Tag: teaching

Toddler Testing: Problem or Opportunity?

“Go slowly and with great patience.” Magda Gerber

Emma writes: “I really struggle with a particular issue at meal times with my 11 month old son. He is awesome with washing hands, but pulls away, pulls at the cloth, and tries with all his might to throw it on the floor when I wipe his face. I’ve tried slowing down. I always tell him what I am going to do before I do it, and I have tried offering the cloth to him. (He throws it as far away as possible, every time.) How do you do it???”

Communication, conversation, turn taking, cooperation, independence, and self mastery all develop through the everyday care routines (feeding, nose wiping, diaper changing, bathing, etc. ) we engage in with our infants and toddlers.

Emma, I think you just have to keep trying, remain calm and consistent, and trust that one day your son is going to understand and choose to participate and cooperate more.  If you go very slowly, stay calm, and keep talking him through the process while asking and waiting for his participation and cooperation, it will get easier one day.

Maybe it will help you to know that not everything always goes so smoothly around here. For instance, when R was about 11 months old, she decided that she absolutely did not want anything at all to do with diaper changing. She would crawl over to her diaper changing area when I noted it was time for a change, but it was all downhill from there. Once she got to the changing pad, she would not stay still. She would not stay on her back for even the two minutes it took me to fasten her diaper. She spent every diaper change trying to escape, grabbing at the wipes and the diaper, trying to kick me, bucking her body, and yelling at me in protest.

For my part, I started to dread diaper changes. I did them as infrequently as possible. I found myself asking, then  pleading for, and finally demanding cooperation. (Demanding didn’t work so well.)  I tried everything I knew how to do. Slowing down. Talking with her. Asking for her permission and participation. Letting her roll and play. I tried to do as much of the diaper change as I could while she was on her tummy. I tried singing silly songs.

Each time, it would go like this: She’d roll onto her tummy and try to escape. I’d wait a minute, and try to involve her in the task at hand. I would hand her the diaper to hold, and she’d drop it on the floor and laugh. I’d hand her the box of wipes, wait for her to pull one out, and ask her to hand it to me, and she’d drop it on the floor and laugh. I’d ask her to turn on her back after letting her roll around for 3 minutes, and I knew she understood, because she’d get very still, then turn on her back, give a grin, and flip right back onto her tummy again. I’d try, in vain, to encourage her to help me dress her, by asking her to push her limbs through the holes of her clothing, and she’d squirm away and flail. I could feel myself growing impatient and my blood pressure rising.

One day, when poop was flying everywhere, my patience was short, and asking her to stay still wasn’t working, I insisted she had to stay still, and I “helped” her by placing one arm across her body so she couldn’t roll.  This didn’t feel good to me, and for her part, she let me know how she felt about being restrained by literally growling at me!

It wasn’t easy, and it wasn’t fun for me, but as much as she complained and protested during the diaper change, she’d go back to happily playing and babbling once it was all over, while I was left feeling frustrated, cleaning up poop from every surface, wondering what I was doing wrong, and thinking, “There’s got to be an easier way.” I  found myself looking on-line at those diaper changing devices that “gently restrain” babies, and promise easy, mess free diaper changing. (Yes, I did!!!) I had to laugh at myself, because after all, here I was, supposedly one of the diaper changing queens of the baby world!

What happened? Our diaper changing times used to be such wonderful times of connection and closeness, and now, almost every time, it was miserable for both of us. What happened was that my girl was maturing into a young toddler. She was mobile and also asserting her will and personality. She was asking me to engage with her on her terms, as much as I was asking her to engage on mine. This (as I’d counseled many a parent in the past) was a good and positive sign of the trust she had developed in me to listen to her, and to do things with her, instead of for her or to her. As much as it was my job to gently bring her back to the task at hand, it was also my job to follow her lead a bit, and find a way to make room for, and enjoy her emerging playfulness and need to be in constant motion.

I re-read Janet Lansbury’s post,, Dealing With Diaper Changing Disasters, and Mamas In The Making post, Catch Me If You Can.

Finally, it dawned on me that maybe my attitude and approach needed to change if it was going to get any better. I had begun to look at diaper changing  time as a “problem” to be solved instead of an opportunity to build communication, cooperation, and connection. I just wanted to get the chore done. I anticipated that it was going to be a disaster, and more often than not it was. I also realized that I wanted R to listen to me, and participate, but on my terms and timeline. I forgot that what she was doing was crucial, and an important part of her learning process.

