[Note:  This is a short series of blogs that are a mental exercise in organizing my thoughts to ultimately create a few short articles.  Please forgive any hypothetical, theoretical, grammatical, or other errors as I hammer this into a less-shapeless form. Gentle comments and suggestions welcome.   Thanks for your patience. --DP] For the ‘runner’ segment of the article, please see the following link:  “Runner Link”

Child leashes and alternatives:

“Yes, but what if your child is A RUNNER”?

“My child doesn’t run, he clings to my leg so I can’t walk!”

Scenario: The un-twin twins  (continued…)

You have two-and-a-half year old twins. You know they are yours and you know they are twins because you were there. They came out of the same womb on the same day. And that is where the similarities ended. From day one they grew and developed into two diametrically different beings.

Casey is hyperactive and gregarious. She has no fear, and no discretion. She will talk to anyone, anywhere, about anything…all the time.

Charles  is quiet and contemplating. Sensitive and cautious, he holds each bite of food in his mouth a full minute before chewing and swallowing. In the same time his sister has finished off a 6,000 calorie course with two glasses of milk and is running out in the gardenias and heather chasing squirrels.

All that is fine and dandy…while you are home. But today, and every Tuesday, you have to get the groceries.

You shuffle down the neatly packed aisles, with chatty Casey running ahead, and Charles firmly gripping to your leg, more closely applied than a mollusk to its shell. You asymmetrically drag along slowly, while calling ahead for Casey to slow down and stay close.

She gets to the end a full half-length ahead of you, and turns the corner. You hear the “CRASH”, and a moment later the overhead blare: “Clean up on Aisle 10, end-cap”. All you can do is continue to shuffle your way hurriedly to the end of the lane and hope no one is hurt…..

- – -

Gripsterz Helps for The Clinging Child

The clinging child, Charles, in our above illustration, helps demonstrate another benefit of Gripsterz.  The monkey handle allows a slightly less-than-bold child to hold a familiar ‘pal’, and the attachment remains as a physical connection to Mom, helping bestow the child with the comfort and confidence they need to venture a little more out on their own, while freeing up just a little extra space to allow Mom to walk in comfort.

The Agora Principle

The “agora” was the wide-open public square of Ancient Greece.  It is the root of the term “agoraphobia”, or fear of wide-open spaces.

Gripsterz encourages an apprehensive child to take an extra step and explore a little more, and slowly build their confidence in a comfortable and secure environment.  Children develop their space-compensating capacities at different tempos.  Just as a newborn is better able to cope with a small, confined space such as a bassinet, and a slightly older baby can cope with a pack-and-play better than a wide open room, it is similar with growing children being exposed to the “agora”.

Children ‘grow’ their space-comfort and space-compensating capacities over time.  Many children these days spend a fair part of their day indoors at home, at nursery, at daycare, at school, at Church.  It takes time for them to develop comfort in larger open areas, particularly where there are a lot of people and/or variables.  Some examples of places would include a shopping mall, a busy city street, a large store or supermarket.  Processing all of these variables when new can be understandably intimidating to some children and cause them to cling to what is known and secure:  usually Mom’s leg.

We have a good friend who has twins very similar to the above description.  When we originally designed Gripsterz we had in mind the ‘keeping your little ones close’ concept.  Our friend used it and alerted us to the tremendous relief she was given as it “gave me my leg back and let me walk comfortably with both kids”.

Please share your stories of ‘leg huggers’ or ‘runners’ with us! ]]> http://www.vivevita.com/alternative-to-child-leash-gripsterz-helpsfor-clingy-child/feed 1 http://www.vivevita.com/alternative-to-child-leash-gripsterz-helpsfor-clingy-child http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Vivevita/~3/K-U8nQDEZ4o/vacation-comes-quickly http://www.vivevita.com/vacation-comes-quickly#comments Sat, 28 Aug 2010 10:47:36 +0000 David http://www.vivevita.com/?p=2492 A little long-overdue R&R finally got worked into the scheudle!]]> It has been quite some time (years) since Robyn and I stole away for a quiet getaway without the children.  While we love having a large family and the hustle and bustle of a busy household, every once in a while we get to a point where we need to reconnect with each other.

Usually we try to cram this into a ‘date night’, but conversation usually turns to the children or the business.  So when we saw an opportunity to visit a desirable foreign destination we took it.

Initially, we planned to travel around and see as much as we could, but as time grew nearer for departure we whittled down that plan so that half the time is sightseeing, and half the time is unscheduled R&R.

