Witherspoon Grill Blog
Wine Tasting Event 2010& 2011
So we were sitting around last year in the spring wondering what our next wine dinner was going to be. We batted around a beer dinner idea, and a Spanish wine dinner, and a few other ideas and then we came up with what would turn out to be our most successful event to date.
The event was an “Around the World” wine tasting event. It was modeled after the wine events that the industry puts on in New York City and Atlantic City. (And other cities, I’m sure.) We set up tables that featured wines from eight different countries and then we had our chefs pair foods with each country.
It was a fabulous event (I can attest to this because I attended as a guest that evening)!
It was a beautiful evening, the weather was gorgeous-which was great considering we had a few tables set-up out on our side patio, and the amount of people that showed up was just perfect.
The tables represent:ed Italy, France, Spain, Chili, Argentina, South Africa, and the good ol’ USA. We also had a “bubbles” table, which was my personal favorite! Each table had five different wines to try and accompanying foods to sample. The chefs did an amazing job with a seafood paella at the Chili table, sweet & sour meatballs at the Spain table and a wide array of cheeses and breads at the France table (just to name a few.) There were also fresh strawberries at the Bubbles table that made the perfect dessert!
People mingled and drank and ate and drank some more. You were able to go from table to table and try whichever wines you would like and nibble on some food while you were there too. There were tables that were set up outside to just sit with friends and talk about the evening or just relax with one of your glasses of wine.
Overall, it was an easy-going, fun event that I think everyone truly enjoyed!
So, of course, we are doing it again this year!
This Thursday will be our 2nd Annual Wine Tasting Event: “The World According to Wine”. We will have nine tables this year featuring the same countries as last year plus an Australia/ New Zealand Table. The chefs have been working hard to come up with some fabulous dishes! I don’t want to give them all away, but a few things I saw on the list included: braised rabbit, homemade empanadas, and lamb meatballs with yogurt sauce.
The weather report is saying zero percent chance of rain, and the temperature should be in the low eighties, so, in theory, we should have another beautiful night!
If you haven’t purchased your tickets yet, don’t worry; you can always get them at the door! They are $75 each. The event starts at 7pm and the entrance to the Wine event will be at the side patio to the left of our front door.
I hope you can make it to the event this year because if it’s anything like last year’s event, it should be one heck of a great time!
Click here for a link to the event
My Child Won’t Listen to Me!
by Guest Blogger Susan Kassler-Taub, MSW, LCSW
My Child Won’t Listen to Me!
By Susan Kassler-Taub
“My child won’t listen to me!” is the oft-heard battle cry of so many parents who visit my office. While this is a concern of parents of children from toddlers to adolescents, let’s start by looking at this problem in the pre-school set, as I am a firm believer that problems fixed in our parenting of young children can prevent these problems from re-occurring throughout childhood.
There is an instructive adage: “If you tell a child something a thousand times, it is not the child who doesn’t understand.” As the adults, parents often must first modify their own communication style before the child will become compliant with the parents’ directives.
Developmentally, the pre-schooler is frequently caught up in their own little world, and that it is often the world of make-believe. In order for you to break through the fantastical story they are creating in their head with their action figures and dolls, and for them to really hear and attend to what you have to say to them, it is imperative that you walk up to your child, kneel down to their height, and look them directly in the eyes. If you are giving a directive to your child, it is not effective to yell from one room, or one floor of the house, to another. Being right next to your child and looking at them directly is a powerful incentive for the child to pay attention. It also makes for a much quieter and calmer household.
When giving a directive, such as “time to clean up the Legos,” steer clear of setting up a situation which can result in the pre-schooler’s favorite word - “No!” Begin with the face-to-face communication described above. First, give your child a time warning, such as: “In five minutes we will need to clean up the Legos.” Set an old-fashioned egg timer to five minutes and leave it in the room with the child, where they can see the time passing, but where they can’t reach the timer. Return when you hear the buzzer and cheerfully assume that you child is now ready to comply with your request. I am often struck by how children respond to our expectations. If we expect that they will fuss at us about cleaning up, sure enough they will. Alternatively, if we assume that they will comply, and set up the situation to encourage compliance, we greatly increase the likelihood of our desired outcome
Another good tactic is what I call “coming at the child from the side, not the front.” The easily recalcitrant pre-schooler is likely to yell “No!” if you walk in when the buzzer rings and demand, “You heard the buzzer, now clean up!” Instead, walk in full of confidence and in a pleasant voice try: “I see red, blue, and green Legos. I want to clean up the blue ones, which color do you want to clean up?” as you begin to scoop the blue Legos into a basket.
Parents will ask me if this method is spoiling the child, or not teaching the child to truly comply with your requests. On the contrary, I explain that following this method the child will be complying, and for every moment they are complying, they cannot in the same moment be defying the parent. Every moment they are complying builds up a memory in the child of listening to the parent’s requests, and increases the likelihood that they will default to listening to their parents, rather than refusing to listen, in the future. In other words, complying with the parent’s request becomes a habit.
Another “coming from the side” tactic is to give the child choices when it is feasible to do so. Since it truly doesn’t matter if the Legos get cleaned up before the crayons, or if we brush our teeth before we wash our face, present your directive as a choice. “Do you want to brush your teeth first tonight or wash your face first?” asked while you gently take your child’s hand and are walking towards the bathroom. Or, “Would you like to wear your blue sandals or your red sneakers today?” asked as you place the choices in front of the child’s feet.
When the child does as asked, do remember to say (and therefore model) a hearty “thank you!” As we reinforce a behavior in our child, whether the behavior is positive or negative, we increase the likelihood of that behavior repeating. So reinforce the behaviors you want to see again!