How often had I counseled other parents to try to relax, step back a little, and re-frame the issue (whatever it was)? It was time to take my own advice. I needed to adjust my attitude and expectations. “This isn’t a problem. It is an opportunity. This is just what’s happening right now. It’s part of the process of growth and learning. We’ve got to find a way to do it together.”

Amazingly enough, as soon as I stopped approaching the diaper changing time as a dreaded task to be gotten through, and tried to see it as a time to build connection, cooperation and communication, it got better and easier. R was suddenly more willing and able to cooperate. And then tonight, there was this, during another caregiving time:

I was wiping R’s face with a washcloth after dinner. She was grabbing at the cloth, and pushing my hand away. I said, “Would you like to hold the cloth and try by yourself?” while holding the cloth out to her with an open palm. She took the cloth and swiped at her face, then she reached out and handed the cloth back to me. I said, “Thank you!” She laughed, and reached for the cloth again, so I handed it back to her. We then spent the next ten minutes handing the cloth back and forth to each other. Each time she handed me the cloth, I said, “Thank you!” and she gave a delighted grin and belly laugh before reaching out to ask for the cloth again. This was one of the best conversations I’ve ever had, bar none.

Emma, I know that it’s not always easy, but try to trust that together with your son you will get to where you want to be (eventually). Try to look at the struggles as opportunities instead of problems. Remember that this is all a part of the process, and the building of a relationship and conversation that will last a lifetime. It takes time. Try to remember to slow down, and don’t forget to laugh when you can. Because the alternative is frustration for both of you, and who needs that? I promise you, if you stick with it,  there will come a day (and soon), when you will experience the joy of a reciprocal conversation with your boy, much like the one I had with R the other night, and I’d love to hear about it when it happens!

What Is Play?

In response to All They Need Is Play, Julie asks- “How to define play? I’ve always heard children learn through self-play, but I don’t know exactly what play is? Is it referring to letting my child stomp in the mud, or going to the playground? Could you please give me some examples on how to play with my child?

“Play is the answer to how anything new comes about.” Jean Piaget

Julie, What a great question! You are on the right track! Play can be letting your child stomp in a mud puddle, or climbing at the park. But even before children reach the age where they can stomp in mud puddles, they can (and do!) engage in self directed play. Here is my definition of play: Play is the way children learn about themselves, the people around them, the world they live in, and how things work in their world. Play is the way children naturally explore, and the way they gain and practice skills they will use for their whole lives. BUT play is not done to attain any reward, or end goal. Children gain pleasure from engaging in play, and this reinforces their desire to play some more.

 Curiosity

Play is any behavior that is freely chosen, personally directed, and intrinsically motivated. What do I mean by this? Ideally, your child chooses when, with what, and how to play, and is allowed to play with as little interference or direction as possible (with consideration for the safety of self and others) for as long as possible. Maybe because she lived in Los Angeles, the movie capital of the world (or at least the United States), Magda Gerber often encouraged adults to think of a child’s play like the making of a movie, and she advised allowing the child to be the main scriptwriter, director, and actor.

“Be careful what you teach. It might interfere with what they are learning.”  Magda Gerber

Play is a process of trial and error, and there is no right or wrong. Children are literally inventing the world anew when they play. Well meaning, loving adults can interfere with the process, by telling or showing a child how to play. For instance, if you teach your child how to use a paintbrush, it’s not the same as putting out the brush, and just letting her figure it out.

You might ask,”What’s wrong with showing my child how to correctly use a paintbrush?” Well, it shortcuts her exploration thus limiting her creativity, and if she is often shown how to play ‘correctly’ it may eventually erode her trust in herself, her desire to be an active explorer, and her willingness and ability to work things out by herself. Children quickly come to look to adults to show them or tell them the right way to play and even to do it for them.

Here’s an example: Playdough is a material that offers an endless number of possibilities for discovery and creation. If you hand a two and a half year old a container of playdough and nothing else, and you sit back and watch, he will happily play with it for a long time, poking, twisting, rolling, pounding, etc. Eventually, after having the opportunity to explore the dough in this way over the course of many weeks or months, he will begin to make things with the dough. But if you jump in and start showing him how to make play dough animals, he’ll quickly lose interest in his own exploration. Since he hasn’t reached the stage of being able to make animals by himself he will ask you to make animals for him. Now who is playing? Not your child! Can we trust children to learn from their own play if we don’t make things clear and explicit for them? I think so.

