Ask MetaFilter posts tagged with kids

Non-annoying Traditional Kids CD's

Pater Aletheias — Tue, 08 Jul 2008 10:17:14 -0800

I'm looking for a recording of good traditional (American) children's songs. You know, stuff like "Itsy-Bitsy Spider" and "Five Little Ducks." My definition of "good" is that my two-year-old can enjoy it and learn the songs, but it won't drive me crazy to listen to. No silly sound effects, just decent music. Do you know any anything that might fit the bill?

How do you teach 5 year olds to play baseball?

GhostintheMachine — Thu, 03 Jul 2008 09:25:48 -0800

I thought it would be fun to volunteer to help out with my son's first baseball team. Now I'm the coach, and twice a week I have about a dozen 4-6 year olds looking at me, expecting to learn how to play the game. I'm rapidly running out of ideas here. How do I keep the very basics of the game fun, interesting, and instructional? Most of the instructional materials I've found is aimed at older kids, 9-12 year olds, practicing skills like hitting the cutoff player and situational hitting, while some of my players need to practice remembering which hand to put their glove on. This is a non-competitive training league (there's only one team) meant just to introduce the concept of baseball, and most of these kids aren't even in school yet. They range in ability from being able to hit soft-tossed balls into the outfield to not having the arm strength to hold a bat up straight.

I'm looking for any ideas here.

Help me get my son a good education!

Spyder's Game — Fri, 27 Jun 2008 14:51:55 -0800

Mrs. Spyder and I are thinking about buying a house in the next year or so. With 1 youngster (almost a year old) and one on the way, we're looking to buy in an area with a good school district. Where can I find this information? In addition to this, here's a bonus question: What constitutes a "good school?" Is it based only on test scores alone? Is there a more wholistic way of rating these schools, based on experience of teachers, feedback from other parents, etc?

FWIW, we are looking to buy somewhere in the SoCal area, specifically Burbank-Glendale-Pasadena-ish.

Rain rain go away, although this game is moderately fun to play

Your Time Machine Sucks — Wed, 25 Jun 2008 06:29:06 -0800

Awesome but slightly rambunctious 8th grade class going on a school trip to the country. Rain is possible. Possibility of ultra-rare recreational computer access is likely to be a highly compelling reward for good behavior. The kids speak German. With all of these givens, what non-crack-like game should I install on the beater iBook G3 12" running 10.4 that I'm sending the teacher off with? Disclaimers: there is already a no-tech primary rain strategy involving books, indoor sports, board games, the lost art of conversation, etc. For those folks who feel that every second of a trip out of the city should be technology-free, I think the goal here is that nearly all of the seconds should be technology-free, but only a newbie teacher wouldn't keep an ace in the hole on a weeklong trip. For those folks who feel that every second of kid technology exposure should be educational, I'm mostly setting up the computer so the kids can take and store photos and blog their trip if they get antsy, [see last clause of previous sentence]. Just write me privately if you're bothered by the underlying premise, that's totally fine and I won't bite.

So, Mac-compatible non-system-demanding games which don't specifically require English skills (a few words are fine or even possibly beneficial), ideally which don't have unusually addictive qualities, with bonus points for having a cooperative mode. If you can further suggest something with redeeming virtues, I'd be most indebted. Thanks!

How do I keep the kids from burning themselves?

gaelenh — Tue, 24 Jun 2008 11:01:41 -0800

What are good safety procedures for soldering with kids? I am soldering with a small group of kids (4th or 5th grade and up). They would be soldering together ~24 gauge wire to motors, switches and battery packs. The rowdy couple of sixth graders I last soldered with didn't burn themselves, but I'm not sure if it will go as well with a slightly younger group. Does anyone have any experience they could share about soldering with kids?

Cold heat soldering irons seem safer. Are the cold heat soldering tools any good? I've only used traditional electrical and butane ones. The scant reviews online seem to say they are turn off in the middle of soldering and don't heat up the solder enough. Could anyone with a cold heat soldering iron share their experience?

Teaching kids music

baggymp — Sun, 22 Jun 2008 07:50:54 -0800

How do you encourage children to learn to play musical instruments? We've started well with our first child. At three years old he likes banging and clanking away on percussion instruments strategically placed around the house. We encourage him to sing and he likes to blow his recorder, mouth organ and imitation sax.

We want to buy a piano keyboard but don't want to start him on structured lessons too early. Do you know an ideal time to start teaching him and how can we encourage him further through structured play? Are their any teaching systems that adopt this approach?

how to help an 8yo deal with teasing?

luser — Tue, 17 Jun 2008 06:49:22 -0800

Our 8yo boy is very sensitive. Any teasing really seems to upset him, and of course that's the reaction the teaser is going for. How to help him? While extroverted, smart, funny, and kind, our boy has always been super sensitive to any kind of criticism or teasing. When he misbehaves, for instance, an angry look from me or his mom is often enough to bring him close to tears.

