I made these mini cupcakes a couple of weekends ago for a family get-together. My cousin ate one… then two… then three. She walked up to me as she was peeling the lining off the fourth one, “Jojo. These cupcakes are so good. This is my fourth one!” Granted they were mini, but still. Eating four of anything can only mean good things.
I pieced this delectable recipe together from two of my favorite cookbooks: The Cook’s Illustrated Cookbook
I’m a relatively new momma, and yet I’ve already been asked, “What are your top baby registry must-haves?” a number of times. I know everyone can find standard lists online, so instead of repeating those, here are some items that I didn’t see on most lists that I would recommend.
The title to this post is a little misleading, because I’m actually not going to tell you which crib you should get or what car seat you should buy. Those choices vary depending on your personal taste and living style, although I did find this book
I LOVE 85C’s sea salt iced coffee. There’s something about the creamy frothiness and the tiniest hint of salt that really makes my taste buds happy. It’s especially refreshing on a hot summer day. I had my first taste in Irvine, and it was always one of the must-haves whenever we went down for a visit. I was so excited when another milk tea shop opened up closer to home, offering Snowfall Iced Coffee, which is a very similar drink. At nearly $5 a cup, though, this wasn’t something I was willing to pay for regularly. I carefully watched them make it and of course went home and tried to recreate it. I think I came pretty close! If you enjoy your iced coffee creamy and sweet with a hint of something different, give this recipe a try and tell me what you think!
This post is part of my series on How to Shape Children’s Behavior.
When I was in teacher school, I remember someone telling us that it’s best if students are intrinsically motivated do things. The idea was that children should just naturally want to improve for the sake of improving or gaining mastery, and that they should not require external forces or rewards to motivate them. We were even told that, as teachers, we should avoid phrases like, “I really like how Eric is sitting quietly,” or “Thank you, class, for beginning your work right away.” If we phrased things like that, students might start behaving well to please you, the teacher.
Oh dear.
Honestly, I never really figured out how to tap into the intrinsically-motivated angel in every child. True, most students entered my class with a strong personal desire to do their best and try hard at everything, from academics to behavior. Every year, though, I’ve had at least a couple of children who would probably rather eat dirt than write a paragraph, or who would wreak havoc at recess if there were no consequences. When attempts to appeal to the self-motivated child within failed, I resorted to the next best thing I could think of: offering rewards. I’m not gonna lie, it works like a charm.
It usually happens in high chairs at restaurants, sitting in carts at grocery stores, and in strollers at church. The same thing seems to happen every time:
- Baby chews on toy.
- Baby drops toy on ground and cries.
- Parent picks up toy and returns it to baby.
- Repeat steps 1-3 again… and again… and again.
Sound familiar? The only variation seems to be that some parents put away the dirtied toy and hand baby a new one from their cache. (“Diaper bags” are a misnomer– these things are actually decorated toy bags :)). BTW, if this is you, then you might as well fill your toy bag with age appropriate and educational toys! This article has a ton of information on selecting just-right toys for your child.
In our home, we definitely fall closer to the germaphobic extreme (you know, new parents…). Since I didn’t want to haul around a bag of toys, I came up with a solution: toy clips!
This post is part of my series on How to Shape Children’s Behavior.
I think I’ve had about six or seven headaches ever in my life. Last night, I had my eighth. My head was growing foggy and I grew frustrated as I tried to wrap my head around how to explain my method for shaping children’s behavior. Every time I started a new paragraph, there would be some small but crucial concept that I felt the need to explain first. As I branched off and my explanations and illustrations grew, I would run across yet another concept I felt compelled to cover more thoroughly. This kept happening and before I knew it, I had spiderwebbed out of control and lost track of my initial direction. Headache, I tell you. I lay on the couch in despair. This was harder than any writing assignment I’d ever had in college or grad school, and that’s saying a lot.
I couldn’t just go back to post one and continue, skimming over these other essential points. It would be like trying to teach the algorithm for long-division without ensuring that my students were fluent in subtraction, multiplication, and a host of other concepts first. It just wouldn’t be right. Sure, I could spit out the step-by-step directions, but it would not mean anything or be nearly as effective if we didn’t first have a good foundation of fundamentals.
