Give to Help Me Grow

Are you looking to make your year-end contribution to a program that serves children and families in ways that impact lifelong success? Consider giving to Help Me Grow Alabama!

Follow this link to DONATE NOW. If you choose to give online via Pay Pal, indicate "Help Me Grow Alabama" as part of instructions for the recipient (an option Pay Pal provides when you review your donation information, prior to confirmation). If you choose to mail in a contribution, be sure your check is dated 2015 for it to be tax deductible for this year. Don't forget to write "Help Me Grow Alabama" in the memo line.

All Measures Matter

In his most recent blog post Dr. Dworkin reminds us that, "With respect to evaluating our impact on children’s optimal health development, the issue is not a matter of 'either/or,' but rather that all measures matter."

Wishing you very happy holidays from Help Me Grow Alabama as we seek to support optimal healthy development for all children!

Gift Ideas

With holidays right around the corner, many parents are on the lookout for what to give their child. You may want to consider limiting the number of gifts to a few, quality items. Many parents use the 4 gift idea of “Something they want, something they need, something to wear, and something to read.” Don't forget that quality time with a child may not be as easily wrapped, but can often be much more meaningful and memorable than a gift!

Here are ideas for something to read, but what about something they want? The number of options can make shopping overwhelming, especially when parents aren't sure which toy may be appropriate for their child. Toys that are too easy may bore a child and toys that are too advanced may aggravate them. Parents.com has a great article on making smart choices for age appropriate toys for babies, toddlers, and preschoolers. This list from NAEYC gives even more specific ideas, depending on the child's age.

Building Young Children’s Listening Skills with Music

We all know listening is an important skill in school and as an adult, but parents can start teaching well before a child begins to speak. Here are some ways to help children engage with sounds that will begin to build their listening skills, and ultimately their language skills. Singing lullabies, while cuddling and rocking rhythmically with your child, will make him or her familiar with your voice and the rhythm of your language. As your child grows older, don’t stop singing! You can use more challenging words and tunes to teach them about pronunciation and grammar. To help your child learn the basics of language you should also talk with him or her, and use child-directed speech. 

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Listening is the first step to understanding. Encourage your child to listen to and imitate sounds. Once you’ve both heard a sound, like a dog’s bark, then, use your own voice to imitate the sound. Your child might try to imitate the dog’s bark as well. Once you’ve introduced your child to musical speech and sounds, then you might want to incorporate those sounds with music. You can also help your child to recognize when sounds start and stop with musical games like Musical Chairs or Hot Potato. To find out more about different games and songs used to help children’s listening skills visit http://www.medel.com/blog/child-listening-skills-musical-sounds/. You can also check out these 6 tips to help foster a love for music for more ideas.

Text4baby

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Have you heard about Text4baby? Text4baby is a free mobile health service that provides health information in English and Spanish to women during pregnancy through a child’s first birthday. As the largest mobile health initiative in the nation, Text4baby reaches more than 900,000 moms and is available in all 50 states and the U.S. territories. Text4baby makes it easy to get important information. Women can text BABY (or BEBE for Spanish) to 511411 receive free personalized text messages with health, nutrition, and development information created by experts from all over the country. There is also an app that provides additional information about prenatal health, baby’s development, child care tips, and more. For more information about Text4baby please visit www.text4baby.org.