We’ll give you more details when we return from our trip!

Be well and enjoy life.

Child leashes and alternatives:

“Yes, but what if your child is A RUNNER”?

“My child doesn’t run, he clings to my leg so I can’t walk!”

Scenario: The un-twin twins

You have two-and-a-half year old twins. You know they are yours and you know they are twins because you were there. They came out of the same womb on the same day. And that is where the similarities ended. From day one they grew and developed into two diametrically different beings.

Casey is hyperactive and gregarious. She has no fear, and no discretion. She will talk to anyone, anywhere, about anything…all the time.

Charles  is quiet and contemplating. Sensitive and cautious, he holds each bite of food in his mouth a full minute before chewing and swallowing. In the same time his sister has finished off a 6,000 calorie course with two glasses of milk and is running out in the gardenias and heather chasing squirrels.

All that is fine and dandy…while you are home. But today, and every Tuesday, you have to get the groceries.

You shuffle down the neatly packed aisles, with chatty Casey running ahead, and Charles firmly gripping to your leg, more closely applied than a mollusk to its shell. You asymmetrically drag along slowly, while calling ahead for Casey to slow down and stay close.

She gets to the end a full half-length ahead of you, and turns the corner. You hear the “CRASH”, and a moment later the overhead blare: “Clean up on Aisle 10, end-cap”. All you can do is continue to shuffle your way hurriedly to the end of the lane and hope no one is hurt…..

- – -

Regarding the Gripsterz handle, the voluntary child leash alternative: ” That’s fine for you, but our child is a “runner”. That’d never work for us…”

We did not truly understand what people meant until our seventh little guy came along. Now we really know what a runner is.

Our little Robert is nitrous oxide mixed with nirtoglycerine in a little cup, a “good measure, pressed down, shaken together and running over” (if you will forgive me stealing and slightly mismanaging a quote from Luke 6:38). He runs at 95 miles per hour, non-stop. When we read a bedtime story and his brothers and sisters (now 8 of them) are quietly laying down and listening, he’s buzzing around the room contributing explosive sound effects, whether the story is Buzz Lightyear or Bambi. Sometimes it seems he thinks if he can build up enough steam he can make it all the way up the curtains to perch like Spiderman on the valence (and he may be right–we still have one wall  that needs repair from a near-success).

Anyway, Robert was just barely walking when we brought him home from the orphanage in Guatemala, but there was no way this little guy was going to hold the handle at first. That was when we realized we did indeed need a fall-back mechanism. Relying on science and psychology (think Linus Pauling’s ducklings), we tried a short period of a velcro wrist attachment. After about 1.5-2 weeks he had bonded with his “Grippy” and the wrist attachment was not needed. Better yet, since the handle is detachable from the connector strap, we were able to let him walk around the house all day with Grippy loosely strapped to his wrist. Grippy went with him everywhere–playtime, naptime, even dinnertime. They soon became fast friends and Robert still stays close in touch with his little Grippy pal when we are crossing parking lots, shopping in malls, or venturing through airports or theme parks.

- – -

Click here to see article discussing the clingy child and the maintained feeling of connection, while giving Mom a  little space.

Gripsterz helps Moms with children who are ‘runners’.  Some Moms have children who would ‘never voluntarily use a handle’.  The Gripsterz package includes a velcro wrist strap that can be used as a temporary initial measure to help your child learn to stay connected.  Since the handle and wrist strap are detachable from the rest of the connection system, you can let your child get adjusted and become pals with the Gripsterz monkey handle (we call him “Grippy”) in the safety of your own home.

That was a blessing, but we’ve been busy as all get-out since then, so we haven’t been able to keep up with blogging.  We hope to get back to it soon.

Things do get snowballing fast.  We recently released our Bandle baby bottle label product.  We are about to release our bilingual (English-Spanish and English-French) packaging.   We are moving ahead with six new inventions, each in different stages of development, several of which should be ready for market in the later part of this year or early next.  All within the last couple of months.

In addition, our products are now in BuyBuyBaby, we are official Amazon.com vendors, Robyn is now juggling interviews, and we are working with several foreign distributors to make our Bandette, Bandle, and Gripsterz products available all around the globe.  It’s not quite as glorious as it sounds, but it is fun and challenging!

So as you can see, we’ve been pretty busy, and I hope you’ll forgive us for the temporary lapse in blogging.  Oh, yeah, and we’re trying to run a ‘normal’ home school household and not be consumed by the business while we are at it.  Keep us in your prayers, and we’ll keep you posted….

