relationships

childhood, children, culture, DAP, daycare, earlyed, Ece, education, education, earlyed, behavior, development, children, family, help, family, life, lifepurpose, neuroscience, play, preschool, publishing, relationships, school, self-help

An Act of Care: How Grown Ups Support Developmental Trajectories of Children

Gallery | Posted on by Jill Telford

“If you can’t run, walk. If you can’t walk, crawl.” — MLK

If you can’t crawl, roll. If you can’t roll then get that tummy time in.  This is the story of the stages of development and how children need caring grown ups to nurture our babies so they grow into their fullest potential. This is what to expect when you’re expecting. This is how we care for and nurture children after their basic needs of nutrition, toileting and shelter have been met. Early childhood development is impacted heavily by the mental health of the people who care for them even while they are in the womb. Care is solely based on three actions caring grown ups give: love, safety and consistency. During the early years of life, the brain is constantly and consistently growing and care should coincide with that growth. Grown ups have a mission to foster security, love and safety starting at birth which leads to toddlers establishing a strong sense of self and self-worth. Children not only want safety, love and consistency but they also need it.

Being able to build and sustain healthy relationships to consistently meet children where they are in order to secure a healthy attachment depends on the wholeness of the grown up who is caring for children.  Are those who are caring for children well and healthy? A great question for grown ups to ask themselves is: “How am I feeling?” “What can I do about?”

In reality, a “healthy head start” is not always an option for babies. This is where early intervention comes in as a plan b if the family unit is broken. Early intervention such as head start, home cares and preschool improves the outlook and success of children growing into healthy and thriving adults. Caring grown ups help build a strong foundation also known as the brain. It also aids in breaking a family generational cycle of poverty. Need support?

Here are some resources and ways to support infants and toddlers in the first three years of life: 

CDC’s Developmental Milestones:

https://www.cdc.gov/ncbddd/actearly/milestones/index.html

Activities for bonding and learning from birth through 12 months:

Activities for Bonding and Learning from Birth to 12 Months

CDC’s Positive Parenting Tips from Birth through Teenager Years *Bonus with activities*

https://www.cdc.gov/ncbddd/childdevelopment/positiveparenting/index.html

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books, childhood, culture, daycare, earlyed, education, education, earlyed, behavior, development, children, family, help, family, life, lifepurpose, moments, play, preschool, self-help, soul

5,4,3,2,1 — Blast Off! Get Going on What You’re Meant to Do and Whatever that is: “Be a Good One.”

Gallery | Posted on by Jill Telford

“I know what I want to do, and it makes sense to get going”. — Warren Buffet

Children know who they are and what they love to do from an early age. Families, educators and the community also discover what children are passionate about especially by paying close attention while being astute observers. When children arrive at school they get going in on the things they care about all while living out the mantra: being in the present moment. Something most of us could learn a lot from. While being in the present an idea enters the brain also know as a spark of joy that sends signals as what we’re supposed to be doing. An idea.

Photo by SHVETS production on Pexels.com

I had a student who had an idea. He started building a truck. More specifically, a cement mixer. In fact, he loved trucks. All kinds of trucks. His family was worried as he seemed obsessed with trucks and he didn’t like books so much. I mentioned that they just may have a builder on their hands. He gets distracted by what he cares about most because when there was a book about trucks he would study it research like and consumed by it ranging from non-fiction to Goodnight, Goodnight, Construction Site. When asked what he wanted to be when he grew up, he said a garbage truck so he could keep Earth clean. When we went to the library on Wednesdays for story time, instead of listening to the story he would instead gravitate towards the window to watch the construction workers work. He would be engrossed by the construction site across the street and name every single truck as well as what they were doing. I mentioned it to the storyteller and she prepared stories the following week in honor of my student and the site across the street. We also met the team who were building. My student’s eyes lit up and stood in awe as the team described what they were working on. He asked the most questions and even got to sit in the cement mixer he saw each Wednesday, the exact truck he was building. This came full circle and his family beams with pride as their son is an expert in building and mechanics. He drew and from what I see online still draws blueprints, creates and builds. 

Our ideas are unique to only us. No one else dreams the dreams we dream. It is vital to fulfill our mission. When a child is doing something they love they don’t have to be told or rewarded to do it. Even when they grow up it is the same as they do something they love. They do it because they want to be there. They do what they love and care about. That is the greatest gift. Are you honoring your child and your own inner child?

This is where intrinsic vs. extrinsic motivation comes in. 