I am trying to teaching something I think is really important here. In the last several years of working with children, I always had this feeling that I had something really useful to share with the world. I’m thrilled that I finally get to do that! However, while I’ve been trying to frame it as “a few important lessons,” I’m realizing it’s more like a whole unit. I had envisioned starting off this series with an introductory overview, followed by a handful of detailed posts. After bouncing ideas around with my husband, however, I’ve decided to revamp my approach. I’m going to start with the fundamentals, and then put it all together in the end. That’s actually how my first two parenting/teaching posts on A Better Way to Say Sorry and Preventing Misbehavior came about in the first place. I had been trying to write up other posts when these two ideas came up, and I realized they merited their own posts.
This next post is completely appropriate, given the conclusions I arrived at last night. Instead of shallowly touching on several big concepts in one post, I will focus on one thing at a time. And today, the topic is exactly that: teach one new thing at a time.
Teach one new thing at a time
If there is something you want a child (or anyone) to learn well, follow this advice: teach just one new thing at a time. If it’s a new procedure, use familiar material. If it’s new material, use a familiar procedure. As a teacher, this played out in many different ways for me. When I wanted students to learn a new vocabulary activity, for example, I used simple words they were very familiar with to teach it to them. This way, students could focus on learning the new activity without fumbling over what the words meant or getting frustrated with how to spell them. Once they grew comfortable with this activity, I could turn it around and use this now-familiar procedure to teach them new vocabulary words. If I had given them new words and a new activity at once, it would have been a frustrating experience and neither would have been learned as well.
Teach one new thing at a time is an effective principle for teaching anything new—a new skill, new content, a new procedure. For the purpose of this series, I will apply it to teaching good behavior.
As promised, I’m working on a series of posts on how to shape children’s behavior. It’s taking some time, so I hope you enjoy this tasty dish in the meantime!
One of my favorite meals to prepare is brunch. Not only are many dishes guilty-yummy, but brunch usually means good friends and warm conversation– YAY! I randomly came across this fun recipe a few years ago. It’s super easy to put together, and it’s a unique way to offer proteins other than the usual bacon and sausage. It’s been a hit every time I’ve made it; it looks great, but also tastes delicious. I also appreciate having a baked item for brunches, so you don’t have to man the stove when you’d rather be chatting with friends. A tasty, unique dish with a fun twist on a popular children’s book
This post is part of my series on How to Shape Children’s Behavior.
I believe that children want to be good. I think even the most challenging children wish, in their core, that they could behave well. I imagine it’s not dissimilar to the way adults want to be more disciplined about exercise, eat a generally balanced diet, or get their finances in order. It would be nice, but sometimes we just can’t seem to keep it up. Breaking poor habits is one of the first of many difficult steps in forming better ones. Wouldn’t it would be much easier if we could just go find our younger selves and keep poor habits from forming in the first place? Until time machines work, then, let’s do our children a favor and help them build good habits before the bad ones begin. This, of course, is also known as prevention. Today, I hope to share with you some reasons why you should be proactive about anticipating and preventing misbehaviors, and how you can more effectively do so.
It’s quite possible that this is the food item that birthed this blog. Dan and Kim were over for a simple lunch of leftovers: butternut squash soup and quesadillas. They enjoyed the soup just fine, but when Daniel bit into his quesadilla–CRUNCH– his eyes opened wide and, through a mouthful of food, he exclaimed, “This is SO GOOD! What did you do to it?! It’s so good!”
I was beaming. Nothing elevates a compliment like someone giving it with their mouth still full of food.
The answer is simple. I gave it a parmesan crust! Mmmmm!! A lot of people seem to like burritos, but I’m a quesadilla girl myself. Quesadillas take the best parts of a burrito (meat, cheese), drop off the less tasty parts (rice, lettuce, beans), and are pan-fried for that delectable crunch! If you’ve been following my blog, you’ll notice that I love crunchy things: crispy skin on chicken, crispy cheese layer on quiches, crispy bacon… I could go on. Adding a parmesan crust does to a quesadilla what a good pan-fry does to a potsticker. You know what, I’ll just let the unfiltered iphone 4s photo convince you:
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