The current Facebook page is ViveVita Robyn (will be changing soon!!)
Twitter is @mompreneurplus9. (will be updating soon!).

Again, many thanks for visiting! Please be watching for Bandette labels and Gripsterz in your circle of influence and feel free to spread the word!

[Note:  This is a short series of blogs that are a mental exercise in organizing my thoughts to ultimately create a few short articles.  Please forgive any hypothetical, theoretical, grammatical, or other errors as I hammer this into a less-shapeless form. Gentle comments and suggestions welcome.   Thanks for your patience. --DP]

Has this ever happened to you?

The Grocery Store Scenario

Picture yourself in a grocery store with a baby in the cart-carrier, and toddler clinging to your ankles, and a four-year-old running around the cart making airplane noises. You’re moving along happily at a decent clip, grooving to the light, slightly fruity elevator music.  The air is cool in the deli and produce aisles, and the butcher waves and smiles at your baby from behind the meat counter.  All is well in grocery-land.

You turn off the end-aisle down the coffee-tea-sugar-flour aisle.  From the red grinder on the shelf, the aroma of fresh-ground roasted coffee overwhelms you, and you pause to look briefly at the assortment on the shelf to see what good stuff is there, and what you can afford.  After only a moment you look up and a feeling of anxiety overwhelms you—junior is nowhere in sight.

How about this?

The Airport Scenario

You are shuttling yourself and your children through an airport toward the security checkpoint on a busy holiday weekend.  The smell of hot, sweet, sticky cinnamon buns fills the air and mingles with that of new paperback novels and glossy magazines on racks and the faint hint of jet fuel.  An electric cart whizzes beeping past, and there are a hundred splashes of color as every advertiser on the planet attempts to overwhelm your senses from every direction.

You have your baby in a stroller, a small carry-on bag with roller wheels, your shoulder-bag brimming with kiddie stuff, and your toddler tailing along.  Your spouse has momentarily separated from you to park the car in long-term, and to check the bags and will meet you at the gate.  You recognize you do not have enough hands to manage the stroller, the bags, and your little runner, so you whip out your trusty child leash. “No problem, situation under control,” you proudly think to yourself.

As you fasten the harness on your child she starts with a pout, which quickly devolves to a frown, and you see it coming….from the bottom of her feet it wells up and climbs to her gut, where it gathers strength and continues to ascend.  Picking up steam like a tropical storm, it reaches the bellows of her chest…now Category 5 hurricane in the making.  As it reaches her throat the tempest is boiling like a pressure cooker behind the steam-whistle of an old coal train.

Suddenly, it erupts—that red-faced scream of utter childhood resistance.  Her face goes crimson, her eyes puff and pucker, the tears stream sideways out the corners of her eyes.  Her hair is already damp and curly with the heat of her rage.  In the final gesture of defiance she plops her bottom down in the middle of the airport causeway, just in time to get nearly trampled by a well-dressed and hurried group of business travelers with a cavalcade of roll-on luggage, late for their transfer.  You are met all around with stares of scorn and disdain.

The social stigma of the child leash comes down full-force like a yoke around your shoulders.  Some über-useless brash college kid in torn-up jeans, a punky tee-shirt and worn-out chucks who never in his life even babysat for a child snidely comments, “Why do you treat your child like a dog?  Would you like to be led around on a leash?”  All you can hear above the din of the bustling terminal is the pounding of your heart in your ears.  Your neck is hot and your collar is wet with the sweat of frustration and embarrassment.  Everything is a blur, and then it comes—the final boarding call for your flight…and you haven’t even made it through security yet!

—

Wouldn’t it be great if there was some way to keep children close, keep your family together, without overly restricting them, but instead giving them room to explore?

Wouldn’t it be nice to have something that provides the security of a child leash, without the pain and struggle of fighting the child to use it, and without the social stigma of involuntarily binding your child?

Is there a way to take an anxiety-ridden trial and remove the fear and loathing of the task, replacing it with a fun, enjoyable experience for parents and children?

—

Anyone who is a parent probably has encountered a time when they wish they had more hands, when their child ran off despite their best intentions and precautions.

Anyone who has traveled with children and tried to navigate through a busy airport knows the stress and anxiety this creates.  Those who have not unreasonably chosen to use an involuntary leash or tether system may have encountered resistance from the child (sitting down in the middle of a passageway, crying, screaming, tangling other travelers), or the social stigma and perhaps outright derision from others viewing the situation from ‘the outside’.

Most people probably would prefer not to involuntarily bind their child, however, in the interest of safety in today’s uncertain world, that is often preferable to losing a child or having a child abducted.

