Children teach us their needs
Even though I had been a pre-school teacher and then therapist for some years before having my first baby I had a few moments panic sometime in late pregnancy...how was I going to know what my baby needs? My mother said: “Your baby will tell you”. Wise words. And my tiny determined baby did. The nurses kept wrapping her hands into the blanket and she kept worming them out. And she has continued in this vein to this day...
Apparently with our first baby women have a sudden brain growth of learning of some kind similar to that we find in our under sevens. I can appreciate that – one has to learn so much just at that time. Luckily it usually seems to be a very natural happening – just as natural as it should be with our under sevens...
I have noticed how my students, especially from their second year and if they are sufficiently open to new learning and becoming more able to utilise their empathy skills start learning from their small pupils in earnest...
The first intimation of this is their comments that the children ‘are getting more clever’ and the parents are commenting on this too. This often comes after about 4-6 months of our programme being introduced at a centre. The children are all talking more and taking a very much more active part in their own learning. This is because they are learning in the group all sorts of interesting new facts and ideas, learning to ask and answer questions, learning to ‘tell news’ and deciding what their favourite colour, animal ect is, able to spend time creating during art, spending hours playing freely with toys, sand, water and other stuff, listening and commenting on stories and so on. Their needs are being met and they are blossoming...
But then more gets learned by the student. They notice how children naturally and without effort are starting to learn their colours, shapes, their written names...without any formal teaching. What an ‘aha’ moment for them. It opens a vista in their minds as it should for all teachers and of course parents.
It is a subtle and complex process/ learning; it is hard to put it into words. The deep understanding that starts to come of the human being under 7 that starts to take shape inside of them. That they can become and are at different times the children’s partners, followers, leaders and when to be what...and that the children’s needs, when they are able to listen to them on a profound level, will show them the way.
So throw away any rote teaching, exact plans of skills your child must learn and ‘lessons’ or activities they must attend and let your child play. And spend real time with them just being (no technology or other distractions present) and you will also find that blossoming in your child and you will also learn this profound truth – children teach us what they need – if only we would listen...
Look after your whole child – not just a part of your child and your child will become a whole adult one day when it is time that they should.