On the playground, any kind of teasing, or even the kind of verbal jousting all boys do, causes him to withdraw and sulk, and later he explains to us that it makes him "hate himself." We try to explain that teasing is what boys often do, that it's more of a game than a reflection on him personally, even pointing out the good-natured teasing that I do with my friends (his friends' dads) and how we all are just having fun.

But then a kid three years younger than him will make fun of his bellybutton at swim class (!) and he's ashamed and humiliated. What strategies can we suggest to him to take this kind of stuff more in stride, and not as a final judgment on him personally?

Catfish Song Mystery

omphale27 — Sun, 15 Jun 2008 13:11:19 -0800

Walkin' talkin' dancin' catfish, you are a friend of mine Walkin' talkin' dancin' catfish, I'm in luuuuuv with you.... These are two lines of a song that my husband has been singing to my daughter. No amount of Googling has revealed more lyrics or any information about the song. Can you help us identify the entire song? If not, can you recommend any other silly songs you like singing to kids? Thank you! Getting all the lyrics would be an awesome Father's Day accomplishment!

Baseball for kids

sara558 — Sat, 07 Jun 2008 04:25:17 -0800

Are there any good books to help explain baseball to a 5 year old? I've been charged with helping a 5 year old understand baseball. I'm looking for recommendations on good books for us to read together that can help him get the fundamentals on an age appropriate level. We've been to a few games together and I explain the game while we are there but a book or two would be helpful.

I've been looking online and found a few books, but wonder if anyone has suggestions.

kung foo lite

ducktape — Sat, 31 May 2008 07:36:19 -0800

I'd like to find a few recommendations on tai chi DVDs that my 3 year old son and I could watch/do together. I'll save the ninja training for later. Maybe 5.

Kid friendly Australian music

nicole.hilder — Fri, 30 May 2008 17:16:05 -0800

I'm desperately looking for some upbeat, modern Aussie pop/rock songs to play to kids for my new job. Preferably something that could be sung along to w/catchy chorus. No swearing or sexual themes allowed. Anyone got any ideas!!?

Just Flush Please

terrier319 — Wed, 28 May 2008 14:15:50 -0800

why do kids not flush the toilet? I've got two pre-teens and they NEVER flush the toilet despite my and my wife's prodding day in and day out. Sure, we've had plumbing backups that could cause them to want to avoid an unpleasant situation, but that hasn't happened in more than a year. They leave their business behind and then walk away. Any explanations? Any suggestions?

Sesame Street-ish show in Spanish?

Flunkie — Mon, 26 May 2008 11:15:35 -0800

What Spanish language kids' show (in the USA) would be good to watch for someone trying to pick up Spanish? I would like to pick up some Spanish. I know a little, but nowhere near enough to follow conversations, or the nightly news, or sitcoms, or Sabado Gigante, or whatever. I can pick out individual words sometimes, but they're like a sudden beacon appearing out of chaos, soon to be reclaimed by it.

It occurred to me that it might be better to initially set my sights a little lower: on a kids' show, akin to Sesame Street or something like that, where learning the language is an inherent part of the show.

Any suggestions for shows along these lines that I could record?

Writing without reading?

5MeoCMP — Sun, 25 May 2008 18:34:13 -0800

Can anyone suggest why my daughter can write just fine, but apparently can't read? My 4.5 year old daughter loves to write letters to her friends, as in 2-3 pages of 4-year-old scrawl (where sometimes the letters are all on top of each other, or turn corners to fit on the page, and so on). The spelling is entirely phonetic, and the grammar is all as spoken, of course, but it's legible to most people who've read kids writing before.

The think is, she doesn't read. She knows her letters, and can sound out 3-letter words with time, but just doesn't "get it" when presented with even 2 4-letter words on paper. If asked what they say, she'll often run away, curl up, or turn away and pretend not to be able to hear you.

In other ways, she's a normal kid. Curious, musical, likes to dance. A bit clumsy, occasionally shy and occasionally gregarious.

I always thought that kids learned to read before they learned to write. Any hints on what might be going on here? Note: I'm don't want to change her; but I am wondering if we should be prepared for anything.

Helping a kid deal with losing...

unixrat — Fri, 23 May 2008 08:25:23 -0800

What to do (if anything) about a kid (Kindergarten) who cannot deal with failure/losing? Right, so school 'Spring' concert last night, each grade stands up front as a group and sings 3-4 simple songs. Three songs in, I can see our daughter forget some of the words to a song, look a little nervous, burst into tears, and walk off during the song. She's inconsolable, wouldn't sit with her class ("Embarrassed"), wouldn't rejoin her class for the whole school sing at the end, nothing.