“When you teach a child something you take away forever his chance of discovering it for himself.” Jean Piaget

So what is your role as a parent or teacher of young children? The adult role is to create an environment that invites play and allows the child to explore and experiment within that environment to his heart’s content, without showing him how it’s supposed to be done. This leaves your child in control, and preserves his natural, inborn desire and ability (intrinsic motivation- from within) to play. When your child plays, he is not only learning, he is learning how to learn!

To me, there is nothing more exciting than watching a baby as she discovers for herself how something works for the very first time. What is obvious to us, is not always so obvious to a baby. For instance, one of the  play objects I use in class  is an empty 10 gallon water bottle with a narrow opening at the top. I place a basket of wooden pegs of varying thickness nearby. It doesn’t take long for most young toddlers to discover the pegs and experiment with dropping them  into the water bottle, but figuring out how to get the pegs back out of the bottle is another thing entirely. This is a “problem’ that takes most children a long time to solve if shows them how to do it, and most children will happily explore different ways of solving the problem for long periods of time without becoming frustrated.

Play (exploring) is everything your baby does. She does it naturally. Before she even plays with toys, she is “playing” and learning when she looks at her hands, or kicks her feet. She is experimenting with and learning how her body works. Everything is so new to a baby, and so everything is an experiment to try to find out how things work. She uses all of her senses when she plays. When she begins to pick up toys and taste them, bang them, drop them, and retrieve them, she is playing. When she responds to your words by babbling,  smiling, cooing, or she makes raspberries to get your attention, she is playing. As she moves, or plays with sounds, or drops and retrieves a toy, she is learning. She might repeat actions over and over with small differences.

You don’t have to hand her toys or show her what do to. You just have to provide a safe space for her to explore, and include simple objects, like balls, cups, spoons, dolls, empty containers, blocks, scarfs- toys that do nothing, so your baby can be active in discovering and creating her own understanding of the world. The very first play object we offer a baby in parent/infant classes is a cotton scarf, which we place in a peak, where a baby laying on her back can see it, and reach for it when she’s ready. This scarf is a staple of the play room from the time babies are about three months old, until they graduate from class at two years old. The babies use the scarfs in a variety of different ways as they grow. As your child moves from infancy into young toddlerhood, you can add a few more objects or elements (but choose wisely) to the play area, or vary the toys to  provide different opportunities for her to explore. Sand, water, climbing toys, push and pull toys, empty boxes, and (once she’s well past putting things into her mouth) playdough, are some suggestions.
Purple Paisley Bandana

You don’t have to do anything but trust, watch, and enjoy. Watch to see what she’s interested in, what she does with the play objects you’re providing. Watch to see how her understanding of the world and the people in it changes and grows. Soon you will see her begin to initiate and engage in play with other children. At first, she will begin to notice other children more and more, and try to make contact, maybe by touching, showing, taking, or exchanging toys. She’ll then  progress to playing peek-a-boo or chase. At some point, you’ll notice she starts to engage in pretend play,  using a block to pretend to “talk” on the phone, drinking  from a cup, or patting her babydoll to sleep. As her understanding of her world and the people and things in it grows, so does her play become ever more complex and sophisticated.

You offer the greatest gift when you allow your child to play her way, with you as a witness to her discoveries. This is what Magda Gerber called “wants nothing” time: “Most of us are used to, and conditioned to, doing something. Wants nothing time is different, more a time for taking in and waiting. We fully accept the infant’s beingness just by our own receptive beingness.” We also allow, encourage and protect a baby’s natural ability to experience joy in  learning and creation, while she builds her self confidence, attention span, and more. These are the “bonuses” of self directed, or free play.

I’d love to hear your thoughts. What is your definition of play? Do you see a difference between child led or free play, and structured or adult-led play? Do you think children learn more from their own explorations or do they need adults to teach them and show them how to play, or is it both? What gets in the way of allowing your child to play freely? Finally, how many different ways can you think of to use a cotton scarf?

P.S. For more on play,  Janet Lansbury’s blog can’t be beat if  you are the parent or teacher (educarer) of  babies and toddlers, and Teacher Tom’s blog is my top pick if you are the parent or teacher of children age two and older.

 

 

 

 

 

 

What’s In A Name?

