist. Eventually, children learn to observe other people's words, body language, and facial expressions to make “inferences” about what they are feeling. Children may hear someone say, “You seem to be unhappy.” This statement infers what the observer notices about what someone else is feeling. Lastly, when a person matures, he or she can see both the other person and the situation. This combination of social referencing and making inferences about other people's feelings is called “appraisal.”

Accurate appraisal is the origin of sensitivity to others. It is used to help us understand others and, as you might recognize, accurate appraisal is necessary for any relationship to be satisfying. One of the truly important emotional skills is the ability to accurately appraise other people. You might correctly infer from the foregoing statement that you can enhance your children's opportunities for social and emotional success by teaching positive and accurate appraisal skills.

Your teaching methods must include accurately appraising your children so that when you refer to their feelings, your comments make sense. Your appraisal needs to include asking your children what they are feeling and making “You seem to be...” comments. These comments and questions tell your children about the importance you attach to feelings.

Your teaching methods can also include helping your children notice the feelings of other people, asking them to tell you what they see, and finding out what the other person is feeling. By doing this frequently in social situations, you can teach your children to be appropriately aware of others, especially of what other people are feeling. This awareness quickly moves to helping your children understand what other people might intend to do. Knowing what someone intends to do will help your children avoid situations where they may get hurt, as well as help them be more successful at choosing good friends. You could, for instance, help your children understand when someone intends to help them or hurt them and when someone intends to do something right or something wrong.

Appraisal also includes helping your children take more than one thing into account when they are noticing other people. They benefit when they are asked questions like, “What did you notice about her?” “What did she say and how did she say it?” “What did her face look like?” “What did she do?” “Who else was present?” “What did they do?” These questions and others like them will help your children improve their appraisal skills.

For children, seeing emotions is much like a hidden picture. At first, they can only see the obvious, but after learning that there is something more in the picture, a better search reveals what was hidden. Teaching appraisal skills allows you to do more than just help your children see and accurately make inferences about what other people might be feeling. Teaching appraisal skills to your children also teaches them what to look for. Since many of us find what we are looking for, it is better for children to look for and find people who like them instead of looking for and finding people who are bad and potentially hurtful. It is better for children to look for and find love than to look for and find little or none of this emotion. It is also better if children look for and find fun, laughter, and enjoyment.

Teaching appraisal skills will enable you to exert influence on how your children come to view themselves and the world around them. For instance, the more accurately your children appraise other people, the more likely they are to go out into the world with courage and make a positive contribution. When your children have experiences of failure and are not accurate about others, they are more likely to compensate through aggression, meanness, fear, and passivity.

We use what we know about our own feelings as the means by which we understand someone else. What we look for and find in others, we often see in ourselves. You can make your children's lives more positive and complete by helping them look for and find the best in themselves and in the people around them.

LANGUAGE

Language Learning Activities

You should be aware that your children have the ability to learn new language if you will simply provide the environment, example, and attention. You can help your children increase their language skills by using these activities designed to focus on very specific and essential vocabulary and language functions. These are the skills that will facilitate your children's social interaction, increasing their likelihood of success in the family, among their friends, in future jobs, and in marriage. As their skills continually improve, your children will become increasingly able to communicate effectively about their own needs and wants, listen more productively, regulate their behavior and other's, and participate in relationships more successfully.

These Language activities will help you identify some of the most basic and important language skills for your children to learn. The activities for each language skill or function may be done according to a time frame that you find appropriate, preferably within a day or two. You may be required to adapt certain activities to your family and the abilities of your individual children. If certain materials are difficult to find or are not readily available, please substitute them with others that you already have, such as books or songs that you currently enjoy. You may also wish to access some of the additional literature referenced at the end of particular activities for further ideas and methods to teach language skills.

After completing the language activities in this book, you should find that your children communicate in more effective ways. They will have at their command new vocabulary and new observational skills. They will be more aware of what they are communicating in a variety of situations and should be able to adapt their language appropriately to different circumstances. You may be surprised, as you teach these skills and the best ways to communicate in various situations, that your skills improve as well.

Personal and Discovery Language

The natural language abilities of children are phenomenal, yet it is hard for adults to comprehend just how much a very young child can learn and must learn in order to communicate with others in a very complex world. One of the things which children learn is how to use words for different purposes and how to use these words in combination with others. Many of the language activities presented in this chapter bring children into contact with personal and discovery language. Personal language consists of words and references to the individual child. These words include: “myself,” “me,” and “I.” Using personal words enables a child to refer to himself or herself as a person of action who does things and carries out different activities.

These activities help your children learn language that combines personal references with the activity of discovering, finding things out, and learning. The set of words linked to discovery include: “why,” “what,” “when,” and “how.” When children learn to ask the right kind of questions using these discovery words, they have the opportunity to learn many different things. This section also includes activities in which your children learn the correct intonation for asking questions and how to ask questions which are personally important.