Not the first time this sort of thing has happened. Our parent-teacher meetings have been glowing - great kid, good worker, friendly, but always with the 'She will avoid doing something if she thinks she'll get it wrong'. We've run into it at home - she won't guess at things, won't try new games without an example or demonstration, that sort of thing. Once you do that, she's a-ok, but she'll never attack it on her own.

We don't punish mistakes, we're very supportive, and she's certainly seen us make our share of mistakes. I play sports and she's seen my softball team get whipped regularly. :) Hasn't seemed to help though. Her response is avoidance and tears, not anger or lashing out or anything.

Okay, crux of the issue: The wife and I got into a (private - after the kid had gone to bed) fight last night over what to do - the wife wants "Professional Help" and I wanted to do nothing - she's six.

The rub is that this is my daughter has picked up a miniature version of my wife's personality, pretty much since birth. My wife is almost exactly like this - she won't play on our co-ed softball team because she's "no good", I had to play with a neighbor's wife during the neighborhood Best Ball golf game because she "doesn't know how to golf", etc., etc. Neither my wife nor my daughter will accept the rationale that "it's only for fun and no one cares."

Apparently this has caused my wife much pain during her life - missing out on things, stress, and so on, and she wants to try and help our daughter avoid the same problems. The problem I have is that I am mystified by these actions. The solution (to me) with not knowing how to play softball is... to play softball. Same with golf. And singing. And life.

So, Mefi, have you any advice? Does my six year old need some sort of professional help? Is there some way we can help her deal with this on our own? My guidance of "Just Do It" isn't working - help!

How do we delicately end this friendship?

kbanas — Fri, 23 May 2008 07:10:03 -0800

ParentingAssistanceFilter! How do I deal with a friend that's a bad influence? My girlfriend and I have gone around and around this, and can't seem to come up with a solution that doesn't end badly (at least in our heads). Maybe you can help.

My girlfriend's daughter, J, is 9, just a couple weeks shy of 10. She spends half of the week with us, and half of the week with her dad. At our house, she has 2 friends that we consider to be "primary" friends, and 1 or 2 other friends that are kind of "fall-back" friends if the first friends are busy. You know how kids are.

Anyway, we're really ill at ease about one of these "best" friends, who we'll call R. R seems to have a bad influence on J. When R and J are together, they seem to feed off of each other, and incidences of being rude and disrespectful really seem to sky rocket. When R and J spend time together over at R's house, we get the impression that they're not really being supervised adequately - being left in the care of R's teenage sister, for example, and being driven all over town, and all sorts of stuff that just makes us generally ill at ease.

After talking about it, and talking with J's dad, we've decided that we really don't think R and J should be friends anymore.

That's obviously easier said than done. Is there a relatively pain-free way to achieve this result?

J will be moving to a new school in the fall, which will introduce her to new friends and hopefully the problem will take care of itself.. but that still a ways off.

We've discussed getting J involved in more social activities in hopes that she'll meet some new friends and broaden her horizons and move on of her own accord, so that is one possibility.

We're also relatively non-confrontational people, so we'll probably get by for awhile by making lame excuses to J for why the two of them can't play together.... you know, we're busy, we're going somewhere, the car's on fire, so on and so forth.

We've thought about talking to R's parents, and simply explaining that we don't think that they make a good fit as friends, but that path is fraught with peril. We have the impression that R is part of the "popular" crowd at school. J is more introverted, and doesn't have nearly as many friends. She already has had to deal with a little bit of teasing. If R (or her parents) feel like this is rejection - and it certainly is - things could get really ugly for J at school, and we're concerned about that.

This is causing us all sorts of stress. For example, J has a birthday coming up. We were planning on a gala event (or gala for kids that age - laser tag and pizza), but now we're thinking that we may just have it be a "family only" affair, so that we don't have to deal with explaining to J that we don't want R to attend.

It seems incredibly lame to me that we're contemplating canceling a plan that would be uber-fun for J just because of this, but here we are.

Help!

transportation from bronx to manhattan west side

iscatter — Wed, 21 May 2008 05:48:28 -0800

How can I get 6-8 adults, 2 car-seat-aged kids, and all of the associated luggage from the Bronx to our cruise ship departure site on the west side of Manhattan on a Sunday morning? We'll be gone for six days if that helps you envision the luggage situation (probably between seven and nine suitcases, three to four garment bags, and a few smaller carry-on type bags). We're not against driving multiple cars downtown but I don't particularly relish spending hundreds of dollars for parking. I don't think we'll need the car seats on the cruise, so I'd like to leave them at home if we're not taking our own cars downtown.

