Babies can be affected by the toxic fumes in dry cleaning. Take plastic bags off clothes, and allow them to vaporize before wearing.

Dried, spilled chemicals on cupboard floors can be reactivated by a saliva-soaked hand and ingested when Baby’s hand goes into his mouth. Scrub your cabinets after you empty them of hazards.

By pretending, children are able to:

• act out real life or imaginary roles playing alone or with other children without the accompanying stress of responsibility

• stimulate and express their thinking, creativity, and imagination by manipulating and rearranging their environments and experiences

• escape from the limits of being little, weak, or naive

• experiment, explore, and extend their boundaries of experience, size, strength, time, space and logic

• build self-confidence with opportunities to feel important, to support or repair their self-esteem, feel less helpless, more in power

• challenge their own thinking and resourcefulness

• focus on new concepts and ideas and integrate them into their lives

• see what it feels like to temporarily be someone else by acting out what another person might say and do

• enhance their communication skills: vocabulary; comprehension; speaking; attention span; listening to and following directions

• clarify their feelings, and vent their problems by putting them into words

• express their ideas, needs, feelings, fears and fantasies safely

• neutralize negative, aggressive, destructive feelings by releasing unacceptable impulses

• prepare for grown-up roles by imitating many different adults

• learn about different situations, people, animals, and places

• work out their fears, problems, resolve issues, experiment with solutions, make sense of confusion

• test limits, take risks, reverse usual roles, act out anti-social behavior (try bad behavior)

• develop a sense of morality and pro-social behavior

• gain knowledge about social relationships and understand themselves better

• enhance cooperation, and take turns as they plan and work together

• discriminate between reality and fantasy by bringing them together in play

• experience similarity, diversity, and inclusion

• cultivate senses of belonging, joint purpose, and cooperation

“I like those colors.”

“You must have worked hard on that.”

“Tell me about your picture.”

A non-judgmental yet enthusiastic attitude promotes creativity as well as a positive self-image.

Say “do” instead of “don’t.” “Do” sentences (or those in the positive form) give your child a better idea of what behavior you expect.

Example: “Don’t run” gives child no alternative, but “We walk in the house, running is for outside” will let your child know what to do instead.

“Don’t jump on the bed” becomes “Off the bed.” Tell them what you really want in the positive.

Try it for a week with the whole family. It works!

DON’T SAY “DON’T” SAY “(DO)…..”!