Remember that the words we use are often linked to thoughts, which are also tied to behavior. Ultimately, the words and phrases we use influence how we act. By combining personal and discovery language, you are preparing children to explore, learn about, be fascinated with, and gain interest in the world around them. Understanding this concept, we become aware that learning language is more than learning a set of words; learning language also promotes the development of personality traits which can enhance a child's life in very real ways. Consider situations in which personal and discovery words might be used. Some that readily come to mind include any school subject such as science, arithmetic, and reading. Personal and discovery ideas are also involved in fact-finding, business pursuits, inventiveness, and creativity.

By helping your children develop improved language skills, you are exerting a type of positive influence which may have direct and noticeable results immediately as you teach. More importantly, however, teaching kinds of language exerts a much more enduring form of influence. Giving your children words and abilities to express themselves is essentially the same thing as giving them a set of thoughts to think with. The more words your children can use, the better their thoughts. The better their thoughts, the more likely they will successfully apply their thoughts. Personal language enables your children to be more successful at investing themselves and giving of their energy. Discovery language opens many doors of opportunity for acts of adventure and exploration.

Interpersonal and Personal Language

One of the most important structural parts of language is the idea that language can be practical. This means that we learn to use different forms of language for different purposes and in different situations. You might be able to imagine, for instance, that the form of language used with a stranger is different than language used with a friend. The words may be different, the topics you talk about will be different, and the degree of closeness or secrecy will be different.

One of the most amazing things about language development is that the ability to adapt language to specific situations is learned at the same time as we learn to combine words, increase vocabulary, and learn gestures. How children learn all of these skills at once is truly amazing and baffling. In spite of the questions we have about how children do this, we do know that the family plays a very important role in this aspect of language. For instance, what you talk most about in your home will become what your children pay the most attention to. The types of language you use will be copied by them and used throughout their lives. Language development is one of the principle ways adults influence children. This is especially true for the two forms of language discussed in this section—interpersonal and personal language.

Interpersonal language consists of words, ideas, and events which take place between two or more people. Love, kindness, tenderness, compassion, and communication are examples of interpersonal words. Personal language is the type of language which we use to refer to ourselves, including words referring to our thoughts, feelings, beliefs, and actions. Some of these words are connected to the words “I,” “me,” and “my.” Having skills in personal language gives us access to our own feelings and other internal experiences. Both of these forms of language are necessary in some of the most important areas of our lives.

Personal language and interpersonal language are part of every relationship. We use them in our marriages, with families and friends, at schools and churches, or any other time when people gather. Your children's success in these social situations will be largely determined by their skills in using these two language forms. Imagine the advantage, for instance, if someone has a large vocabulary about relationship terms and uses it to talk over important matters with a spouse or another family member. The outcome will be clearer communication, better understanding, agreement, and unity. When one or both individuals do not have an extensive ability to use personal and interpersonal language, they are also more likely to miss important things and participate less successfully in their relationships.

Currently, many social scientists think interpersonal and personal language may be more important in promoting success than other forms of language. This is because these two language forms permit greater ability for working with people, for understanding ourselves, and for managing the complexity of relationships. Like other important parts of language, it is equally important for children to begin learning these language forms early in life so they will have enhanced abilities later on.

Applying Personal and Interpersonal Language

Interpersonal and personal language were presented in the previous section, and the introduction describes how important they are to the social and emotional well-being of children. The personal and interpersonal activities further illustrate the concept of well-being by applying these two language forms to very specific social situations. The activities permit you to apply what your children have learned to the everyday situations they participate in. The skills practiced in the activities include sharing, talking with a friend, asking for something, solving a problem, and others. Multiple personal and interpersonal activities have been included in this book in order to emphasize their importance and to refine what your children have already learned. The First Steps activities are organized to introduce words and language structures and then to repeat these language structures in different forms as an immersion experience. This strengthens what young children learn and presents to them an understanding that these words and phrases are important to know.

These personal and interpersonal language activities will also enable you to promote social courtesies, respect, and competence. Since there are numerous applications of the phrases and skills your children will learn, you may wish to practice them in several situations, including those in your home.

What your children are learning in these activities can be applied while eating meals, driving in the car, playing games, resolving difficulties, and participating in many other activities. The more your children hear and are asked to use any forms of language, especially in every day circumstances, the more likely various language forms will become useful tools for the rest of their lives.

We know that language and thoughts become connected, and if children know certain words, they can then think with them and be more successful in situations that involve themselves and others. For instance, having access to words that describe children's own personal experiences can be used in setting goals, clarifying their values, understanding how and why they act in certain ways, and eventually in controlling themselves. Having a good balance between personal and interpersonal language encourages children to avoid being too selfish, too submissive, or too unaware. Overall, successful people appear to have good personal skills which they use to understand themselves. In addition, these people have high-quality interpersonal abilities which they use to successfully interact with others. Participating in the following activities with your children will improve these personal and interpersonal abilities, guiding them to greater success in life.

