Six children is the state limit for a family child care home, and it is the whole reason I love this career. With six, I can give one child the extra ten minutes they need without the other five losing anything. That is not a schedule you can run with twenty children and three adults.
Parties and traditions
Every birthday gets celebrated, and the year has its landmarks.
- Birthday parties
- Christmas party
- Easter egg hunt
- Valentine’s Day party
- St. Patrick’s Day — the Leprechaun comes
- School portraits
How I teach a two-year-old to be a person
You will see “Pyramid Model” on my licensing paperwork and on a lot of day care websites. Most of them do not explain it. Here is what it actually is, and what it looks like on an ordinary Tuesday.
First, what it is not. It is not a curriculum I bought, and it does not replace letters and counting. It is a framework for the social and emotional side of growing up — sharing, waiting, calming down, saying sorry and meaning it. Think of it as the plan for the hard parts of being little.
- A few children, with a planRare. A written plan, worked out together with the family.
- Some children, for a whileExtra practice on one specific skill, until it sticks.
- Every child, every dayWarm, predictable relationships and a room set up to prevent trouble.
- Me, and my trainingNone of the rest works if the adult is not steady. That is the base.
It starts with the grown-up, not the child
The bottom of the pyramid is widest because it carries everything else. It means I keep up my training every year, I know what is typical at each age, and I do not take a two-year-old’s meltdown personally. A calm adult is not a personality trait. It is a skill, and it is the one I work on hardest.
Twenty-one hours of training every year, first aid and child and adult CPR, and twenty-five years of watching children go through the exact stage yours is in right now. When your child throws the blocks, I am not surprised or offended. I know what comes next.
Warm relationships, and a day set up so trouble does not start
This is where nearly all of the work happens, and when it is done well most children never need anything else. Two halves: I build a real relationship with each child, and I arrange the day so the predictable flashpoints simply do not occur.
A lot of what gets called a behavior problem is really a design problem. Two children, one favorite toy and no plan is not a discipline issue — it is a setup issue.
Snack comes at the same time every day, so nobody melts down from a hunger they cannot name yet. Every child gets a turn choosing the book before nap, which means the child who cannot wait gets to practice waiting on a schedule they can predict. And on the rail trail they can walk without holding my hand, so the child who needs to move gets to move.
Teaching the missing skill on purpose, the way you would teach a letter
Sometimes a child needs more than a good environment. The insight of this level is simple, and it changes everything: a child who cannot share has not learned to share yet. That is a skill gap, not a character flaw, and you close a skill gap by teaching it — deliberately, repeatedly, and before the hard moment rather than during it.
A two-year-old who grabs is not punished for grabbing. We practise taking turns at a calm moment, when nobody is upset, as often as it takes. And I put names on feelings out loud all day — “you are frustrated, that tower keeps falling” — because a child who has a word for it is far less likely to need to bite about it.
An individual plan, worked out together
Occasionally a behavior keeps happening even with everything above in place. The model’s answer is to work out what the behavior is actually getting the child — attention, escape, a sensory need — and to plan a better way for them to get the same thing.
This level is designed to be built with the family rather than delivered to them, and to be tried early, while a pattern is still small.
The same approach as they grow
The framework does not change. What changes is what your child is capable of.
- 6 weeks – 1 year
- Everything is relationship. Your baby is learning one thing: when I signal, someone comes. That is the foundation of self-control later on.
- 1 – 2 years
- Big feelings, almost no words for them. This is the grabbing age, and it is normal. We start putting names on feelings before they can use them.
- 2 – 3 years
- Turn-taking becomes possible, then reliable. We rehearse it when everyone is calm, so the skill exists before it is needed.
- 3 – 4 years
- Friendship skills, and the beginning of solving it themselves. They can suggest a fix instead of only reporting a problem.
- 4 – 5 years
- Real apologies, real repair, real self-calming. This is what kindergarten actually asks for.
Alongside the letters and counting
The social side is half of it. The rest is the ordinary business of getting ready for school, and it happens in the same room on the same day.
The basics
Colors, shapes, songs, recognizing the alphabet, and counting — worked into play rather than sat down for.
Making things
Arts and crafts most days. Mother’s Day, Father’s Day and Christmas presents go home with them, and a Home Depot Kids Workshop kit every month.
Music, every Tuesday
An outside musician comes in with a guitar or a keyboard — new songs, seasonal songs, and movement songs to get the wiggles out.
What this changes for you
Small things stay small
Because the work starts at level one and only moves up when it needs to, patterns get noticed while they are still ordinary.
You are not handed a surprise
Anything at level two or three is worked out with you, not reported to you after the fact.
The words come home
Most families end up using the same phrases at home. Children do far better when the rules sound the same in both houses.
The Pyramid Model was developed by federally funded research centers now organized as the National Center for Pyramid Model Innovations. Full details at challengingbehavior.org.