Baby-led weaning expert Jenny Best, founder of Solid Starts, gives us a reassuring perspective on the recent congressional report that highlighted toxic metals in baby foods.

Quick perspective: Toxic metals in baby foods

The early years of a child’s life are the most important for their long-term development. Sometimes, the abundance of information out there can feel overwhelming and difficult to navigate. My New Life is here to support parents and help make sense of the science behind early learning.

I’m Jessica Rolph, mother of three and CEO of Lovevery. With the help of experts from around the world, we break down all the child development science into usable nuggets of knowledge that you can put to the test in your own home.

Kids & Family

Parenting

Empathy can be a puzzling concept for a young child. They often need adults to model it for them. When reading stories or playing with the wooden peg people together, ask your child: “How do you think that person is feeling right now? How can you tell? How would you feel in his place?” Encourage your child to notice the clues in their environment and use them to draw conclusions.  In this final episode in the executive function series, Senior Director of Programs at Zero to Three Rebecca Parlakian joins Host Jessica Rolph to look at how empathy fits into the critical thinking skills coming online for your 4 year old.   Takeaways:   Empathy is caught not taught. We are teaching our child what empathy is when we model it, but also when we empathize with them.    Empathizing with our child doesn’t mean that we’re agreeing with them or doing exactly what they want us to do. Rather, it involves acknowledging that what we’re asking them to do is hard for them.    In order for a child to recognize that what they did was wrong, they have to accept some degree of shame. That’s asking a lot of a 4 year old. Rebecca recommends shifting 100% of the attention to the child who has been hurt, and only later (in private), asking your child questions like: How did you know she didn’t like it?    Rebecca has 3 suggestions for building empathy in the day-to-day with your child:   Try to imagine how your baby is interpreting a situation and put that into words. For example: “It’s so frustrating when you can’t reach your pacifier!”    Suggest ways that your child can show empathy. Something like: “Your cousin fell and hurt his knee. Would you like to help me get the ice pack for him?”    Explore empathy in pretend play. So if we’re playing veterinarian, we can say: “The doggy has to have a shot, but look, he’s feeling a little scared…”     Finally, Rebecca suggests using the Imagine-if cards in the Examiner Play Kit as a way to build empathy. For example: “Let’s imagine you’re at preschool. What if a friend is feeling sad about saying goodbye to their mom or dad? What could you do to help them?”     Mentioned in this episode: Brought to you by Lovevery.com  Zero to Three Receive weekly emails about your child’s development, and stay in the know about new play essentials, promos, and more by signing up at Lovevery.com Follow Lovevery and Jessica Rolph on Instagram  

Executive function: Empathy

Have you ever played “hot/cold” with your child? It’s good for a laugh, particularly when a child can’t find something in plain sight. But it’s also great at teaching young children flexible thinking, or the ability to adapt to change. As they are searching for the lost item, they are listening to directions and staying flexible when they have to change course. In this series on executive function, we’ve been looking at ways to help our children build these skills, which include working memory, impulse control and cognitive flexibility. These mental tasks take practice and must be learned and relearned. All the while, you’re laying the foundation for school-age success. Joining Host Jessica Rolph to explain the neuroscience behind flexible thinking is Dr. Stuart Marcovitch, a professor in the Department of Psychology at UNC Greensboro.   Takeaways:   While routines help children know what to expect, you can start mixing up the routine a bit at age 4. It gives your child an opportunity to practice flexible thinking. Maybe you brush teeth and then take a bath, instead of the other way around.    Games like the Lovevery Reach for the Stars Matching Cards — where you sort by shape, and then code switch to sort the same cards by color — are great for building flexible thinking.    Offering children choices is another cognitive flexibility technique, because it allows them to consider various alternatives simultaneously. Stuart recommends offering choices while cooking with your child: Do you want to cut the carrots into rounds or slice them into sticks?     Mentioned in this episode: Brought to you by Lovevery.com  Receive weekly emails about your child’s development, and stay in the know about new play essentials, promos, and more by signing up at Lovevery.com Follow Lovevery and Jessica Rolph on Instagram  

