As new parents we often find ourselves underprepared for an entirely foreign experience. Yes, we were all once babies and toddlers ourselves, but it's not like we remember it very much. We can struggle to understand the stages of development that our child will go through, and we can often have unrealistic expectations for our first child or two as we gain experience with being parents.
When my oldest was a very young child, I struggled to know what to do with him and how to engage with him. Like many new mothers of my age, I turned to Pinterest for the answers. I found cute little worksheets to use with Dot markers, coloring pages, and more, and after looking at the beautifully staged photos (some even had kids in them!) I was convinced that these would help not only occupy my then undiagnosed ADHD child's mind, but it would also help us grow closer as a mother and child, and I would have proof to back it up!
So, I printed off page after page. I got special art supplies like dot markers. I cleaned off our table and set up and had my cell camera ready to capture the sweet bonding moments. I sat my child at the table, showed and explained what we were going to do, and my sweet, strong minded, curious, and absolutely uninhibited toddler did exactly what HE wanted to do.
After all, he saw that the markers could do spots, but what about swipes? What would happen if he pressed it down really really REALLY hard? What if he pressed AND swiped at the same time? What did the sponge part of the marker feel like? What did it feel like on fingers? On hands? On his face? In his hair? Did it move the same on clothes as it did on paper?
Well, it turns out if dot markers are swiped, pressed, and rubbed on random things, the sponge shreds and the marker is ruined. I stopped buying them after the second set bit the dust.
He learned lots of things (as I now know), but in those moments I was convinced I had done something wrong in initiating the activity. Early motherhood, early fatherhood, is a crash course in child development, and is a time of accelerated learning for both the child and the parents.
The wonderful outcome of those experiences are that he learned everything he needed, and I learned what I needed to as well. Things that I never learned in any other setting (even other childcare settings!).
It was my first major lesson in a concept that I cognitively knew, but had no true practice in. It was a lesson that every major homeschooling philosophy touches on, that everyone thinks they understand, but no one truly does unless given the opportunity to live it. Best summed up by Charlotte Mason, it is this:
Children are Born Persons.
What this means is that each child, from infancy onward, is their own unique being with their own unique goals and desires in life, and in any given situation. If my son had desired to create dot based artwork, then he would have done it. But making neat rows of dots in lines and curves wasn't on his agenda. Grinding the tip off of a dot marker definitely was, and he took great relish in doing it over and over again.
Eventually I learned too. I learned that just because something was on Pinterest didn't mean it would be a practical activity to do with a child.
I learned that the best things to do with a young child were also the easiest. Go to a park. Sing a song together. Read the same silly book over and over again. Eat nutritious food, and have fun exploring new foods together. Color some applesauce and let them "paint" in the bathtub.
That's it. That sort of thing is the only stuff that young children really need. Unless they are wanting them, they don't need coloring sheets or worksheets. They don't need flashcards. They don't need to be able to recite the periodic table when they're four. They need a warm, loving, simple, predictable, and stable home environment.
I also learned that I tend to really disagree with the way we categorize areas of early child development in our society. So much so, that I've reached a point where I refuse to follow them. Modern pediatrics places the stages thus:
Newborn: 0-2 months
Infant: up to 12 months
Toddler: 12 months -3 years
Preschool: 3 - 5 years
School-age: 6 - 17
I disagree with the age ranges that are assigned to these stages. In my experience, and the experience of most mothers that I know, each of the italicized stages are started or ended far too early. I extend the age ranges like this:
Newborn: 0 - 4 months
Infant: 5 - 20 months
Toddler: 21 months - 4 1/2 years
Preschool/Kindy: 4 1/2 - almost-6 years
School-age: 7 - turned-18
The interests and abilities of a 4 year old are typically much closer in capability to that of a 3 year old than a 5 year old. They also require similar amounts of supervision for safety. Their emotional maturity to handle disappointment, stressors, and peer interactions are also closer to a 3 year old than a 5 or 6 year old.
