The freshness of a child's veiw
When I was a child visiting my grandmothers in Joburg and Krugersdorp was very exciting. And most exciting of all was fetching the bottle of milk in the morning. I grew up in a mission station and our milk got delivered by a donkey cart – BORING!
We have two children visiting us this week from the rural areas in Limpopo. Guess what they were most excited about? Taking the dog for a walk around the block!
Of course the grass is always greener and more exciting on the other side...
But what I really have been thinking about this week is how very small, mundane things can be so exciting to children.
The excitement of the brush drawing colour over a blank piece of paper, the rubbish collectors, watching the plumber fixing the loo, collecting flying seeds from the tree and making them fly...definitely ‘overcountable’ as my then 4 year old son used to say of infinity.
Let’s never forget how new the world is to children. How fresh the first conscious sight of a butterfly, the sea or even cake batter or (ewh) dog pooh...
So – instead of filling every moment of your pre-schoolers life full let them experience fully and with excitement the normal ordinary things that make up the world they have to learn about. In all its fascinating (to small children) detail.
I suspect that all those moments will mean more and give more to our children than all the ‘activities’ to make them ‘clever’ ever will. And we will be keeping their wonder of learning bright and polished into adulthood...