Old Records Never Die

One of the things that has served Chris and I well as parents is what excellent record keepers our mothers are.  Photo albums and notes revealed everything to us from when we said our first words, got those molars, or took those pivotal first steps.

Last week after our parent-teacher interviews, Chris and I both dove back into the records our mom's had so meticulously kept for us, to see if either of us had needed some work in developing our fine motor skills when we were in kindergarten.  We both did, just like the minions (but to varying degrees).  We also looked at our grade one report cards, which revealed what we had suspected, the requirements of children entering grade one today are a lot more lofty than they were in the 1980s.  It wasn't just our imagination.  It was reassuring during a time I was feeling a little defeated in terms of nothing seeming to come easy, but at least we're making progress.

As we begin to work with Jack and an Occupational Therapist to help him build his fine motor skills I have needed to refer to old healthy child screening lists, our speech therapy progress reports, and anything else that will help him be writing ready for grade one, which is just nine months away, yikes!

Jackie taking a bite out of learning

As parents there are so many things we acquire over the years that it can be hard to keep track.  Here are some things that we've found are well worth saving/recording. Even if they don't help your child now, they may help them when they have kids of their own.

Parental Administration (things you'll need to keep)

• Birth Certificate, Health Card, SIN Number
• Fingerprints and footprints
• Dates and info on first teeth, steps, words, first lost teeth
• Immunization records (my childhood immunization record helped me determine that one of my shots didn't work when I was a kid, and then I was able to get new shots before I tried to have kids)
• Report cards and progress reports for school and other extracurricular activities 
• Any speech therapy, well child assessment paperwork and progress reports for any type of assistance a child has received
• The names, phone numbers, and email addresses of anyone who has provided any kind of medical care, therapy, or learning programs for your children: these are the people can help you locate a misplaced progress report, or help you make sense of ongoing patterns and learning strategies etc. that will work for your child
• Some drawings and artwork (but not everything...some parents with less storage may want to take photos of art and keep digital files)

Thank you collective mom's for keeping such great records!!!

To read about our journey into speech therapy click here.

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