Our society is obsessed with rushing children through their development so they can be "independent", "acceptable", or "mature". We rush them out of their homes. We rush them into academics. We rush them through school at a breakneck pace that keeps them bored and simultaneously stressed with performance anxiety.
I have no interest in rushing my kids through childhood. Especially in the earliest years of their lives. From the newborn stage to about age 12 children are in a phase where they are learning core values and developing a love of learning. Rushing them disrupts all of that.
Now, sometimes, as parents, we need a little more specific guidance than just "have a calm home and don't rush them". So, I'm going to share a common experience that I see in parenting Facebook groups all the time:
A parent writes in, asking what they could or should do with their 3 year old child, who was struggling to follow directions and do an activity that the parent has arranged. Many activities for this age range focus on learning the phonemes (aka letters) and numeracy (numbers).
Usually, there is some simple-to-the-parent-but-unnecessarily-complicated-to-the-child activity laid out that the parent and child will go through together. They sit down, the parent attempts to lead the direction of the activity through instruction and correction, the child loses interest after almost exactly 180 seconds, and the rest of the activity turns into a battle of wills.
This is sooooo common, and as I shared in my story above, I completely understand why it happens as a parent. Because we want to feel like we're "doing" enough!
So, here's some of my own advice that I've given to parents of younglings:
3 is REALLY young for an activity like that, and to expect them to "follow directions" in that way. A child will have a functional attention span for adult led activities that is as many minutes as they are years old.
So, a 3 year old will be able to focus for just about 3 minutes on something their parents, caregiver, or teacher wants them to do.
(Note: This does not apply to an activity that the child has chosen to do on their own, out of their own sense of interest and exploration. In those situations, a child of 3 can focus for 15 minutes, or even longer if they are truly engaged. But that only applies if it is something they have chosen to do entirely on their own. If you've introduced it, expect it to last only a few minutes. Child-led activities are child initiated. That's it.)
At 3 a child doesn't have the muscular development in their hands to color neatly. At age 3 a child doesn't have the neural development to care about the lines of a picture. At 3 a child doesn't have the skeletal development in their hands to be able to do much more than scribble. Their hands at that age are more squish than bone.
Make sure your expectations of the child are in line with what a child can actually do.
Instead of trying to sit down to recreate the perfect art project together, here are some age appropriate ideas to try instead:
Encouraging your child to pick a color and tell you it's name (whether it's the correct name or not, the speech is important, mixed up associations get straightened out over time)
Experimenting with how different colors mix together. This is the beginning of understanding color theory. Everything should be a fun experiment without expectations of remembrance or performance.
Identifying shapes that are on the page. Can you point to the circle? Can you point to the square. Did you know bees have wings? Can you point to the wings? What color do YOU (the child) think the wings should be?
Showing the Letter. Explore the sound it makes. Find silly words that start with that letter. Find rhyming words that start with the letter. Create a sing-song rhyme to sing together. If your child likes it then sing it over and over and over and over and over and over again until you feel like your head is going to explode. Your child will love it and you'll catch them singing it to themselves eventually.
These same principles apply for children of all ages. When I do spelling with my 6 year old in kindergarten, I only have us do it for 5 minutes. I go one minute under what I know his attention span can handle so that we are finishing up before he loses interest.
When I do reading with my dyslexic 8 year old I stop us after about 6-7 minutes. I want him to end his reading lesson before he's too fatigued and loses confidence in his ability.
When I do narration or work on times tables with my 11 year old (also dyslexic, and dyscalculia) I stop after only 8 or 9 minutes so he doesn't get so frustrated he storms off and decides he hates what he's learning.
I give them plenty of time to play. I keep the individual lesson that we do very short. I tailor my expectations to what I know they are capable of doing.
This isn't something that can really be replicated at public school. Or daycare. Or even playgroups.
But it is absolutely vital to the healthy development of a child. Especially if we want them to love learning and be excited about developing new skills.
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