Combining Regulatory and Interpersonal Language

Knowing how to talk in many specific situations is one of life's most important achievements. Most of us have felt the embarrassment which comes when our words or voice tones signal that we have misread something about other people or some event.

Activities in this book will teach your children about the language of regulation in interpersonal situations. In other words, your children will learn about the positive words they can use to get people to listen and pay attention, to announce rules, to compliment others, to provide directions, and to motivate.

Considering vocabulary alone, we can imagine many situations where graciously and courteously regulating our own and other people's behavior is a great advantage. These situations range from being a friend to successfully managing a business. Combining regulatory and interpersonal language introduces children to skills of organization, leadership, and planning. It may not be immediately apparent to you, but regulatory and interpersonal language skills are some of the skills consistently used by those who achieve, plan, provide direction, and behave in a goal-oriented fashion. People who have good abilities with this language inspire, excite, motivate, and provide positive enthusiasm for accomplishment. Most importantly, these are the skills required both for individual achievement and for the ability to achieve with others.

Some children participate in situations, constantly waiting for others to provide direction for them. When direction is given, some children do not hear it and still fail to act. Most of us want our children to be able to lead and to follow and to plan rather than wait to be told what to do. It is also the case that some children try to regulate too much by taking advantage of others who try to follow too much. Taking the time to teach the necessary language allows us to help children develop the positive conditions of leadership and motivation in combined with gracious and courteous behavior which most of us value. Teaching your children regulatory and interpersonal language helps you to develop children who are ‘Doers,' ‘Thinkers,' ‘Leaders,' and ‘Achievers.'
The Language of Discovery and Imagination

The words “discovery” and “imagination” have a familiar ring when we think of children because children fill their lives, and ours, with the joy of discovering what is new to them. They use their imagination to pretend, create, and fantasize. They offer to us a new and wonderful perspective about things we take for granted, and their excitement lets us see the innocent views of life young children are famous for. Both discovery and imagination remind us of wonderful human capacities which retain the youth and excitement in all of us.

The language functions of discovery and imagination have their serious side, too. Scientists question, reason, analyze, and search. Explorers seek to discover. Artists of every kind first imagine and then create. They do all of these things because they can think with words. This doesn't mean they think with just any words; but they use the words which allow them to question, innovate, and invent—they use the language of discovery and imagination. Again, it is the words being connected and structured in a certain way which makes the process of discovery and imagination possible.

Imagine a gift which allows children to imagine themselves as the heroes of a story or to discover new ideas on their own. Imagine the youthful artistry which begins with crayons and emerges as a new dance form, a magnificent painting, or a cure for cancer. If you can imagine these possibilities, you have used a form of thought which allows you to do so. If you cannot imagine, then you may not have neither the thought nor the language which permits you to move very far from the world of day-to-day. The children in your family, however, should not be so unfortunate and won't if you will participate with them in discovering and imagining.

Try imagining the quest for some unknown fact, the search for a new idea or theory. The origin of such a quest comes from the ability to think about what is unknown and to consider the benefits of learning more. It is both adventure and analysis, detail and soaring possibilities. It begins with children who find fulfillment in learning about things they have not known. The activities in this book provide a valuable introduction to help your children wonder and think. Give your children two great gifts—the gifts of discovery and imagination—and lead them on a path of imagining, discovering and creating new possibilities.

The Language of Teaching, Telling, and Doing

Most human communication is designed to inform. Children are often heard telling their parents or teachers about a dream, a story, or some experience. Adults tell children about nature, family, friends, school, and a host of other things. Most of this telling is done in conversational tones, but it can also include scolding, criticizing, and lecturing. Regardless of which form you use, any time you are communicating in the hope that someone else will understand, you are communicating to inform. Essentially, the goal of most communication is to inform, but informing is done in many different ways.

If you have difficulty appreciating the many uses of informing, consider what you must know and understand about communication in order to inform others or be informed about instructions, directions, guidelines, plans, and procedures. Adequately communicating this type of information enables us to get things done. When you communicate so that someone will act on what you tell him or her, or to produce action in another person, you are using what is referred to as “instrumental” language. The important thing for you to understand is that teaching anything requires a combination of informational and instrumental language.

It almost boggles the mind to consider the many places where teaching takes place. Informing someone so he or she can carry out specific instructions is certainly a part of every human relationship. It can be informal such as when two friends are making plans for a date or dinner together. Or it can be very formal such as when working to achieve goals and to be productive in schools, businesses, religions, and families. Teaching your children the language skills of how to inform and produce action is probably one of the most important things you will do for them and is also extremely valuable for you.

Teaching these language skills is a two-for-one deal. You teach your children instrumental and informative language and they will learn more about informing and instructing others. In addition, they will learn to listen and follow instructions better. When children develop these language skills, they become better at understanding and carrying out instructions. A little teaching can prevent misinterpretations and failure to follow through. Besides, these activities are fun and enjoyable to participate in with your children!