Children are intrinsically motivated to do the things they love to do. They don’t need awards or even praise. They just do. They get going. 

So what is it that your child wants to get going on? How about you?  Just do it.

books, libraries, littlefreelibrary

A Little Bookshelf

Gallery | Posted on by Jill Telford

It was raining as I stood on our front porch screwing in our registered charter number onto our Little Free Library. A beautiful sign. When the rain went to a drizzle, I carried it outside towards a tree closer to the road where people could discover a book and share a treasured one of their own.

We decided to open one up in honor of children and families who are in a crisis.

Our message is simple, do something good no matter how big or small, for someone else.

Books connect us, inspire us, help us to process, imagine and open another door to see the world through another lens. A single book has the potential to heal us and to connect us. We are all have the potential to feel and become better because of a single book.

Anything is possible, hope you join our movement by leaving a treasured book for someone else and take one for yourself or pass it along to someone else. Or open one up in your neighborhood.

Happy reading, sharing and transforming.

culture, death, dreams, family, life, lifepurpose, moments, self-help, signs, soul, therapy, Uncategorized

Signs Everywhere, Everywhere Signs

Gallery | Posted on by Jill Telford

Hubble Serves Up a Holiday Snow Angel by NASA Goddard Photo and Video is licensed under CC-BY 2.0

A cardinal flies by. Bright ruby red. Butterflies and hummingbirds dance across the sky right before my eyes. Morning doves sing. A quarter on the ground dated 1986. Changed by so many hands. Possibly fell off of an angel’s wings in the path I was meant to stumble upon it. I stand and walk among giants as none of us is as small as we think we are. A paradox of our times. Looking out a plane window, you would think and see just how small and potentially insignificant we really aren’t. Nothing is as it seems. Littles things are big things. Just watch and study ants at work.

Looking out a plane window, you would think and see just how small and potentially insignificant we really aren’t. Nothing is as it seems. Littles things are big things. Just watch and study ants at work.

Life all around us and beyond us. Beautiful, daring and fleeting life. Life in a single blade of grass life. Life in a single fingerprint life. Life in a single sip of coffee life. Life lies even in a pesky and stubborn weed in the garden that keeps reemerging life. It hurts to tug it out of the ground. Everything wants to live. We want to live another day. Another minute.

We emerge no matter the challenge or obstacle in the words of Tupac Shakur even from concrete. We breakthrough like the stars emerging from stardust life that we innately are. Where do we go after life? That question follows me each and everywhere I turn. Where do we go? Will we see each other again?

Life is found in a single minute. One single minute matters more than you think. I stare at the sky throughout the day just to stare at it no need to have a reason. The stars. The constellations. Connecting the dots to what all of this really means. We’re all deeply connected like an infinite constellation more than anyone could possibly ever realize or conceptualize.

education, earlyed, behavior, development, children, family, help, family, life, relationships, self-help, therapy

A Piece of Heart

Gallery | Posted on by Jill Telford

I walked to my mailbox. I physically opened my quiet and subtle mailbox not my loud and pinging gmail inbox. No need to sign on or even click on anything. I opened my literal real 3D mailbox outside of my home and took out a piece of real mail. Real paper. Real ink. Real love. I am afraid of clowns but as I saw the clown nose with the stethoscope; my heart fluttered like a hummingbird and sang like one too! I screamed and danced love and gratitude. I opened the letter and read the words from none other than Patch Adams himself who deeply inspires and resonates like the same beating of a drum except its the same beating of a heart. I am grateful.

Don’t know who he is? Check out Robin Williams playing him in Patch Adams: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lZqGA1ldvYE

I am deeply moved and inspired by his genius and caring way of being. His message was to catch the sunrises and sunsets. He told me to read poetry by Emily Dickinson. He told me to write and make art. He said many times when we feel low and down that something is missing. That something could be and is the creative arts for our soul.

He listened as he read my letter. He knew what I was deeply missing as I was in the midst and mixture of a rat race not life. When we feel lost or “off”, a feeling of not being ourselves, of not feeling the essence of our being, we miss our core human way of being…our art, our creation, our time, our love…the greatest gift that we give ourselves and emit to the world.

We are merely working to survive not working to thrive. I jumped off the rat wheel, stopped running and racing. Instead I walked into love.