- – -

The Gripsterz Alternative:  Bonding without Binding

It is natural for both a parent and a child to fear separation from each other, but it can easily happen.  Anyone with more than two children knows that you quickly run out of hands to hold, and it is difficult to figure out how to keep them all close.  Child leashes, tethers, and harnesses are all ways to secure your children, but as the above illustration shows, any person’s natural reaction to an involuntary binding is to resist.  A child’s form of resistance is often loud and distracting.  The idea of involuntary binding is the root of the social stigma attached to leashes, as most forms of tethering are associated with domestication of animals, and people don’t like to think of children in the same sense.

There have been some products out there that have made some progress in mitigating the effects of the tethers.  Some create a connector that attaches to a child via a fasten-able backpack.  This is helpful as a child is less resistant of a useful backpack that holds ‘their stuff’ (to which happens to be attached a connection strap).  Bonus points for those who combine this with a stuffed animal appearance whose harnesses masquerade as arms and legs “hug” the child in a piggyback position.

There is also a newcomer product to this field which goes a step further, utilizing the innate nature of children to create a fun, constructive link between child and parent, while fostering an enjoyable experience and enhancing the relationship.  A physician and a nurse practitioner, parents of 9 children, teamed up with a Pediatric Occupational Therapist to develop a product formulated in a way to maximize its attractiveness to children and its utility.

Gripsterz StayAlong is our product that is an adorable monkey handle with several strap attachments that allow you to configure multiple ways to create a link between you and your child.  A child has a natural tendency to resist being involuntarily bound.  Conversely, a child has a tendency to cling to a hand-sized toy (just try taking a Matchbox car from the clutches of a two-year-old Dale Earnhardt in the making).  The more friendly in appearance, and the more grippable and tactile the toy, the greater the tendency for the child to stay attached to it.  Thus the success of small hand-held toys (Polly Pockets is a good example, Lego Duplo bricks and the all-time classic wooden blocks).

When a child develops a psychological bond with a toy (or character handle), they do not need to be involuntarily tethered.  They will want to hold on to that familiar handle for comfort and security.  This gives them room to explore, but keeps them close to parents while freeing up the adult’s hands.

Even if a family only has two children, holding hands has its limitations.  If one child wants to stop and look at something and the other wants to go tearing ahead, Mom or Dad could lose an arm.  Gripsterz StayAlong allows each child a little bit of freedom to do their own thing, but within reasonable limits.

What is also important is for parents to realize when children are young, that they need to take a little time before an outing to build rapport and relationship with their children, and address what a child might expect to encounter on their trip, as well as what will be expected from them.  When expectations are clear, anxiety is lessened, and goals and limits are more understandable.  Gripsterz helps achieve this with a board book included in the packaging.  It reviews some common places you might go with your child, and gently touches on what might be expected during the outing, using the Grippy character as a friendly guide.  Having the physical, visible and tactile presence of Grippy during the trip reinforces some of the concepts reviewed by parent and child earlier.  A calm, friendly verbal reminder of some of the points will help most children stay close and on the same page as Mom or Dad.  Getting in the habit of spending a precious few minutes reviewing expectations with your child ahead of time goes a long way in relationship-building in the toddler years and well beyond.

But for now, our trip…our adventure (and since more time has passed, we are passing into that phase where you start to forget all the little nuances and only recall the thrills – I will try not to be too rosey!)

Day 17: On our way to NYC – the BIG APPLE!  Us – with nine young children – hitting the grandest city in the country!  Did you know that NYC was originally purchased for $24!  Yep – gotta love homeschool knowledge. (Won’t go into all the cultural issues associated with that purchase, that’s a topic for the highschool level!)

We started off after the morning rush hour passed (giving us time to get up, get the little ones fed and dressed, and get out the door) from Auntie Ria’s house, we packed everyone in the van, and drove to the Metro North station.  We got tickets and played around, entertaining  some folks on the platform.  Then we caught the train into Grand Central Station.  I still can’t believe that we were there!  So far, so good – all 9 kids made it on and off the subway and up the ramp to that Grand place - thanks to Gripsterz! For most of our little guys, it was their first time there and the vaulted ceilings and grand scale of things was quite impressive for them.

After taking a few moments to “soak it all in” and look the place and the people over really good (and counting children, again) - we hit the streets of New York!

I have to break in here and tell you that I am the absolute BEST “counter to 9″ in the universe!!!  My whole life (and 9 little ones) depends on it!

