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| Born to Explore |
| by Missy Willis, M.Ed. |
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"The first and simplest emotion which we
discover in the human mind is curiosity.
- Edmund
Burke
Children are curious creatures. Think about a baby, in arms,
unable to crawl. He reaches for dangling or sparkling earrings,
for your glasses, trying to pull them off your face, he tugs on
your nose or pokes your eyes or sticks his fingers into your
mouth. He leans and reaches and grabs at your food. His eyes
follow the movement of people or pets or objects.
Think about crawling babies. They can find the tiniest speck of
dirt in your newly vacuumed carpet. They find dead bugs on the
floor that you swear were never there. They chew on shoes, toys,
and yes, even electrical cords. They spin the toilet paper off the
roll, splash in the toilet water and pull books off shelves and
containers out of cabinets. They have no concept of mine or yours.
Everything that is within their reach is theirs to explore; the
visitor's purse, your guest's meal, a grocery bag. |
| Think about young children. They touch everything. They want to
pick up stuff off the shelves at the grocery store. They want to
touch the pretty glass decorations at your neighbor's house. They
ask questions: What is that? Who is that? What is that sound? What
is that smell? How long until we get there? They "get
into" stuff and can, if misunderstood, annoy their caregivers
to no end. Young children, like babies and toddlers, are naturally
interested in their surroundings. Without this driving curiosity,
without this innate need to explore and understand what the
environment provides, children would fail to thrive and to learn.
Their ability to make connections and sense of their world would
be jeopardized and it is plausible to say that their development
would be compromised. |
Don't allow
things in your home to hold more value then your own child's
growth. |
| As parents, it is critical that we recognize the
role of curiosity in shaping our children's lives. We must respect
this innate characteristic by responding to our children
positively when they seek to learn. They should not be punished
for touching things in their own home or even a home they are
visiting. They should not be scolded for being creative with the
things they find, like taking all the Kleenexes out of the box and
tossing them into the air, watching them fall like little
parachutes. They should not be reprimanded for doing what they are
created to do, which is to explore their surroundings. Constant
parental utterings of "No, no, no." can be confusing to
a child. When they gravitate to something of interest, it is far
better for parents to follow their child and work with them
to explore the newfound interest. Whether it is a plant, a plastic
bowl, the remote control, or a silky scarf, talk to your child
about what she is seeing and what she is feeling. Describe it to
her using rich and vibrant language. Touch it with her. Make
relevant associations and pave the way for her to make connections
between what she found and the larger world. Validate her interest
and in doing so you are teaching your child about the immediate
world in which she lives and inevitably building upon her
developing language skills. Now, honestly, isn't that more fun
than resorting to "No, no. Don't touch."? |
| If there are specific things that you value in your home and
would rather your young child not handle, then put them away for
the time being or in a place that is out of your child's reach.
Don't allow things in your home to hold more value then your own
child's growth and development. There will come a time when your
children are able to understand that something is valuable to you
or your family and you would appreciate it being respected as
such, but expecting this from a toddler, a preschooler, or even a
young child is unfair, and to keep it within reach is just setting
them up for failure. Remember that children are mono-focused
beings with an amazing ability to zero in on one thing that
intrigues them in some way. Take advantage of the opportunity to
teach, to lead, to enhance their understanding. When our children
are young, we have so many opportunities to explore alongside
them, to inspire, to excite, and to enrich. If your child is
constantly moving in the direction of something he has been told
to stay away from, then his curiosity has not been fulfilled. It's
that simple. He's not being defiant, like I've heard so many
people claim. |
A child's
interest in his environment is limitless and natural. |
| Still not sure what to do when little Sally heads
towards the bookshelf again? Seize the moment. Communicate. Tell
her what she is seeing. Play with it, tap it, and touch it with
her. Does the object make a strange sound if you tap on it? Does
it feel hot or cold, soft or hard, squishy or bumpy? Can you find
another use for it? Would it be safe to pull it off the shelf and
allow her to play with it on the floor? The more children are
allowed to "play" with the things in their immediate
environment to satisfy their curiosities, the less likely they are
to randomly grab and pull things in new environments. However, if
children are scolded or struck for touching something in their own
home and no longer gravitate towards the object, it does not mean
that they really understand why they shouldn't touch it. Instead,
they just associate the object with pain or discomfort and are
deprived of a chance to learn and expand their knowledge.
Children beckon us to teach them about what they see, what they
hear and what they feel. A child's interest in his environment is
limitless and most importantly, natural. To continually ask a
child not to touch things in his world is like telling a starving
man not to feast on the food laid before him. It would behoove us,
as parents, to become more accepting of our child's need to learn
through exploration. If we work to stay involved with our kids
instead of working to deter their curiosity it may help us to
become a bit more curious too. |
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