values

How cooking helps with the psycho emotional development of a child

How cooking helps with the psycho emotional development of a child

Recently, I’ve attended a talk about the psycho-emotional needs of a child. Emotional learning begins at a very young age, as children discover a wide range of emotions, and evolves as they grow. Let me share below a useful table depicting their behavior and needs based on their age period.

Age PeriodRegulation/CopingExpressive BehaviorRelationship Building
Infancy:
0 – 12 mos.

Self-soothing and learning to modulate reactivity.

Regulation of attention in service of coordinated action.

Reliance on caregivers for supportive “scaffolding” during stressful circumstances.

Behavior synchrony with others in some expressive channels.

Increasing discrimination of others’ expressions.

Increasing expressive responsiveness to stimuli under contingent control.

Increasing coordination of expressive behaviors with emotion-eliciting circumstances.

Social games and turn-taking (e.g., “peek-a-boo”).

Social referencing.

Socially instrumental signal use (e.g., “fake” crying to get attention).

Toddlerhood:
12 mos.-2½ years

Emergence of self-awareness and consciousness of own emotional response.

Irritability due to constraints and limits imposed on expanding autonomy and exploration needs.

Self-evaluation and self-consciousness evident in expressive behavior accompanying shame, pride, coyness.

Increasing verbal comprehension and production of words for expressive behavior and affective states.

Anticipation of different feelings toward different people.

Increasing discrimination of others’ emotions and their meaningfulness.

Early forms of empathy and prosocial action.

Preschool:
2-5 years

Symbolic access facilitates emotion regulation, but symbols can also provoke distress.

Communication with others extends child’s evaluation of and awareness of own feelings and of emotion-eliciting events.

Adoption of pretend expressive behavior in play and teasing.

Pragmatic awareness that “false” facial expressions can mislead another about one’s feelings.

Communication with others elaborates child’s understanding of social transactions and expectations for comportment.

Sympathetic and prosocial behavior toward peers.

Increasing insight into others’ emotions.

Early Elementary School: 5-7 years

Self-conscious emotions (e.g., embarrassment) are targeted for regulation.

Seeking support from caregivers still prominent coping strategy, but increasing reliance on situational problem-solving evident.

Adoption of “cool emotional front” with peers.

Increasing coordination of social skills with one’s own and others’ emotions.

Early understanding of consensually agreed upon emotion “scripts.”

Middle Childhood:
7-10 years

Problem-solving preferred coping strategy if control is at least moderate.

Distancing strategies used if control is appraised as minimal.

Appreciation of norms for expressive behavior, whether genuine or dissembled.

Use of expressive behavior to modulate relationship dynamics (e.g., smiling while reproaching a friend).

Awareness of multiple emotions toward the same person.

Use of multiple time frames and unique personal information about another as aids in the development of close friendships.

Preadolescence:
10-13 years

Increasing accuracy in appraisal of realistic control in stressful circumstances.

Capable of generating multiple solutions and differentiated strategies for dealing with stress.

Distinction made between genuine emotional expression with close friends and managed displays with others.Increasing social sensitivity and awareness of emotion “scripts” in conjunction with social roles.
Adolescence:
13+ years

Awareness of one’s own emotion cycles (e.g., guilt about feeling angry) facilitates insightful coping.

Increasing integration of moral character and personal philosophy in dealing with stress and subsequent decisions.

Skillful adoption of self-presentation strategies for impression management.Awareness of mutual and reciprocal communication of emotions as affecting quality of relationship.

Note. From Saarni (2000, pp. 74-75). Copyright 2000 by Jossey-Bass.

The talk got me thinking about whether the lessons we developed for Little Cookhouse can help children grow emotionally and socially. By having children of the same age period work together, they can learn to share and learn how to take turns, and learn to express their emotions and requests politely and in an acceptable way. This interactions helps kids to learn skills on reading interpersonal cues, and to execute appropriate behavior in interpersonal situations!

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If You Give a Mouse a Cookie

You probably didn’t know that this book was written in 1985, and is today considered a contemporary classic!

It is so well-received, that Charles Schulz (yes, the Peanuts strips creator!) created 2 strips about it! The series has fans of all ages from all over the world including Japan, where an entire Tokyo city bus was painted with images of Mouse, and First Lady Michelle Obama read the book on the White House lawn during the 2009 Easter Egg Roll! How cool is that!

Author Laura Numeroff has often said in interviews that the idea for the story came to her during a car trip she took with a friend from San Francisco to Oregon. She narrated it as they drove and later wrote it down. The manuscript was passed over by nine publishers before being taken on finally.

The text was interpreted by illustrator Felicia Bond to show the increasing energy of the mouse, with the little boy being run ragged by the end of the story. Bond describes rushing to get the sketches done before leaving town with her boyfriend and that the energy of the mouse evolved from that excitement. She has mentioned on numerous occasions that the little boy in the book was her boyfriend, Stephen Roxburgh, as a child.

If_you_give_a_mouse_a_cookieWhat is the moral of the story? Here are 2 which I learned about.

Firstly, it is that one should possess empathy, respect, and basic manners. Even though the mouse asks for so many things from the boy, he just does it because he does it out of the goodness of his heart. This is a value we need to teach our children.

Secondly, it is how even a seemingly simple task may end up being more complicated than you originally thought, which teaches the importance of setting limits, even on a good deed. This is a lesson parents need to learn, and apply firmly so that our child can learn.

So, should we give a mouse a cookie? Yes, I think we should, but we should also teach the Mouse how to make the cookies so that he will have countless cookies to eat in future!

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Cake Pops Flower Pot for Mummies!

What a blast the 3-5 years old kids had during our Mothers Day Theme bake last Saturday and Sunday!
What was extremely memorable, was to see 9 year old Rayhan playing the big brother role in coaching and guiding his younger brother Keyaan. Despite being a kid himself, we saw how Rayhan will want to do all the activities, yet always willing to let Keyaan have a go at it. They will take turns, and Rayhan will, when necessary, hold his brother’s hand and guide him in the process. This simple act of helping one another, is exactly the kind of values which we hope to expose kids to and inculcate in them.
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big brother teaching the younger one
For example, during craft time, we deliberately arrange each child to have the raw materials of similar colours, and then encourage them to exchange with the other children. This arrangement will ‘force’ the child to speak up while learning about exchanging and sharing.
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the small act of getting the child to exchange their materials
The baking of the flower cake pop with edible flower pot was actually quite a complicated piece of bake, given the multiple components. But am glad that the kids managed it well, and even started licking off the ‘dirt’ (Oreo) off the cone even before it was completed!

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