Informing and Imagining

One of the best times for parents is when a child reveals his or her own creations. The fruits of imagination are fine when they remain within the mind of an individual, but they are made more enjoyable when a child tells about them. When children tell a made-up story, an imagined fantasy, or some colossal dream, they are letting us into a world that is very precious and, unfortunately, very temporary. Hopefully, before we miss many of these moments, we will learn this lesson—that these imaginary worlds are fleeting and will stop. We should listen carefully and even make a record of what we hear. These times of sharing can provide some of the most cherished memories in years to come.

Imagination has other more practical benefits other than future memories. Some behavioral scientists have found, for example, that children who can imagine well tend to be the most creative and, eventually, the most satisfied with their lives, regardless of their career or profession. Apparently, this is because the ability to imagine is linked with the type of divergent thinking which characterizes the mental workings of very ingenious people. However, it is not enough to ensure success simply by being creative. To be the most successful, both as a child and an adult, one needs to imagine, create, and then express to or inform others about the creation.

Otherwise, it is like a magnificent artist who paints but never shows the paintings or a fabulous writer who never publishes a single book. Imagine if some of history's most storied inventors had kept their ideas to themselves.
Suppose that you help very young children imagine and inform others about their creativity. You can teach them to do this by helping them learn the language which allows them to express their creativity. One of the things which will likely happen in this teaching process is that your example, in addition to the effort you make, will tie these forms of language into your personal repertoire of communication skills. As you more frequently use this type of language to teach, your children will be brought into repeated contact with these language functions. Over the years of childhood, the more your children hear this type of language used, the more likely they are to learn it and use it.

For example, suppose you teach your children a set of action vocabulary—words ending in “-ing.” Over time, your children learn to use these action words in several different situations. What happens is your children's imaginations expand and become more capable of creative thinking, inventing, or discovering. These informing and imagining language activities provide you with tools to help your children take their simple, amusing imaginations from their minds and place them on the drawing board for incredible, ideas, inventions, or discoveries! When accompanied by good values and positive relationships with you, your children can develop active minds which create much that is good and useful. Then, when these minds are expressed in an attempt to inform, others benefit as well. This reward is worth the effort to help your children learn the language of informing and imagining.

Regulating and Informing

As with all the previous activities, the activities in this section combine language functions with vocabulary, word sounds, and examples that show children how to use them appropriately. Language is, in fact, the ability to organize sounds in a way that invokes meaning, and then being able to use words, or combinations of sounds, for specific functions or purposes. Little children are already working on achieving this combination of language abilities and, as a result, will tend to quickly learn how to participate.

What remains is for children to make choices about the manner in which certain words are used for each specific situation. Consider linking language to concepts of quantity and space. Quantity refers to words like “all,” “nothing,” or “none.” Space is referred to by using words or phrases such as “under,” “above,” and “on top of.” By introducing and using words and phrases like these, we can help children master the ability to apply words appropriately to situations which call for the ideas these words represent.

If you need added appreciation for the importance of these language abilities, think for a moment about where this language is used. The first thing which comes to mind is in using arithmetic. Arithmetic involves numbers as applied to ideas about space and quantity. We could reasonably expect that helping children learn language about space and quantity prepares them for success in the application of numbers. In addition, regulating and informing about space and quantity can easily be linked to understanding time, which helps them understand scheduling, planning, and organizing. These basics are further tied to children's understanding about the importance of making and keeping promises, meeting due dates and deadlines, and completing tasks. In other words, by teaching children these language skills you will be adding to their abilities in many other areas.

While you are teaching your children, it is wise to remember that the voice tones you use will provide an example to them of how they can regulate others. If you are usually a stern, managerial parent, chances are your children will learn these tones whenever they are regulating others or themselves. If you are generally quiet or perhaps even passive as you regulate your children, you can expect that they will be influenced to follow you in this direction. There is wisdom, therefore, in examining your voice tones in addition to the amount you regulate and the amount you talk when you inform someone else. Your actions constitute one of the most profound teaching procedures your children will ever know. It will be valuable that you keep this idea in mind while you participate in the activities.

The Language of Doing

If you are the parent of a three-year-old child, you already know that children this age spend most of their time very busily doing things and going places. Have you ever tried to follow one of your own children at this age, but after a short period of time, gave up exhausted? It is not just their energy level which seems untiring, but it also seems like they have boundless interest in anything which involves their bodies. And, as it turns out, their bodies are a principle source of learning for them—an idea which offers some unique opportunities for you to use as you teach your children enhanced language abilities.

During their early years, children are learning more than just one thing at a time. They are learning language, as we are aware, and they are also learning new and improved physical skills. Suppose that you take advantage of the powerful motivation children have to be doing something physical and use it to teach language. Instead of sitting and learning through more quiet activities, you can teach language while children are in the act of doing. Even more precisely, you can teach instrumental language—or the language of doing—at the same time children are busy doing all sorts of different things. Teaching about the language that describes what children are immediately engaged in is probably the most effective way to help children remember and be excited about what they are learning. All that is required is for you to notice the “doings” children are involved in and talk about them using the words, voice tones, and ideas which come from the instrumental function of language.

