I listened to a lecture a while back on educating boys. One of the recommendations the speaker made was to be slow to solve problems for your children. He thought it important to allow their brains to develop problem solving skills without the parent circumventing it.
Today Katie pulled peanuts out of the pantry--peanuts still in the shell. Katie had the strength to de-shell the peanuts herself, but Titus hasn't developed the strength required in his hands yet, being just two. Katie left a small pile of shells on the counter where she opened her nuts. Titus brought me his first peanut when he resigned himself to his reality. I opened it and went back to whatever I was doing. Titus never came to me again to open his peanut. Instead, when I brought my attention back to the kids, I found peanut shells all over the floor. I watched Titus as he set a peanut on the floor and then crushed the shell with his foot, and then he retrieved the peanut from the debris.
Thanks to my handy dandy Swivel Sweeper, easily operated by even two-year-olds, Titus enjoyed his peanuts, developed problem solving skills, and then got to clean up after his tasty treat. I think I would have calmly cleaned up his mess even if I'd had to do it, but just in case I had trouble staying calm, I'm glad I have my Swivel Sweeper so we didn't have to find out.
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3 comments:
An excellent illustration of how solving one problem [opening a peanut] leads to new problems [cleaning up the mess].
It seems that in our fallen world we never "solve" problems; we transform them.
I got a swivel sweeper for Christmas and I love it. The other person who loves it is Olivia, she used it all day long today. Isn't it great that our 2 year olds can use a swivel sweeper and clean up. Gotta love it.
I laughed out loud at this one. Hilarious.
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