I can’t merely live to work. I work to live. Connection. Love. Life-long learning. L-o-v-e. Real love. Jump, slow down and walk into it. How do you show love to yourself? How do you show love to those around you and your environment?

family, Holidays, homeless, life, relationships

Dogs and Roses

Gallery | Posted on by Jill Telford

It was a cold evening in Arlington and I was walking around a few blocks during my 30 minute break. This happened pre-pandemic back when we were at school in person and not online.

I stopped at a corner, as light snow started falling, a rose blanket caught my eye. 

It was tan and worn out patterned all over with roses. It covered a man crouched and hunched over in the corner. 

I stood still in time watching the man under the blanket. Strangers on the street walked, kept walking by. They had places to go and people to see.

Two strangers were walking up opposite sides of the sidewalk. One stranger with a dog. The other stranger with a warm drink cusped in their hands, steam rising from it. Maybe a coffee or maybe a hot chocolate. Maybe, neither. They stopped in front of the man with the rose blanket. 

The person holding the warm cup asked about the dog and if she could pet her. The dog walker nodded, “Yea, go ahead she’s friendly”. 

The woman with the warm cup placed it on the ground, knelt down and pet the dog. She asked, “What’s her name?” The dog walker responded, “Rose.” 

No one asked the man with the rose blanket covering his shoulders like petals, what his name was. The strangers didn’t ask each other’s names either.

Why do we call humans homeless when we’ve in fact, made them strangers? We’ve turned them nameless.  We’ve turned each other into strangers.

The holidays. Depending on your perspective is a time for thankfulness and togetherness. 

What type of thankful and gratitude are you showing? What are you giving, what are you noticing…what are you asking?

I am asking for names.

culture, Holidays, life, moments, relationships, self-help

This is What Happens While Wearing Two Different Shoes

Gallery | Posted on by Jill Telford

You could tell a lot about a person by how they handle certain things in life like accidents, mistakes, rainy days, spilled milk and so on and so forth. The ultimate and most obvious timeless question to ask is could they laugh at themselves in moments like that?

Throughout the pandemic and especially during the height of it all, a student of mine has been working at McDonalds while also attending college and caring for her young son (who is also doing elementary virtual class).

No matter how tired and exhausted and scary the pandemic was and is — She still rises and goes to work.

Each and everyday she rose and (still rises) at 5:30 am, left and arrived to work at 7:00 am where her manager took her temperature, scanned and looked her over. On this particular morning worth mentioning, he glanced down and pointed at her shoes.

She looked down and when she looked down she saw two completely different colors!

She took another look. She went to work with mismatched shoes. One shoe was a jet matte metallic black and the other one, a silver neon gray slip on.

Her manager told her to go home and change them.

She went home, changed her shoes and went back to work. Again, her manager pointed down to her mismatched shoes. Feeling exhausted and defeated but with a second wind, she said, “I don’t care. I feel like wearing them just like this today. Take me as I am or let me go.”

She said, “I feel so small, I feel like a bug or an ant. Most times — I don’t even want to wake up but on this day I laughed until I cried myself and felt better.”

I told her 2 things. 1. Keep laughing and 2. Keep laughing.

You see, this life is too precious than to worry about matching socks or shoes plus it’s Halloween and second, ants have superhuman strength.

When you “feel” like no one and nobody notices, trust the process and know that you can and literally are carrying a weight 100 times your mass just like the ant. You are rare and your very purpose is to be here. We are somehow chosen and we don’t even know who, what, when, where, why and how our stones will ripple, wreck, melt, shift and shake up the world.

Time is too precious than to spend our precious energy on matching our socks or our shoes or our feelings to match what society thinks we should be or act or feel.

Just be yourself.

Who are you? Who are you in a process of becoming? What’s your reason? How are you getting there?

Walk in whatever fits you best. Walk in that.

Walk that well.

education, earlyed, behavior, development, children, family, help

This Chair is Just Right

Gallery | Posted on by Jill Telford

2016. In the words of Sister Souljah: It was the Coldest Winter Ever. It was around Christmas time. And, in the words of the character Goldilocks in The Three Bears, the Chair featured in the image, was and still is just right.

Around this time, I ended a 13 year relationship with someone who I thought was the love of my life. It felt like someone died. I experienced death before. My mom. My god mother. My dad. That kind of pain never goes away.

I was going through it. I was healing and having epiphones and growing stronger mentally, emotionally, physically, spiritually: all of me. 

I got a call from my sister. She said, “I have a surprise for you.” I was planning to go home for the holidays and sleep over my sisters. It was awhile since I did that. When I arrived to her house that winter, it was cold outside and inside myself. I was really sad and depleted. I felt empty. I felt cold. And, no one even noticed.

