What color is that? How can she know? We moms must tell her. The pink sock color is not the same as the pink shoe color or the pink tutu color. There are so many kinds of pink. The paint color samples in the hardware store have literally twenty different names, one for each different color of pink paint. If paint companies hire someone to name each shade of each color, then three-year-olds, really need a mom who is willing to talk colors out loud and every day. Don’t ask. T

A child’s last name is just as important as his first name. When we asked Edie her last name, she told us it was “Boo.” Edie is three. It’s time we say to her “Edie Steele, come here” or “Edie Steele eat your broccoli.” We all need to stop using our cutesy silly names like “Edie Boo, brush your teeth.” The tragically true story in the movie “Lion” plays out the horror of a lost child who doesn’t know his last name or where he lives. Edie, thinks she lives at 15E. That is her

In English (and in Chinese) the same word can mean totally different things. The ring on mama’s finger is nothing like the ring of a bell, or the ring in the song “Ring around a Rosie, Pocket full of Posies…” Two and three year olds can think this is funny. Grandma Natalie calls the game. Homonym Jokes. It is important to talk about how the ring of a bell is NOTHING LIKE the ring on my finger. Little children need to know.

One year olds like dumping and filling. When big sisters are making Lego cars, Carter wants to put all the Legos back in the box. Then he wants to take them back out of the box. In and Out, Empty and Full. These are mathematical ideas of quantity and place. Adults need to give a child the words: In and Out, Empty and Full. We need to be sure to say them out loud when a child is involved in an IN AND OUT EMPTY AND FULL situation, so that a child can say them and understand th

What does an umbrella do? Edie says it keeps her warm, because when she and her mother got caught in the rain with no umbrella, they were so cold they had to take off all their wet clothes and put on dry clothes. Next things Edie needs to understand are that being wet can make you feel cold and that an umbrella can keep you dry. It’s all complicated to figure out. We need to listen to what our children think, so we can figure out what they understand. A scientist would define

Sometimes grown-ups don’t understand how tricky some words are. We think a child understands the tricky word after when he understands that after nap comes snack. But that is only the time meaning. When after is used with numbers, two comes after one, then after means a higher value. Two means more than one. When Johnny is supposed to line up after Harriet, after is a place in space. So, the tricky after word can mean three different things: time, quantity, and space. No won