Executive function: Flexible thinking

Success in life — that looks different for everyone. But skills like persistence, managing frustration and emotional regulation tend to scaffold that success, no matter what the end result looks like. These skills are all part of what scientists call executive function, something we’re focusing on this season. We like to talk about executive function, because young children have lots of chances to practice these skills! In this episode, we look at how to build frustration tolerance. One of the best ways to do that is to play games — games where your child occasionally loses! Joining My New Life Host Jessica Rolph is Licensed Clinical Social Worker and founder of Starr Therapy, Talia Filippelli. She is a Genius of Play ambassador and has contributed to the  Emotional Wellness Playbook.   Takeaways:   Our brains develop back to front over our lifespan, and the prefrontal cortex, which is responsible for executive function, isn’t fully developed until age 30. So adjust your expectations accordingly! Play is a great place to start building these skills.    Coach your child through losing a game, rather than avoiding your child’s unhappiness at all costs. Explaining that every game has a loser, can help develop appropriate expectations. Talia starts games with her child by explaining: “I can’t tell you who’s going to win. I can’t predict the future. We don’t know how this is going to go.”    If your child’s frustration is mounting (particularly if siblings are involved) encourage them to take a pause and to recognize the signals in their body: “I can see you’re getting frustrated. And I can tell because I see you’re moving all your pieces around...” Then validate their feelings and encourage them to put their feelings to words: “Tell me about what’s making you feel frustrated about this game.” If children don’t have the language to express what they’re feeling, they will often resort to behaviors, some of them unwelcome.    The Lovevery wooden emotion dolls can help with emotional coaching. Ask your child where they feel the frustration in their body and point it out on the figure.    With children who prefer tasks and games that are easy for them, Talia likes to introduce the word “challenge”. “You’re so good at this game, why not go for something that’s going to be a little harder and see how you do? Challenges can be fun!”      Mentioned in this episode: Brought to you by Lovevery.com  Find Talia Filippelli at Starr Therapy Receive weekly emails about your child’s development, and stay in the know about new play essentials, promos, and more by signing up at Lovevery.com Follow Lovevery and Jessica Rolph on Instagram  

Executive function: Managing frustration

Executive functioning skills are important, because they help us achieve our goals. Children with strong executive functioning skills have the focus, patience, flexibility and resilience to succeed in—and out—of school.  While children continue to develop these skills into adolescence, research shows they surge at 4 years old. And they can be really fun to practice! In this episode, My New Life Host Jessica Rolph welcomes Whitman Professor of Psychology Dr. Melissa Clearfield a second time. She first appeared on the show 3 years ago to discuss her research demonstrating differences in executive function in infants. This time, the focus is on executive function in older children, specifically a child’s ability to think ahead, a component of working memory. Takeaways:   The three pillars of executive function are: impulse control, working memory, and cognitive flexibility. The Lovevery Reach for the Stars Matching Cards — where you sort by shape, and then code switch to sort the same cards by color — are a great way to practice cognitive flexibility.    Executive function stems from attention, being able to focus on the right things and block out distractors. This is challenging at ages 3, 4 and 5 because of a child’s still-developing impulse control. Working on that selective, sustained focus is primary at this stage, and is best achieved through play with an adult.   The concept of time is still very vague before the age of 5. “We’re leaving in 15 minutes” has little meaning. Sequencing, however, is something they can do! “We have three things to do. Can we get them all done before your sister gets home?” The Lovevery countdown timer helps reinforce this skill visually.   Mentioned in this episode: Brought to you by Lovevery.com  Receive weekly emails about your child’s development, and stay in the know about new play essentials, promos, and more by signing up at Lovevery.com Follow Lovevery and Jessica Rolph on Instagram  

Executive function: Thinking ahead

Our guest today is a mother of four children, ages 5 to 17. She knows well how the demands of parenting can run you into the ground. She made the choice to step off the “struggle bus of overwhelm” — as she calls it — but it was a move that took time, and conscious effort. The secret? Establishing clear boundaries. And choosing not to identify with the “mother as martyr” role. So many of us look for our partners to validate how hard we are working, before we give ourselves permission to delegate and take a break. Or hold onto resentment because we feel we are shouldering more than our fair share of the parenting burden.  In this episode, Julie Tenner gives us permission to ask: What do I need to show up as the best version of myself in this family? She is an Australian-based relationship expert who shares her wisdom as co-host of the podcast  Nourishing the Mother. You can also find her at julietenner.love. Takeaways:   If you find yourself resenting the people you love, it’s a sign you need to re-enforce your boundaries. Score-keeping is something we slip into when we’re feeling under-valued. Time to have a conversation with your partner about what you need out of each of your roles.    This conversation around roles is constantly shifting. Revisit the agreements you make regularly because our needs as adults shift with the changing children around us. Julie likes to think about it as tending to the you, to the me, to the us and to the family inc.    Julie talked about setting limits around breastfeeding and the inevitable resistance that a mother will come up against. Responding to your baby’s cries from a loving place, firm in your boundaries, can sound like: “Yeah, it’s really hard for you. I know you really want to have a feed, but I can’t give that to you right now, but I love you and I’m here.”    Julie is a big fan of delegating. She reminds us that when delegating, we need to let go of how the task is executed. It’s not going to look exactly like it would have, if you had done it. But we can’t do this work on our own, so time to lean into the team!     Mentioned in this episode: Brought to you by Lovevery.com  Find Julie Tenner at julietenner.love Receive weekly emails about your child’s development, and stay in the know about new play essentials, promos, and more by signing up at Lovevery.com Follow Lovevery and Jessica Rolph on Instagram

Quick perspective: Toxic metals in baby foods

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