Inside/Outside Voice

It's never too soon to start teaching about consideration for others. I like to stress the importance of saying please, thank you, bless you, your welcome, and saying hi and bye to those that say it to the boys. Mostly D's preschool teachers. I don't encourage speaking to "tricky people." I read a very good article about safety with children. It states to replace the word "stranger" with "tricky person". If a child gets lost they will have to approach a stranger. I've tried to teach my son about approaching a mom with other kids. She's mostly likely the safest person to approach. Anyway, that's another post.

I've also stressed the importance of inside and outside voices. I ask D how many eyes do I have? How many hands do I have? How many ears do I have? How many voices do I have? We have two voices also. An inside and outside voice. One is loud and one is soft. I then ask him which one he thinks is best for inside and which one is best for inside. He's caught onto this pretty well. I just remind him when his outside voice comes inside. T isn't aware of voices yet but I plan to help him when he's a little bit bigger. D's preschool has helped him learn between his walking feet and his running feet. So when we're in buildings and he starts to run out of excitement I remind him of his walking feet.

Source: The Toddler's Busy Book