Hi Waterdreamer, can you let us know what it's like. I think my son is almost ready but I'm hesitant to spend money on it if he's not ready cause I'll spend it on something else first 

I think it's really brave of you ShenLi (and all of us) to admit that we can learn from others. It's one of the things I love about the community on this site - it's full of parents who want to do a good job and want to learn how to do it.

I was mocked for doing parenting courses - there's a big stigma attached. But these courses were written by child psychologists, who am I to think i know more than they do? The courses were lovely, a lot of the stuff we were already doing some of it we'll keep in mind for the future and some of it needs to be adjusted to suit our personal environment and lifestyle.

One course was called "You make the difference" and the other (which I'm still doing) is called "Raising Secure Children". The titles grabbed me and the content is wonderful - not to mention it's lovely seeing a child psychologist each week to discuss things with

Didn't know that about toothpaste - great tip.

nic31600 in regards to encouraging musical creativity I''ll start another post because I think it would be really interesting to get everone's opinions

You're a legend Chris1

Hey Guys,

I probably didn't explain the vertical drawing very well, we started our son on that first. He was four months. What we did was get some of those alphabet jigsaw mats and created a triangle and then taped the cardboard onto it. It worked like an easel. We then sat him on our lap or in his high chair and let him go for it.

You can see his first painting session at http://www.acrodancer.com/sabian.html it's a bit slow to load at the moment as I've been lazy putting it together. Scroll down - I think it's labelled as his first painting session. You'll also notice one labelled chalk & cuddles this one we were doing on the floor and the awkardness of that position is really obvious compared to the vertical easel.

As for drawing on walls - our son did this three times, all when we moved house. Basically we weren't giving him enough attention so he deliberately did what he knew would stop us unpacking and bring us running. We rent too so it was really important that he learn not to as we don't want to lose our bond (and then some) for painting the walls. He is just over two now and wouldn't even consider drawing on the walls. He has never been punished or had so much as a harsh word it was all achieved through positive reinforcement.

We started training him from the begining. It is much easier to train them while they're still in need of constant supervision than when you can let them wander around the house - you want to get on top of the impulse before that.

We found labelling the paper etc as a "canvas" worked well. We then would compliment him for drawing or painting etc on his canvas. When he would approach the wall with a pen or crayon we would light heartedly pick him up saying "You're a funny boy - that's not a canvas that's a wall!' We'd then take him to his butchers paper and get him to make a mark on it which would then be praised "what a good job you're doing drawing on your canvas" it didn't take long for him to realise that the walls weren't for drawing on and as I said the only time we've had trouble with it was basically our own fault we should have made sure he wasn't feeling ignored when we were so busy (oh well you live and learn).

We still have little art stations around the house and he still makes use of them and the art projects are a favourite for us all.

Like nic31600 we stick our art up around the house - I think it's really important that he understands that we appreciate his art.

The most important thing with art is fun and creativity. Lots of different textures and materials.

One we like is getting a spray bottle filling it with water and adding food colouring. I then get old sheets and singlets and we spray them with different coloured sprays (outdoor art!!!) it's heaps of fun. Though at ten months the trigger is a bit hard and he'll need your help but he'll enjoy it anyway.

I don't know why they think it better to introduce it later.....I'd be interested in their arguments for that.

My understanding is that an awful lot of parents have trouble moving from single words to sentences, possibly because of waiting too long.

I started straight away. Eg when I had covered several colours i started to add them to words such as "blue car", "white plate" "pink flower".

I see no logical reason to wait......but perhaps I have missed something  

Thanks ShenLi,

I think parenting is an evolving art - one the human race might get right in another couple hundred of generations.

I like to think I'm a better parent than my parents (I know they were better than theirs) and I hope my son is better than me.

We were very lucky.

I made a new years resolution when I was 18 to learn something new every year. It's the only resolution I've ever kept. Some things I continue with somethings I don't but every year I learn something.

I want my son to grow up knowing that I am willing to learn from others, that I don't think I've learned it all and that the process continues. I want him to know that I respect learning and that I crave it. I hope that in doing this he will continue to love learning, to want to learn, to listen to others and to always be willing to try new things.

I believe that Doman recommends moving on to sentences and couplets once a child has 50 words.

I think Hyptia and Twinergy have hit the nail on the head. I recently did a parenting course called "You make the difference" it is a really lovely course and I highly recommend it.

One of the things they talk about most is

finding the reason behind the behaviour

. Toddlers need us to label everything in their world for them and that includes their feelings. They can get very overwhelmed and when they are thinking emotionally it is impossible (due to connections in the brain having not matured) for them to think logically. Outbursts of violence, becoming clingy, becoming emotional, becoming wild and unruly are all signs that they are thinking with big emotions not logic. You need to deal with the emotions and get them out of the emotional state before you can expect them to think logically.

If your son is becoming overwhelmed with his feelings and is unable to label them or understand them or express them he will use other means to try and let those feelings out.

