Everyday  Lessons: Responsibility

Even at Emmett’s young age I try to incorporate every day activities into a chance to teach. Emmett has a natural love for animals, so I try to foster that love and use that as a means of learning what responsibility is. Right now I’m using Toothless  to help Emmett feel a sense of responsibility for something.

Emmett absolutely loves Toothless and has been fascinated by him for a while now. I’m fostering his natural curiosity and love for animals by allowing him to help take care of Toothless. Emmett enjoys breaking up the green veggies and some of the fruits that we include in Toothless’s diet. However, his favorite part is feeding him the crickets and super worms.

In this video you’ll see Emmett’s excitement about feeding Toothless. You’ll also see Emmett’s love for his new socks, followed by a brief medication break (he stops to take his reflux meds).

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vvz-lOuWzZg[/youtube]

Everyday Lessons: Preperations

He’s so cute and excited about Toothless (our Bearded Dragon) and I’m glad that I have this opportunity to teach him these things. Something that Emmett truly loves to do is actually go with me to the store to buy the crickets we feed to Toothless.. We kinda of have our little routine. He has to look at ALL the fish and then the other animals. The pet store is sorta a like going to the zoo for Emmett. 

I also have Emmett ask for the crickets so he is actually helping to facilitate the process. It also helps to have the back and forth conversation with the person at the store. I’m hoping it will help to foster a bit more independence and improve his ability to communicate, especially in real life, outside of the home kinda ways. He does a really good job. He still needs help as his speech and language are are very rough but he is improving.

In all honesty, I was going to re-home Toothless because I just can’t keep up with everything and I was the only one taking care of him. However, with Emmett’s new found love and eagerness to help care for Toothless I have changed my mind, at least for now.

I really enjoy this time with Emmett and I know he enjoys it as well. You can’t really put a price on that. Emmett is learning how to take care of something and I think that’s a pretty valuable lesson, if you ask me. Who knows, maybe one day Emmett will do something with animals. He has the natural love and curiosity now. Hopefully this will continue to be a positive experience for both of us and especially for Emmett.

Please take every opportunity to teach your kids. You are their most valuable teacher. Everyday lessons are easy to incorporate and can have such a profound impact on our kids. Sometimes the biggest waves start out as little ripples. I have found these things to be very beneficial to both myself and my kids.