Oh yeah, and we'll need to get back to the Bronx at the end of the trip, too!

Not having to fly to our cruise departure seemed like such a good idea until now!

fun for all ages

zeoslap — Mon, 19 May 2008 11:32:28 -0800

What are some of your favorite things that a 2 1/2 and almost 5yr old can do together. It can be quite challenging finding activities that are age applicable for both of them at this age. The park/running around outside is a given, but I'm looking for activities that are both challenging enough for a 5yr old yet have components easy enough that a 2 1/2yr old can get involved.

Bonus points if Dad can sneak in a quick crossword puzzle while the nippers play contentedly coo-ing and giggling in the background :)

What books do you recommend for babies and toddlers?

k8t — Sat, 17 May 2008 02:04:36 -0800

What are your recommendations for good baby and toddler books in English? In an effort to create a great library for our upcoming spawn, I'd love to have some MeFite-approved suggestions. If you could also give an estimated age appropriateness, so that this can later be made into a list, that'd be great. Thanks!

Simple music machine for kids?

progosk — Tue, 13 May 2008 09:17:15 -0800

Our kids, 5 and 7, haven't singled in on any specific instrument yet (nor, perhaps, will they ever), but they do love listening to, humming/singing, and dancing to all kinds of music, and playing the various "minor" instruments we've got. We're thinking about buying some sort of simple music machine/synth to have in the house for them play around with. Any recommendations?

Travel authorization for child?

lapsang — Thu, 08 May 2008 09:23:22 -0800

1 parent traveling with child needs notarized letter of authorization to enter or leave USA? We live in Colombia and will spend July in Ireland, passing through the US arriving and departing. My wife returns to Colombia before me and I travel with 3 yr old back to Colombia vis USA.

Do I need to present a notarized letter from my wife authorizing me to travel with child?

Saludos / Cead Mile Failte - J

At what age do kids usually learn about time?

minkll — Wed, 07 May 2008 23:59:54 -0800

At what age do kids usually learn about time? Not only how to tell time, but at what age are they usually able to make the leap from a few minutes ago to a few years from now?

Is there a multi-topic blog that would work for a family?

JintsFan — Wed, 07 May 2008 16:38:54 -0800

Is there a blog that would allow me to blog about my daily activities and my kid within the same blog? Must have:
Single interface to record daily activities for multiple people
Meaning – I don’t want to have to logout and in to do multiple postings
Postings are private by default

Nice to have:
Sharing certain posting with specific (logged-in) users
Adding photos to posting
Posting via text messaging
Uses tags

Any suggestions would be appreciated!

Exposing your kid to behaviors you disagree with?

Anonymous — Tue, 06 May 2008 12:17:57 -0800

What do you do once you have a kid and family problem stakes seem higher, i.e. you're concerned about exposing your child things that go against what you believe? I'm pregnant. I live far away from my extended family which allows me to avoid them for the most part.
I strongly disagree with a number of my extended families activities/pasttimes/beliefs.
My folks want me, hubby, and baby-to-be to start coming around more for family events now that baby-to-be is on his way.

My problem? I don't want baby-to-be to be exposed to the following behaviors of my extended family (in no particular order): excessive drinking, drinking and driving even with kids in car, gossiping, backstabbing, making fun of reading and other scholastic activities, homophobia, racism, irresponsible financial behavior and materialism, and ostracizing and talking shit about one's siblings (Specifically: one sibling has been ostracized for going on 4 years for divorcing a guy "everyone liked" and dating a new younger guy. Her siblings talk shit about her in front of her kids and anyone else who will listen at sporting events, on MySpace, and in front of their kids. They even dis-invited her to their mother's funeral.)

How does one deal with exposure to this stuff? Do you explain to kid "I want you to know that even though these people are family, Daddy and I totally disagree with their behavior, so cover your ears until Christmas is over"? Do you keep your kid at your side at all times? Do you say to another adult something like "I know that you and sister are not getting along. And you know how I feel about it. I would prefer that we not discuss this, in particular in front of my child."

Again, these are my cousins, not my siblings. I could take 'em or leave 'em, but I know that my mother is going to feel very torn up about this at holidays.

Recommend a Swing Set

spitbull — Sat, 03 May 2008 07:16:51 -0800

Children's backyard play structure filter: recommendations wanted. I am looking for a backyard playset/play structure for kids aged 7-10; let's say I have up to $2500 to spend. Requirements: wood, not plastic; slide, 2 swings, deck structure; durability and safety are key considerations. I can assemble (up to light carpentry). Backyard is pretty level already.

Mostly I'm looking for comments from people who have bought one of these things which they either like or hate, with reasons.