Social

• When your child has a friend come to play, there are many opportunities to encourage communications that help them share and make decisions about what to play and how to take turns.
• A fight between your children, or between your child and another child, is an ideal time to teach kids a moral lesson about sharing or friendship.

Physical

• All children need physical exercise, not only to keep them physically healthy, but to keep them emotionally healthy. Physical activity helps children vent frustration and anger and work out all the pent up energy they have. If your child is showing signs of frustration, such as restlessness and irritability, help them transform that negative energy into positive energy. Take advantage of this time by going to a park or beach, or giving them time and space for unstructured play outdoors. Children learn early to funnel their energy into either positive or negative ways of expressing it. In this moment, you have a chance to teach them a valuable lesson about positive self-expression.
• The parts of the day devoted to hygiene – brushing teeth, taking baths, going to the bathroom – can be full of lessons for kids. Aim to do these things at around the same time in order to teach your children to adapt to routines and, of course, to teach proper hygiene.

Intellectual/Language

• Make clean-up a learning experience. Put away circle-shaped objects first; count while putting blocks back in the toy bin; organize toys by color first. These exercises teach pre-math and reading skills. Cleaning up after themselves teaches kids responsibility and organization skills.
• While running errands around town or traveling familiar routes, ask your child to direct you in the car. When it comes time to make a turn or look for a specific street name, see if he or she can remember. This builds your child’s capacity for retrieving information.

Creative

• When your child is at play with her toys or stuffed animals, sit and question her about the game. The narrative she is constructing will soon become clear to you, and it will become clearer in his or her own head as it is being explained. This will help her make creative connections, improve her storytelling skills and communication skills, and understand the real-life roles she is reconstructing through her games. It will also bring you two closer in sharing the fantasy.
• If your children have a tendency to make a mess, encourage it – but in the right environment. Some shaving cream and food dye make a fun, squishy “paint” that children can get on their hands and rub on a surface outside the house. The textures and colors make the experience fun for children. Afterwards, it easily washes off.

Emotional

• If you’re reading a story to your children and there’s a particular character that has experienced a troubling event--such as losing a family member or being teased-- this can be a good opportunity for you to explore the subject with your children. Ask them how they think the character feels, and how they think they might feel if they were in the same position. Allowing children to put themselves in another’s shoes fosters empathy and emotional development.
• Though it’s hard to discuss, it’s not a good idea to keep kids in the dark about things like death. When someone you know passes away, it can be a good opportunity to bring up this sensitive topic to your kids. It can also be a good way for you to express your own sadness and help support your kids in expressing themselves. Often, adults try to hide their sadness from kids -- but this sends the message to children that it isn’t okay to show your feelings. Letting your children see that you grieve, and how to express those feelings in a healthy way.