Your Child's Play

This topic doesn't surface often but when it does, parents and pre-school educators often find themselves in two different camps. Presenting a child with a new toy, one that provides them with what you would consider a thoughtful experience, often finds you wanting to teach the child how to play with the toy. Should you?

Probably not. Think about Christmas morning when your pre-schooler seems more interested in the box the gift came in rather than the toy "Santa" brought that will teach them calculus in a fun way! There is a reason for this.

According to FamilyEducation.com, "Play can help children develop the knowledge they need to connect in meaningful ways to the challenges they encounter in school. Play also contributes to how children view themselves as learners."

While it is important to teach a child how to play a piano or chess or instruct them on the rules of soccer, teaching a child "how to play" with that new cognitive toy designed to help them do-something-or-other later in life is robbing them of the learning experience.

Playtime has changed over the years. Television was allowed to intervene in this otherwise inventive time in a child's life. And your patience, the cost of the toy and where you believe your child should be on the learning curve has also changed. Children by nature are imitators but that doesn't mean they will play by example.

Don't be frustrated with how your child plays or with what. Instead, take a moment a remember how you played for hourson end with little or no "products designed to enlighten and teach".

To help, it will pay to keep these three simple rules in mind.

First: Buy the age appropriate toy for your child. Little Johnny is only three. Don't give him toys designed for a child aged five to eight in the hope that your little progeny will play-up.

Second: Give them time to play. Allow them the opportunity to have that epiphany. Give them the opportunity to have one of those, "oh, that's what this toy does" even if they can't actually vocalize it. This doesn't mean you shouldn't give them a gentle push in the right direction but too often, we want them to grasp the meaning right away.

Third: Allow them to invent. It generally worked for you as a child, playing with dolls or climbing tree to look for pirates on the horizon. Puzzles may need a little bit of intervention but not too much. Showing them how to get started is okay. Doing it for them is not.

The most difficult thing you will have to do is redirect your child away from some of the more violent media influences they may have encountered.

Another look at Glitter

Dear parents,

Tom Coffee, father, humorist and blog author at SpilledCoffee.com offered his take on pre-school art projects in a recent post.  Addressed to caregivers in general (kudos for not referring to this profession as babysitters) and their often over-liberal use of glitter, almost to the point of calling these tiny artists pint-sized glitterati, his post suggested that we either back-off or better yet, stop with the use of these colorful metallic shreds.

To this, I offer your caregiver and Mr. Coffee several insights on what exactly this "overuse" of glitter offers.

Memories

There will be a time in the near future, when that precious cherub of yours will be in their teens, exhibiting typical or atypical teen-type behavior.

It is then, at the most unexpected turn, you will find some piece of this pre-school glitter, tucked under a sofa cushion, at the bottom of a closet, or attached to a piece of clothing you haul from the back of your dresser where you unwittingly stored some father' day project for safe keeping.

Your breath will hitch and a tear will form at the corner of your eye.

And you will wish you had found a display case to store those early-year treasures.  And then you will think of me.

Career advancement

Those bright shiny objects teaches your child to see all of the distractions that adult life presents to us each day.  We face our own glitter problems each day as we trudge off to work, hoping to draw attention to our work in the hopes of advancement.  These pre-school art projects will be training for those days ahead when we will wish we could smear a report with glitter and glue in the dire hope that we get noticed among the masses.

Messages from our planet to...

It may also be training for that day when your child rebels and decides to go into a career of car upholstery, serving the masses of people who wish to trick out their autos even if they can no longer afford to drive them.

Imagine how they will shine from outer space when we (them) turn our (their) cameras on the earth from some far off distant planet.

Enjoy the glitter while you have the chance.  And really, you have to admit that the dog probably needed the highlights!