-Dr. Maria Montessori
We underestimate how much a child is learning every day. Their learning curve is so much higher than ours will ever be. Before a child is 6 they learn more than an adult ever could come even close to in 6 years. From 0-6 years old the brain is like a sponge soaking up everything, never in a person's life will they be able to learn as fast or as well as when they are this age. Many times when we think they are "just playing" they are learning something about their environment that is so important and integral to who they will be as a person. Remember the first time you drove a stick shift? A child is constantly in situations where they feel that way, they don't understand the rules for everything, and they don't have the muscle memory to just accomplish tasks to us that just seem simple.
We are in the position that we have developed muscle memory for everything around us and we have figured out all the strange sometimes unspoken rules of our environment. For those that drive a stick shift you can probably relate to this, you don't need to concentrate to know when to shift or to know how far to push or when to release the pedals. For anyone who drives, it is not difficult to make a turn in a car like it was when you first drove, you rarely if ever over or under correct while driving. You probably rarely think about turning on your turn signal, you don't consciously slow the car with the brake when coming to a stop, it is like the car has just become part of you, and does what you want. Now imagine your first driving experience to how a newborn child feels. They cant control their body, they cant make their hand do what they want, they can't just stand up and walk where they want, they have no balance or control. They don't understand basic rules of physics like friction and gravity. They lay down and try to take a drink out of a sippy cup and it sprays them in the face the first 10 times they try and finally they understand that they need to put it in their mouth and then lay back. They don't understand the language around them, and they can not communicate sometimes even their most basic needs. Do I even need to talk about all the social rules and etiquette that are involved in living with other human beings. Imagine being put in a totally foreign environment with no prior knowledge of anything to make comparisons, now imagine you don't know how to communicate with those around you, and now imagine that you are in a body that as hard as you try barely does anything you want it to. Half the time when you try to move your hand you hit yourself in the face. What an amazing and daunting situation. Yet children enter this world and grow and develop and learn incredibly quickly much faster and better than they will ever be able to at any other time in their life, and sometimes we think they are "just playing."
Never Please Never assume that a child is "Just Playing," we are always trying to rush them around in our busy world and we are taking opportunities away from them. How long does it take a child to walk around a building? You may think they are just dawdling and going slow to make you mad, but sometimes they are seeing things for the first time and they are just amazed, a small rock, a bug on the ground, the petals of a flower, things that we have stopped "seeing as a child" we mostly ignore our environment and just hurry on with our busy schedule. Can you imagine if you were seeing some absolutely amazing thing for the first time in your life and someone was constantly badgering you to hurry up and go, or even worse they just grabbed you and pulled you away from it, not even giving you a chance to protest.
I understand that we all have busy lives and are in a hurry to do a thousand things. We don't always have time to let a child take 10 minutes to walk 20 feet. But please understand why they are doing the things they are doing and give them the respect they deserve, their little minds are constantly learning and buzzing and doing things just as important as what we have planned in our busy schedule each day. We all expect that respect as adults, yet rarely is it given to a child.
You could always tell them Mommy really needs to get to... before they lock the door today. Could you please hurry to the car and we can come back later to look at that.
That shows the child so much more respect than "hurry up we need to get to... Stop Dawdling!!"
I am guilty all the time of feeling and sometimes reacting like the latter statement. We just don't tend to see children as little humans who deserve as much respect as anyone else. I will tell you what though, the times when I have really stopped and tried to see things from their point of view, and given the respect to them that I would give to an adult, they have really surprised me by acting like an adult and giving me that respect back.
Instead of turning and running (because they feel they have no control and this is their way of trying to gain control) and telling you nah nah nah nah nah nah
P.S. thanks to my sister in law for the sippy cup story about her daughter.
Toodles
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