As an example of using instrumental language as you talk to your children, you might say, “We are playing a game, and after we finish we are going to rake the leaves.” Telling your children about what you are doing, instead of simply doing them, is the first step in this teaching process. The second step requires you to invite your children to tell you what they are doing, how they are doing it, and whether they like what they are doing. You can also plan with them, organize with them, and reward them for doing something well. Starting early when your children are young allows you to teach more than language. You can teach them how to be effective as well as have fun. The First Steps activities provide you with an excellent way for you to begin.

Language for Pretend and Play

Much of a young child's world is made up of the play and pretend games which characterize childhood. Play is very important to children because it is usually fun and enjoyable. It is also a primary method of learning some of life's most important lessons. For instance, children's play introduces them to moral concepts about good and bad, right and wrong, and what helps or harms other people. It invites them to learn social skills such as cooperation, sharing, talking things over, and taking turns. Play also provides a representation of life as children know it, and it lets children practice many situations in life without having to take real risks of failure. Pretending to be a daddy or having a tea party allows children to catch a glimpse of some lifelike situations they wish to learn about. In the atmosphere of play, however, they are in a comfortable situation to learn about life.

Play is also a very useful time to learn about language. It is especially useful to learn about imaginative language at the same time children are practicing adult roles and more mature forms of social behavior. Since play is important to children because it is enjoyable, they tend to be more interested in learning anything that makes them more successful at it. They also enjoy learning anything associated with what they find pleasure in.

When children are experiencing the feelings of play at the same time as learning social language, their ability to learn words and sounds and apply them is increased. The imaginative and interpersonal words name events and experiences that are usually a part of every child's successful play and social experiences. By teaching these words to your children and inviting them to use them during these activities, you will be helping them develop improved abilities to imagine positive things and develop enhanced social skills.

Language is related to how your children act, what they think, and their social skills. This is why teaching language is so productive for parents. The more your children know, the better they can reason. The better they reason, the more they can understand the best ways to act. Teaching language, therefore, is one of the most effective things you can do to help your children succeed.

NUMBERS

Numbers Learning Activities

Young children have the ability to learn number concepts if you will simply provide the environment, example, and attention. The number activities in this book are designed to focus on specific and essential number concepts and to increase your children's confidence and skills with numbers. Number concepts are the concepts that will facilitate your children's ability to successfully understand the world around them.

As they become increasingly proficient in the basic number concepts, they will also better understand time, money, organization, efficiency, and many other aspects of daily life that play a role in success in all areas.

The following sections will help you identify some of the most basic and important number concepts for children to learn. This book contains a series of activities that help you to teach these number concepts and their roles in life's success. The activities for each concept may be done according to a time frame that you find appropriate, preferably within a day or two. You may be required to adapt certain activities to your family size and the abilities of your children. If certain materials are difficult to find or are not readily available, please substitute them with others that you already have such as books or songs that you currently enjoy.

After completing the number activities, you should find that your children have skills in many different number concepts. They will have at their command new vocabulary and new counting, organizing, categorizing, and observing skills. You may be surprised as you teach these concepts that your skills improve as well.

More and Less, Bigger and Smaller

Counting seems so commonplace to us as adults that we typically think very little about it. We count the number of steps in a staircase, the number of children in a school room, and the number of bills in our purses or wallets. Counting is deeply embedded into the course of our lives because we have been exposed to it for such a long time. For children, however, counting is a more obvious part of life and one which they spend a great amount of time learning about and using.

Take a brief, fanciful journey to childhood for a moment. Imagine that you don't know much about the world and are learning the names of new things every day. There is a whole host of things, people, events, and places you do not know about; however, since you are a child, not knowing something is acceptable. You can survive and function with your limited knowledge because your world is still small, but it is expanding rapidly and you clearly need to learn more. You don't make any conscious decisions about what you will do to learn, because the ability to organize what you learn just seems to come naturally. In addition, your parents are busy presenting you with ways to understand this new place, or at least they are teaching you the methods they know. One of the ways you order and organize the physical world involves the use of categorizing or putting things into groups. Not only that, after you put things into groups, you can further order those groups by placing them into larger categories. This is what you are doing when you learn about bigger and smaller, more and less.

The two sets of categories—bigger and smaller, and more and less—represent some of the very first categories children learn. They are considered primary units. As such, they are usually learned early on because they provide the basis for knowledge to come. These primary units answer many useful questions. First, they tell us about size: When there are two things to compare, one may be larger or smaller than the other in some way. Second, they are a way of quantifying collections of things: One collection has more objects and the other has less.

Third, after using this method of categorizing and quantifying, we can make decisions or judgments about the categories and understand what to do with each of them. In other words, the categories of bigger and smaller, and more and less, allow children to reason and think about a world in which they need to survive and succeed.