Names are an important key to what a society values. Anthropologists recognize naming as ‘one of the chief methods for imposing order on perception.’  ~David S. Slawson

Meet jeannezoo of  zella said purple. In her own words, Jeanne is  “an early childhood educator, artist, writer, book collector. committed to constructivist learning environments, documentation and photography as teacher research tools, and joy in the classroom.”  Jeanne recently wrote a beautiful post entitled because it is your name , which inspired me  to write this one.

In her post, Jeanne says,

KNOW that each name is important – the way it is pronounced and the respect it deserves.

The name IS the child that you are inviting, welcoming, and including into the family that is your classroom.

Uplift the names, uplift each child.

This reminded me of a conversation I once had with Magda Gerber about the importance of  calling each child by their name. Magda felt that it was especially important for early childhood professionals (teachers, nannies, pediatricians, etc.) to address even the tiniest babies by their given names, as opposed to calling them by pet, or nicknames. To Magda, it was a question of respect. In our society, it’s still  common for many, even professionals, to address both the very young and the elderly, using nicknames or pet names, which is disrespectful for two reasons;  it both diminishes a person, and  implies an intimacy and a power differential that should not exist.

IMG_0176-MOTION

As a teacher of young children, I’ve often witnessed that sometime around their second year, when toddlers are typically asserting their sense of individuality, they will insist on being called by their names, even by their nearest and dearest. Pet names won’t fly. Just last week, I was at  the park and I overheard an exchange between two siblings. The big sister (maybe five years old) was comforting her little brother who had just taken a minor tumble from the slide. She sweetly offered to help him get up, asked him if he was OK,  gave him a hug (which he returned) , and then she said,  “I’m sorry my wee little sweetie fell and got hurt.”  This seemed to offend and upset the little boy more than the fall had. He straightened up to his full height and indignantly declared: “I NOT wee sweetie, I Zwackery ( Zachery) !”

A favorite quote by Dr. Seuss comes to mind, “A person is a person, no matter how small.”  And, I might add, no matter how young or old, and thus -deserves the respect of being addressed by his or her given name, instead of as “dear” or “sweetie” or “munchkin” or “baby” or “cutie”.

Because after all, our names are unique unto us, and define who are. I have many roles in my life- that of daughter, sister, student, teacher, caregiver, friend, lover, fiance – but I define myself to myself  first and foremost by my name- Lisa.

Words have meaning and names have power.  ~Author Unknown

For the same reason I try to avoid labeling children, or talking about them in their presence without acknowledging or including them in the conversation, I try to call each child I meet by their given name. Over the years, I’ve had the honor of  caring for and teaching many children, and I remember each one of them by name.

Over time, I have also become very aware of how I am thinking about and describing children, both to myself and others. One day, a Mom who was frustrated with her young daughter was describing her as “clumsy, oafish, a little like a bull in a china shop.”  I replied that I didn’t think of her that way at all. I thought of  her as delightfully exuberant. Her Mom got tears in her eyes  as she thanked me, saying, “You always seem to find and see the best in every child.”  ( I try, but I’m not perfect,  and I don’t always get it right.)

But doesn’t  it make a  difference in the way you feel about, and interact with a child  if you use these words to describe his behavior:

“He knows his own mind, and is decisive. He needs my help to understand that sometimes others have different ideas and feelings about things.”

As opposed to using these words:

“He is obstinate and stubborn, and needs to learn that what he wants is not the only thing that matters.”

Father and child writing name in the sand

My favorite story about my name and my professional title?  I’ve always felt there is no good name to describe my current chosen work – babysitter, nanny, caregiver-  none of them feel quite right, or really fit. Magda Gerber came closest to accurately describing the work I do, when she coined the term “educarer” which could apply to either a  parent or a professional- anyone involved in caring  for  a child or children on a day-to-day basis. The term embodies the notion that ” we educate (or teach) as we care, and we care while we educate.”

But in this case, I have to tip my hat to S., who is now almost six years old, and for whom I have been caring since she was just under a year old. When S. was three and a half years old, she started attending a preschool program a few hours a day, in the mornings. When I would arrive to pick her up every day, she’d inevitably be out back playing, and several of her little friends would run to find her, calling out, ” S, your Mom is here.”  S. simply replied, “That’s not my Mom, that’s my Lisa,” which the other children seemed to understand, and accept immediately. And thus, I became known as “S.’s Lisa.”  When S. started Kindergarten last year, she was thrilled to find another of  her classmates had a “Lisa” too.  The best job “review” I ever received? “Everyone should be lucky enough to have a Lisa like you.”

I’d love it if you’d share your thoughts with me about “the meaning of words and the power of names.”