chaney's dairy barn

Lewis and I got to visit Chaney's Dairy Barn a couple of weeks ago. We went on a field trip in the spring, but the kids didn't have time to play on the playground. So, we got out early and Lewis had it to himself for a while. I sent him down a steeper slide and he flew off the end, getting somewhat banged up. After that, he didn't want to go down by himself, so we went down the less steep one (it's longer so it was kind of misleading.....oops!).

Part of what I learned at the Verbal Behavior Workshop is that the earliest language is in the form of "mands" or requests. Typically this starts with food. A baby says, "milk" or "cracker" and is rewarded with what they wanted. It is much easier to teach a child the right way to communicate when he is motivated by something he wants, and when he is immediately reinforced by getting that thing. So we worked on this at Chaney's, requiring him to request I go with him each time. All he had to say was, "Come on, mama!" Because he has no trouble with general requests for food, potty etc., these kinds of social mands will be key to his development going forward.

It's easy to let him have it after asking once or twice, but for him to really make the connection of "when I say 'THIS', 'THAT' happens" we have to be consistent. He actually seems to enjoy it.

We walked around in a corn field maze. It was kind of scary!

When we couldn't figure out where to go, we ran out of there! It was tons of fun, and we love the ice cream at Chaney's. You can find it at Spencer's Coffeehouse daily. :)