This isn't to say that he's upset when he behaves this way he could actually simply be over excited to a point where he can't control himself and needs an outlet. He might want so badly to communicate with his peer, but not have the words or the experience, this can lead to frustration and then "bad" behaviour.

Talking to him and acknowledging his feelings, helping him to label them, is the first step in helping him to recognise what he is feeling. Once he starts to recognise his feelings he is on the road to learning to control them (in about five years )

I love the idea of getting him to talk to one of his dolls if he can't tell you - this means that even if he doesn't have the words he can express himself because his doll will always understand what he is saying.

I think it is important that children understand that it's okay to not want to share, who does? I don't like other people driving my car - it's my car I worked hard to pay for it and I don't want to share it. I will share it, but I don't like it. We shouldn't judge children for the feelings they have it is completely normal for them to be completely selfish at this age, they are designed to believe the world centers on them at this point for survival reasons.

Making children share can be stressful and confusing and bring out big emotions that they're not ready to deal with. If they understand that it's okay to feel that way they can start to deal with the feelings and eventually learn to work around it and give the toy up willingly.

We bought our son a trampoline just before his 2nd birthday, it's fantastic. He runs in circles super fast and then jumps and then bounces and then runs some more and then repeats the whole process again. We jump together, I jump holding him, he sits and I jump, he tries to walk while I jump. So many things can be achieved on a trampoline.

This is a page where you can see him play on it, we'll soon be creating a proper page for him this is just one I use to show my family videos that are too big to email. I'll repost when we have his site up and running (probably in about two weeks).

http://www.acrodancer.com/sabian.html

I haven't read the how to make your baby physically superb but we do everything we can think of to try and make it happen. He's been able to catch since he was one (one handed small balls) and is a great climber (up and down). One thing we did early on (he was only cruising) was give him uneven surfaces to walk on and stand on. It's easy to do put a big thick text book (that you don't care about) on the ground and put a toy car under it. It's just enough to make the book tilt back and forth, hold his hands and let him have fun manipulating the balance as they get older make it a ball that's underneath and make the book a piece of board. Walking along a piece of rope on the ground is another fun one.

Hey Ishaa,

It's so good that you're willing to let your son explore his creative side rather than taking the pen off him

We started giving our son opportunities to draw with chalk and to paint when he was three months old. We let him hold his pens, crayons and paint brushes in whatever manner it felt comfortable but he was holding a pen correctly and with control by one simply through copying us.

We try not to "teach him" how to colour in etc as at this point it's more about the concept of making marks and developing fine motor skills as well as giving them a chance to become creative. Before he was two he was drawing pictures (some of which we could actually recognise before he told us what they were - many we still can't see what he sees )

We were told by an occupational therapist for children that drawing on walls (not actually the walls but on a vertical surface) was recommended for beginners because it helped them to develop arm strength and control, put less pressure on the wrist and that the position encouraged finger holding rather than fist holding and this natural ease is one of the reason children love to draw on walls. The other is that they just can't help but see the wall as blank canvas

We blu tacked butchers paper to the walls in each room and made him understand through positive re-inforcement that he could draw on the paper but not the walls. Giving him a creative spot in each room meant once he caught on we didn't have to worry and he could draw any time the fancy took him.

Another great tool are soft pastels - the colours are so vibrant (even the white) and they make marks with very little pressure being applied which is very rewarding for young children (be warned it stains carpet and don't let wet chalk near your walls it takes forever to get off).

We often make things out of cardboard boxes (our sons trampoline boxes were huge so we made a big bus) and then we decorate these altogether. It's great fun for all of us, the pastels work really well on cardboard, and becomes an art project that can be continued - the bus lasted us three weeks before we pulled it apart and now the bottom half is used for his soft toys, all decorated by himself. We found that when he was younger cardboard was easier for him as he didn't poke holes in it. They find it hard to control the amount of pressure when they first start.

We were also told by the OT & a child psychologist that when we paint or colour in with him to stay only one step a head of him. So if he's using his whole arm to scribble you scribble too but using your wrist and fingers rather than drawing pictures or colouring in when they're not at that stage as it can turn them off. We kind of mixed it up a bit and did both because we wanted him to see what can be achieved with pen and paper but we also understood that we needed to break the learning process down into bite sized chunks for him.

There are some really good recipes (just google it - if you cant find any let me know and I'll dig mine out and post them for you) for bath tub paints which gives them a lot of fun and then they're already in the right place to be cleaned up!!!

Enjoy the process it's so much fun doing art like a toddler again, I enjoy everything I do with my son but I think art would be my favourite (probably because I'm not really much better than he is )

Yes, exactly. I didn't go as far as to make it quite that simple but I did often introduce similar words or point out similar words. Bee & Knee spring to mind. Makes sense to give an earlier chance of making the connection.

When you say you couldn't find it in mp3 does that mean you couldn't find it at all or just in mp3 format?

It's not an online game, but it's great.

It's called reader rabbit toddler. The child only needs to be able to move the mouse accurately, they do not need to activate the buttons. It has a whole bunch of puzzles and games that our two year old adores.

Can't recommend it enough