When you teach your children about these two important ideas, you will be teaching more than two methods of categorizing and quantifying, you will be teaching the foundation for reasoning. These number activities will set you on a course to provide these elemental skills.

Series and Sequencing

Picture the following scenario. Suppose you enter a room and find several marbles on the table. You might look at the different colors and the different sizes. As you touch and look at them, you might idly sort them so that all the ones which are red or mostly red go together in one group and all the blue and green go in another. After grouping them, you might want to organize them another way. You could, for instance, place them in a series or sequence until they are ordered from smallest to largest. After making a sequence of the marbles you might count them. Having grouped them, ordered them, and counted them, you will have the feeling that you have learned more about them. You will have taken some disorganized, chaotic objects, and performed some operations to allow you to make sense of them.

Now imagine what a child does to make sense out of the world he or she sees. One of the methods children use is counting, or finding out how many of something exists. Another method is to place any group of objects in a series or sequence so each separate object is placed in a specific or “right” place. A medium sized marble, for instance, has its own place when the marble on one side of it is smaller and the marble on the other side is larger. When this order is correctly found, a child will label the place selected as the “right” place because it satisfies the rule of size. The right place for any marble is higher in the sequence than the smaller marble and lower in the sequence than a larger one.

Watching a child perform the task of arranging or sequencing a set of objects reveals an inherited method of making judgments about where things belong or do not belong. It is quite amazing to see a child know how to make a series without much, if any, instruction. Also, once the series is correct, the child seems to naturally assume that his or her judgment is correct. Sequencing gives children confidence in their ability to make useful judgments about a world filled with new and strange things.

There is more to sequencing than just putting things in order, however. Children can use series and sequences to understand many other concepts like more, less, top, bottom, middle, equal, and unequal. From the simplest of numerical exercises, namely sequencing, children learn useful methods for discovering things about and making judgments about their world.

Recognizing Patterns

Newborns come to us with a built in ability to look for and recognize patterns. A pattern might be a set of recurring events, like the steps you take in getting ready in the morning, or it might refer to a set of objects which are connected in some way such as the car and the driveway or the vacuum and the carpet. Recognizing patterns of various kinds is a way for a child to understand more complex things and successfully maneuver in the world.

As adults, we recognize patterns so often we usually do not think much about them. In our minds, we are just going through the day-to-day activities of our lives, one of which includes rearing children. To children, however, recognizing patterns is a very satisfying event. Since children's brains are designed to recognize patterns, when they successfully do so, they feel an inner sense of pleasure and satisfaction. This satisfaction usually motivates them to look for other patterns in the world around them. They want to know what causes what, what precedes something else, and how things are tied together. In addition, most adults realize that much of teaching children includes helping them create patterns of positive behavior and performance. These include helping children see connections between how they need to act in relation to rules. Patterns also help children realize that there are connections between their good or bad behavior and the consequences such behavior produces.

Thus far, we have proposed that using numbers is one of the principle methods children use to understand their world. This idea becomes even more obvious when using numbers includes the creation of patterns. Through understanding numbers, children learn to better recognize patterns and to look for new ones. Rather than a simple and unimportant skill, using numbers to improve your children's ability to recognize patterns can be applied to help them significantly grow in their ability to understand and act in a very complex world.

You can teach your children about patterns in two steps. The first step is to sort and classify objects into groups. Classification or categorization is a natural ability, but it can be greatly improved with practice. When children have learned the “rules of inclusion,” or why one thing belongs with something else, they can be taught the second step, which is to recognize the pattern involved. These patterns provide a small example of what else children can look for. After they see the first set of patterns, they can be helped to look for and find others. They will have learned more about numbers and will have acquired new mental abilities.

Using Numbers to Order Things

Up to this point, you have read how children learn to group and sequence objects. You have also read about many ideas related to sequencing. Now, let's discuss how children can use numbers to provide order and organization. This is a very important step in the learning of numbers. Up to this stage in their lives, young children have counted mostly as part of language development and because their parents do it. In this next step of using numbers to provide order and organization, children will learn that numbers are like a symbolic language where the words represent something else.

By age three most children are introduced and accustomed to the idea that a word like “chair” actually represents a real chair. Now, with numbers, children learn that each number represents something more than itself—each number is part of an order from small to large or low to high.

Numbers can be used for many more things than ordering objects, but using numbers to order and organize is one of the first and best ways for children to learn that each number is a symbol for something else. Children learn to put numbers in a well-defined sequence or order fairly well early on, but they might not comprehend numbers' role as a symbol or that they represent other things. To better understand this idea, count to ten. By counting to ten, you will have used numbers which also can represent objects, people, or events. These numbers are ordered with each in its place at the beginning, the end, or between two other numbers. Each number represents a quantity larger than the one before it and smaller than the number which follows. Each is different than the others and has specific meaning. Three, for example, is different than eight, and both three and eight represent a specific quantity. This is what children still must learn.

