My 20th high school reunion is this year. Nothing like a reality check! This upcoming event has made me more reflective on my children, my work, and life in general. I am paying more attention to all the things I have accomplished, changed and done over the years. I have so much to show for the years that have gone by, my family my business and I hate to sound vein but yes my wrinkles too!
It is funny about wrinkles. When I was young everyone told me to protect my skin to avoid getting wrinkles. I thought, “Why should I care about getting wrinkles? Everyone gets wrinkles when they are old.” I was envisioning a bunch of elderly people and thought how weird it would be for one of them to not have wrinkles.
I did not listen to people who told me to put sun block on in my younger years, or wear sunglasses, or to use lots of moisturizer. I certainly did not realize that I would get wrinkles before I felt like an elderly lady. Yet here I am, at the end of my 30’s and thinking, “what a fool I was to not protect my skin!” I can live with the wrinkles (while using a little makeup and product support) but I know that, in hindsight, I would have been better off if I listened to the repetitive messages I got.
I know it does not really matter what I think now. When I was young I needed to figure things out for myself, just like our children do.
Young children (toddlers, and preschoolers) can be told a message again and again but they need to learn from their own experiences and their own mistakes. Children learn through repetition, and the only way to learn to do or not do something is to repeat the behaviors until it is decided I like or don’t like what happens when I do that. That is what shapes behaviors. I protect my skin now, but it took me some lessons to get to that point. Children are no different!
I know we want our little ones to do as we say, but they WILL continue the behavior until they feel like they know what will happen when they do it. This is how one learns cause and effect. You cannot test a cause and effect after only one time. What does that mean for us parents, caregivers, and early childhood educators?
It means we have to expect to see behaviors again even if we told them not to do it. This does not mean we excuse the behaviors. It just means that we need to prepare ourselves that we will likely see them again. After all children learn, through repetition.
Ok, so we know children repeat negative behaviors to learn not to do them, but during that process they have many meltdowns and tantrums. It is a tricky balance for parents and teachers, such as early childhood educators, to allow children to independently learn their lessons while being there for when they fall apart.
Here are a few things that you need to keep in mind when caring for young ones:
-Children are doing their job of learning when they repeat behaviors even after you told them to stop.
-Children need to learn from own mistakes by using natural consequences, and logical consequences.
-Children will need support managing their emotions during this process. It is not beneficial for caregivers to try to make the child feel bad about the learning process. The natural or logical consequence will teach that lesson.
- Children may not be allowed to do anything they want, but they are allowed to feel whatever they need to feel.
-Children need their loving adults to comfort and support them as they learn.
For some of us it takes a while to learn to change our behaviors, but we get there eventually. I will do my best to protect my skin now, but more importantly I will do my best to protect my children by not stopping them from learning for themselves but by being for there for them as they learn.