We strode down those city sidewalks and met up with a couple of cousins and some friends at the Museum of Natural History. … Can you picture our parade – not quite Macy’s but pretty close!

The museum was fun – lots of cool animals to see.  Our favorite room to explore was the ocean room with it’s lifesize whale in the ceiling.  Through the years, Dave and I have come to recognize that when you are visiting with other adults and trying the watch kids at the same time….bad things can happen!  Your focus slips from the children to the adults and you just can’t count right!  In our case, we had split up to tour different parts of the museum – and unknown to us…Dave’s cell phone battery had died and my walkie-talkie battery was dead!  We were communicationless!!!  So, me and my small group were standing in the very, very crowded entrance room, hoping that Daddy would sense where we were and come by.  Eventually, we did meet and gather back in another room, however…our 7 yr/old missed the “move along” cue (he was distracted by boredom while waiting).  All of our Gripsterz were occupied by smaller siblings and I was thrilled to be “together” again.  It didn’t take long before Dave was counting to 9 (he is a very good counter also!) and he could only get to 8!  Problem!!!  In a flash, we acknowledged the problem (only 8!) and started the back-track search.  Despite the large crowd of people, our 7 yr/old was quickly spotted by Dave, close to where we had been waiting in the entrance area.

Fortunately, while we were on the way into the city on the Metro North line, we role-played with all the kids what to do if you get lost or separated from the group, and we put business cards with cellphone contacts in their pockets, just in case something like this might happen.  It was only about a minute before Dave noticed he was missing and circled back to get him.  All was well, but the little guy got quite a scare and stayed really close for the rest of the outing!  Thanks to the talk on the train he was able to keep it all together and not panic.  I will share our tips about how to prepare kids for something like this at the end of this post.

After leaving the museum, we walked by Central Park and stepped in for a few minutes.  What an incredible park!!  After that great landmark we made our way back onto the subway and headed for Times Square!  Are we not crazy!!!  Our goal was to find somewhere to eat dinner, preferably somewhere nice.  Times Square was crowded and busy (duh!).  I kept having to remind the children to look up and capture the moment – take in the lights and all the signs.  Nothing like the *bling* of Times Square!  The dinner option was quickly blasted away by the 2 hr waits, so we opted for giant cookies instead!  Cookies for dinner – how great is that!

Needless to say – the Metro ride home that night was rather solemn and quiet – most of our crew slept!

TIPS: Prepping your kids for crowded event or destination

- Dress the kids in colorful shirts or clothes, making them easily seen.

- Talk to them prior to going and tell them what to do if they get separated from you.  Tell them to…

*Stay where they are, if they wander around looking for you they will only get even more lost

*If they see a police officer, ask for help – otherwise…

*Ask another mommy for help, a mother with a child will be least threatening to them and you and she will totally understand the panic that you and the child will be in.  It is the safest option for reaching out to a stranger.

*Don’t be afraid to scream!  Matter of a fact – do scream, call for Mommy or Daddy as loud as possible.  Being lost is no time to get quite or be concerned about causing a scene!

- Place some kind of ID on your child(ren).  There are great ones that you can buy, check out www.mypreciouskid.com or use whatever you have.  Any sheet of paper, a business card, something that has your name and phone number on it.  Tell your child what it is and when to use it.  In a pinch, I have also heard of people writing on their child’s skin (back, arm, or leg)!

- Get a Gripsterz!  Will help keep those little ones close and let everyone have fun!  You just have to be a little careful in the most crowded spaces, wouldn’t want to “catch” someone in the strap – a good time to use the short Gripsterz strap!

–Note:  For the following list of images, click on any thumbnail to enlarge the picture—

–that statement itself is a wonder, since they are ALL babies! —

The two year olds soon lost interest, but the 3-year-old, being Mother Hen to all 3 little brothers, decided she wanted to feed the baby.  She got a bib and baby food to boot.

When Robyn finally realized what she was doing, she tried to stop the process (fearing the clean-up would be worse than the help) by saying:

“[Littlest girl], you are not going to feed him right now because I don’t even want to SEE what kind of mess you are going to make by trying to do this.”

Without missing a beat, the little one responds in her 6-inch alien voice “Then just don’t look at me, Mommy.  I need the spoon now, please.”

She was so cute, Robyn could not resist.  But Robyn did not think it near as funny when three minutes later from the same little voice came the matter-of-fact statement:  ”I need a new shirt, Mommy.”

But this means Amazon will sell and deliver to you, so there is broader access to our Bandette product, and we expect more will follow.