Most children delight in counting because counting is the same thing as learning a new language which helps them think about and understand the world. When children try to count, they are trying out their new way of thinking to see if it works in their world. Delight and interest arise when there is a match between the words they say and the objects they represent. When there is not a match, children will either change their counting or rearrange the objects they are counting. Through this self-correction, they learn that the language of numbers is a language they can be fluent in if they practice using it.

One Number, One Person, One Object, One Thing

The last section explained how children can learn that numbers are sequential and can be used to order things. In the process, they learned that numbers are a separate language or set of symbols which represent other things, people, objects, or events. In this section, you can learn how to help your children understand the idea that numbers are symbols of something else. These activities will also help your children apply numbers in what we call “rote counting.” Rote counting is the accepted method of counting from one to five or from one to ten and so forth.

Keep in mind that while counting and saying the names of numbers begins as an inherited ability, the words we use in our language are not inherited. To be successful at using numbers, children must learn the words which represent each number and be able to correctly apply them to what they represent. It is often a difficult task to learn that “five” is the correct word to use if there are five birds or five cars in a picture. In fact, it is sort of amazing that children pick this up as quickly as most do. The name used to describe this ability is “one-to-one correspondence.”

You may think one-to-one correspondence is fairly easy and wonder why we are so concerned that children learn it. If this is your feeling, consider that tying our shoelaces is pretty basic too, but if you have watched a child struggle to learn how to do it, you can appreciate both the effort required to learn it and the pleasure at succeeding. A little examination of the process of learning numbers can likewise help us appreciate just what a child goes through to learn it.

The first number, “one,” naturally refers to one object or thing. That is a pretty easy concept to understand. One word equals one object. The question is, how do children learn that the word “two,” which is only one word, actually represents two objects? Isn't it more logical to assume that if the number “one” refers to one thing, then shouldn't two objects be represented with two numbers such as “two, two,” and three things represented by three numbers, “three, three, three?” One-to-one correspondence means that children learn that the words from one to ten actually refer to a certain number of things in sequence of increasing quantity. The word “four” represents more than the word “three” and so on. This requires that each number word represents a set of things rather than just one word or one thing. This is learned by repeatedly matching the word with the set of things until children correctly match the word with the amount. Then, how proud they deserve to be when they correctly count to ten, and higher, while correctly matching words and amounts of things. The smile on their faces and the light in their eyes shows they have truly accomplished something important.

Recognizing Numerals and Left to Right Sequence

Learning to count is pretty challenging, but it is not the only thing children must learn before they have mastered numbers and can use them well. They also need to appreciate that numbers, like words, are written as numerals and read from left to right. This means that they must learn that each number they know how to say has another symbolic form—each word can be written as a numeral. Then, they learn that the numerals which represent the words they have learned to say will be in the correct sequence only when the smallest is on the left, followed by one higher on the right of it, until the highest numeral is farthest right.

It is easy to imagine why some children have difficulty learning this concept. First of all, it requires they know their left from their right. Next, it requires they know that written words correspond to the words they say and hear. Finally, they need to know that written words represent a certain number of things just like spoken words do. Therefore, we might imagine they would make a certain number of errors when they first try to learn this. In spite of the difficulties, however, just like the others things they learn, children will have great pleasure in mastering this part of numbers as well.

You probably frequently count aloud to your children and help them count until they can count correctly to ten or more. With them sitting on your lap, you might also show your children pictures of objects linked to pictures of numerals. Pointing to the numeral, you say the word and your children follow your example. This is how they first learn that the words you say can also be recognized as numerals. That is a pretty good start. We typically stop there, however, without ensuring that children know that numerals must be sequenced from left to right. We often wait to teach this idea until children are in kindergarten and learning to write.

Suppose, instead, that the children learn that numerals are in sequence from left to right from the very beginning. Instead of the trial and error involved in the learning process of most children, they will understand early that numerals, and any writing, happen from left to right. They will make fewer errors and have greater success.
This will initiate a positive cycle of learning because success motivates attempts for more success and prevents the discouraging feelings many children associate with numbers. You can save yourself and your children a lot of future problems by teaching successful skills in the first place.

More Recognition of Numbers and Meaningful Counting

One little step at a time—this is a very good way for children to learn about numbers. Let them learn and become competent at one step and then, when they are confident, move them along to the next step. Confidence is important in relation to numbers because so many concepts are involved. When children believe in themselves and master one step before going on to others, they acquire a feeling of competence. This feeling will help them in the future when they are faced with the prospect of learning anything new. It is also a very good idea to review frequently and repeat something they have already learned. This will also give them the feeling they have mastered some part of counting and will promote greater interest and confidence later.

This section will continue to explain how to help your children recognize numbers. We have combined that skill with something called “meaningful counting.” This form of counting enables children to understand more about the connection between the words they say and what they are counting. Since this whole idea is a fairly complex process, it seems useful to give children repeated experiences. It is not fully necessary that your children get everything right immediately or worry about being better at these skills than anyone else. What is important is that your children have positive experiences with the opportunities numbers present for them. The positive feelings, the ability to accomplish, the exposure, and the experience of being involved with numbers are the most important ingredients for helping your children learn.