She said, “I was going to wait until Christmas but do you want your surprise now?” We are so similar when it comes to surprises, I thought. I can’t wait either to give someone their surprise or gift. I said, “Yes!” She left to get the surprise. 

She walked back into the room with a painted chair. She had an artist paint a chair for me. It said: “Ms. Jill” and it was soooooo incredible and colorful that I couldn’t speak. It even had a rainbow. A symbol as a promise for me. This meant the world to me. I swallowed. I stared at her table.

I looked more closely at her table and the empty chairs around it. I cried. I noticed that a chair was missing from it. I noticed how the chair she had painted for me was from her table. She had 3 out of 4 chairs left. 

I took a d e e p breath. I was full of gratitude that I have someone like this in my life. We talk about who sits at our tables, who no longer fills the empty chairs and spaces, who breaks our chairs like in that Three Bears Story but what about when a person takes a chair from their own table and gives it away. It is a reminder of who was standing with you all along. Chair or no chair. Table or no table. 

I am full of gratitude. Of light. Of love. Of all of the above. None of these material possessions we can take with us when we pass on from this physical realm. But that kind of thing, most of all, that kind of love lives on even when we die. 

Image result for poem rumi guest

education, earlyed, behavior, development, children, family, help

The Only Thing We Should Scream Into the World Is Love

Gallery | Posted on by Jill Telford

It’s true. Yelling or dwelling on something you have no control over is wreckless and at best, pointless. We do not have control over anything really. What we do have control over is how we respond. Start each day asking: “How do I want others to feel?” Then act accordingly.

Love. Scream it. Live it. Be it. Love, love.

Happy Valentines Day! xo With love, lots of it.

culture, death, earlyed, education, jail, leadership, relationships

Tis the Season: the Jolly and Not So Jolly of Times

Gallery | Posted on by Jill Telford

The most wonderful time of the year. But is it? I am feeling tension and unlike myself lately. I am missing loved ones who have passed. 105 people die every minute. Nearly 2 every second. Life is precious. So very precious.

When it comes to my feelings, I chalked some of it up to the full moon and it’s power of making waves. In fact, there has been a cataclysm of events making waves. Globally countries are struggling with leadership and death.

Lately, I have been hanging on to hope and resiliency. I stare at a photo of 6 year old Ruby Bridges who endured and triumphed standing as a metaphor and reminder that “what doesn’t kill you does in fact make you stronger”.  At 6, Ruby Bridges showed a courage that resonates today. I had the opportunity of listening to Ruby Bridges speak in 2015 at the annual NAEYC conference. The kind of courage and poise she personifies and how it connects with us, children, families and educators.

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Holidays are hard for many. For a lot of my own life, holidays were often off for me and awkward. There are empty chairs of those we miss and love. You feel the infinite loss and ache of missing loved ones. It is easier to send a gift and/or photo of smiling faces saying Happy Holidays. It is the thought that counts but what do we do for those who feel alone? How do we help others cope during grief or a sense of loss? What gifts can you give to the broken-hearted?

Here are gifts to give:

  • Gift of Memory: Take a moment to remember and honor the memory of a loved one by a hug, card or phone call. Although there is an empty chair at the table fill it with memories and honor their memory.
  • Gift of hope: We experience both sadness and joy. It’s deeply triggered by the holidays. Show up and offer to help those you care about. From the daily routines to collaging and scrap booking memories.
  • Gift of Love: Be in the moment with those who are still living. Show them you love them. If you are the one feeling sad tell them it is hard but stay hopeful.
  • Gift of friendship: Invite and include those who feel sad even if they may cancel or decline from shopping to having dinner.
  • Gift of Surprise and Spontaneity: Encourage doing something unusual such as a road trip or a flight to visit loved ones still here. Follow through.
  • Give the gift of time: Its about time well spent with those you love so spend it wisely. Spend some time whether over coffee, a movie, a stop by visit or something special to do together
  • Give the gift of food for the soul whether baked goods or a home cooked meal to enjoy together
  • The gift of listening: remember, it’s not not knowing what to say but listening and being there.

Looking for more gift ideas? Visit Sympathy Solutions at:

http://www.sympathysolutions.com/current-newsletter/10-things-you-can-do-for-someone-lost-loved-lone.html

Most of all, ensure to reach out, don’t expect someone who feels alone to reach out to you.

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