When giving important directives, I ask parents to follow the motto: “Say less, do more.” While I firmly believe that good language skills in children are encouraged by parents who talk often to their children, let’s save the chatter for descriptions of the world around us, not explicit directives. As I say in the office, if you want to discuss with your child how the caterpillar they see in the park turns into a butterfly, please do talk at length, but if you are asking your child to clean up their crayons, keep your sentence short and simple.
Consistency on the part of the parents is of utmost importance is teaching a child to listen to us when we make requests. I like to tell the story of a trip to the park with one of my pre-school children and his friend. When it was almost time to leave, I gave my usual five-minute warning. No timer being available in the park, I held up five fingers to represent the five minutes, and at each one minute interval quietly showed them I was dropping one finger down. When time was up, I cheerfully announced it was time to go, turned and started to walk down the path (keeping the eyes and ears in the back of my head wide open, of course) and overheard their conversation. My child began to follow, soon followed by his surprised little friend. “Why are we leaving?” asked the friend. “My mom gave us the warning, so it’s time to go” replied my son. “Ask her again, and lots of times again” said the other child, “That always works with my mom.” I could literally hear the wheels turning in my child’s head as he thought this over and replied, “Nope, that won’t work with my mom,” and we all headed to the car.
Children learn more from what they see us do, than what we tell them to do. If you want your child to listen carefully to you, then you must carefully listen to them. Take some time in your very busy life every day to just sit and listen to the myriad stories your young child has to tell you. Sit right next to them, look them directly in the eyes, and turn off your cell phone, computer, radio, and TV. Give them your undivided attention. Oh, and when you are busy, and they want your attention please don’t say, “Just one more minute,” and then take five or fifteen, or you may see that behavior come right back at you when you tell them to clean up those crayons, and they then say “Just one more minute.”
Pre-schoolers, like all children, and just like their parents, are happiest when all family members are getting along. When they comply with their parents’ requests without conflict, and see and hear their parents’ proud response, children feel their positive sense of self and their abilities reinforced. Focusing on simple, direct communication, with a cheerful attitude and the assumption of a positive outcome can go a long way towards avoiding the dreaded “No!” of the pre-school years and beyond.
Susan Kassler-Taub, MSW, LCSW
Psychotherapy: children, adults, couples
Princeton, NJ 08540
609-921-1994
Routine, Routine, Routine by Guest Blogger Susan Kassler-Taub, MSW, LCSW
Routine, Routine, Routine
By Susan Kassler-Taub, MSW, LCSW
Walk into a good nursery school classroom and look around. What do you see? Carefully labeled cubbies with everything in its place. A posted schedule of the day’s activities, which always stays the same, each and every day. A clear set of expectations of behavior. Everything scaled down to fit the young child’s size. In short, predictability, predictability, predictability.
Young children love and crave predictability. They want to watch the same DVD over and over, hear the same story night after night (and don’t you dare skip a word!) eat PB&J, cut only in triangles, every day for lunch.
As parents we can use the child’s need for predictability to make their life and our lives run more smoothly. We can improve the climate in our homes during the morning rush, mealtimes, naptime, bath and bedtime by sticking to a routine.
In most households, the scene in the morning can be a hectic dashing about combined with cajoling children to brush their teeth, put on their shoes, etc. Capitalize on your young child’s love of predictability to set up a morning routine in your household. Some ideas for a morning routine: lay out your child’s clothes the night before, placing them on the floor of the bedroom in what I call a “scarecrow” pattern, so that in the morning your child can just “slide” into the clothing. Set the routine so that as soon as the child is up they “slide “ into their clothes, then immediately take care of toileting and washing up. Tell your young child that all of those things are always (note the always) done before anyone in the family heads down the stairs. This will eliminate the problem parents often complain of: how to convince their child to get ready once they’ve already gone downstairs and begun to play or watch TV. Once downstairs, have all necessary tasks accomplished before play or TV time: eating breakfast, placing the backpack at the door, shoes on and tied, etc. Then your child is free to play until it is time to leave, and hopefully you will have a few minutes for that well deserved cup of coffee!
Think of the same style of routine when working on having a calmer naptime and bedtime. Remember, for the young child, doing the same things in the same order is the key to your capitalizing on their love of predictability. You can even make a picture chart of the evening and morning activities in the order they are to happen; just like one you might find in that good nursery school classroom we talked about earlier. In the evening, quiet activities, not rough housing should precede the beginning of the evening routine. Then on to washing up, toileting, bath and story, always the same, in the same order, every night. Again, remember the nursery teacher, she has made the routine predictable, and the children in the classroom know what is next and expect it to happen in that order.
Part of routine for many young children is that favorite blanket or stuffed animal. In my years of practice I have seen every version of this “lovey” from the barely intact baby blanket to the well-loved and nearly bald stuffed animal; I even knew one child whose special object was a yellow plastic screwdriver! These objects provide comfort and predictability for young children, and are a wonderful way to help a child feel safe and secure. When a baby is an infant, we can help them develop an attachment to that favorite (infant safe) object by holding it with them and us when they are feeding, seeking comfort, or sleeping. The child will then naturally want that object as part of their routine, and it can provide a transition between the child with the parent present and the child without the parent present when the child is falling asleep, or with a sitter. Parents often ask me if their child will become too attached to an object and need it forever – I assure them that the child will leave the object behind when they are ready, and I’ve never seen anyone walk down the aisle at their wedding with their baby blanket dragging behind them!
So, develop routines with your child, stick to them, and then enjoy all the time and energy you have freed up to explore, learn and play with together.
Susan Kassler-Taub, MSW, LCSW
Psychotherapy: children, adults, couples
Princeton, NJ 08540
609-921-1994