We often think about the importance of having fun when we learn. For us, learning is similar to school, and learning in school often had pressure attached to it. If we are not careful, we will approach these learning activities with children with as much tension as we felt in that school environment. Instead, remind yourselves that children need fun and laughter. Children benefit from associating with you in ways that give both of you pleasure. Therefore, if you are tense and worried about doing these activities correctly, relax a little. The activities will still be effective even if they are done imperfectly. The most important thing for your children is for the activities to be linked to you and to numbers in a pleasurable way.

Recognizing More Numbers and More Meaningful Counting

In this section, the activities invite you to continue helping your children recognize more numbers and link them to increasingly different types of things, events, and people. Continuing what was started in previous chapters will help your children review, gain additional confidence, and feel like they have mastered the ideas. In addition, your children will be learning similar ideas through different activities. This will help them understand that the number concepts they are learning can be applied in many different ways.

Further, inviting them to apply number concepts in different activities ensures they will have learned to link numbers and sequences of numbers to what they find in the world around them. Thinking about and understanding the world is one of the real goals of learning about and using numbers.

These activities also help your children understand a deeper and better way to count. Rote counting is simply saying the words in the correct order; meaningful counting links the words and sequence to more elaborate ideas. Frequent and repeated experience and exposure to meaningful counting is needed in order for your children to become truly competent.

These activities also introduce your children to a greater variety of stimulating conditions in their environment. When your children are brought into contact with a wider variety of experiences, they find learning more stimulating and pleasurable. It is stimulating and satisfying for your children to discover more things and to be able to master them. Numbers offer a fairly large opportunity for your children to continually expand their knowledge. All they have to do is identify new and interesting things and then count them.

Recognizing Shapes and Dimensions

Over time, children's knowledge of numbers grows and can be applied in many different ways. One of these applications is geometric shapes like circles, squares, and triangles. To understand why this is useful, remember that numbers are a primary way for children to learn and understand the physical world. Keeping that in mind, take a drive down a city street and see how triangles, circles, and squares appear in the buildings, the traffic lights, the billboards, and even the lines on the roads. Instead of taking our knowledge about these shapes for granted because we are accustomed to them, imagine how much information we get from them by recognizing them and understanding how they fit into the physical world. For example, everyone who has a driver's license knows that the shape of signs is linked to specific messages. In addition, the shape of lines on the road are unspoken instructions about where and how to drive. Many other uses of shapes are equally important and applicable to aspects of our daily lives.

Numbers are tied to shapes because we measure the size, distance, and connection between the squares, circles, and triangles with numbers. Knowing these two pieces of information enables your children to understand and make their way in a world which initially makes little sense to them. As you teach them and as they learn, you will be helping them in more ways than solely being knowledgeable about arithmetic. You will be enhancing their opportunities to be successful in a physical world which offers many possibilities but which can also be dangerous. Thinking about numbers in this way can increase your motivation as a parent or teacher to invest the necessary time and energy that will ensure your children are wise about these important things.

Different Shapes Have Different Names

One of the most interesting things about geometric shapes is the way numbers can be used to explain them. For instance, some shapes have a certain number of sides and are given special names because of this number. A square has four equal sides, as we all know, and a triangle has three sides which may be equal or unequal. A circle is named such because it has no sides. Thus, the names we give certain shapes are determined by something which we number. For children, much of their early life is linked to playthings and furniture which employ the same ideas. Marbles look like circles to the eye. Building blocks are squares. Tinker Toys can form many different shapes with several sides. Puzzles are squares and rectangles, as are books parents and teachers read from. Virtually all of the furniture in your house utilizes one or more of these shapes. It is simple, therefore, to conclude that shapes are all around children from the first moment of birth.

When children learn the names of shapes, they demonstrate this knowledge by seeing them in a variety of places. A child might say, “Look, Mommy, that's a square,” when observing the cushion in the big easy chair in the living room. When children make this connection, you can easily note how delighted they are at discovering a true fact about their world. When you agree with their observation or say, “That's right,” you are telling the child his or her interpretation of things is correct. In light of this positive response, it is also fairly easy to appreciate that a natural motive exists which fuels children's efforts to discover.

Have you ever asked yourself why you think you understand something if you know its name and its shape? There might be many reasons, but usually these two bits of information also help us learn what an object does. Knowing what an object does further allows children to know about it or what to do with it. This is especially important if you are three or four years old and think that inanimate objects have human characteristics. Children this age may think thunder is angry, a tree talks, and flowers sing. Young children tend to think in this manner, and their lives are filled with errors which can only be corrected if they have an accurate understanding of things. If you are a three year old, for instance, it is nice to know that chairs sit motionless and do not jump out at you during the night and chase you. At the age of three or four, knowing numbers, shapes, and the names of numbers and shapes can help children feel more secure in their world.