the meaningful echo

How does the child want you to respond?

Aimée often tells me things, especially things she did. “Look, papa, at what I made!” Or she tells me about other people, or about how to act. “I can’t have a cookie today because I’m still a little sick.” Sometimes she has a running dialogue going, as if she really wants to have a conversation with me.

I have conversations with Aimée, but not in the way I do with adults or teenagers. The truth is, I don’t feel that she really wants to know my opinion or my observation. She wants to share her own discoveries. If I were to tell her what I know all the time, with all my longer experience and better critical thinking, she would stop wanting to tell me anything. Why should she speak, if I always know better?

So I often don’t correct her when she says ridiculous things, or even just slightly inaccurate things. I repeat what she said. “Yes, you made that, all by yourself,” I say. “Are you still a little sick?” I sometimes judge the success of my listening and responding by whether she continues to talk. I genuinely want to hear what she has to say because it is her contribution to life right now. I also want her to keep the natural feeling that she can think and choose and act for herself, even if her thinking and choosing is mostly a pretense.

That’s not to say I repeat things mindlessly. I notice the meaningful part of what she said. I say it in a neutral way, so that she can change her mind if she wants. By bringing her thoughts into conversation, we are shining a light on them, so that she has a chance to examine them and refine them. We are practicing out loud an attitude of reflection and patience and self-analysis.

: : : Give importance to the child’s point of view.

I can’t paint

How will children judge themselves less harshly?

When I introduced our first painting project for the year, my fourth and fifth graders immediately announced, almost to a child, that they couldn’t paint. I knew this group had been painting for years, so I was a little surprised. Here’s what I said.

“You think you can’t paint? Well, I can’t really paint either, but I’m going to paint something right now. Here’s a memory from my childhood. My dad liked to build walls. So I’m going to paint him building a wall. I know I can’t paint, but I’m just going to forget about that for a moment.

“Where will I start the painting? I remember his sweater well, so I’ll begin with the sweater. Here are the shoulders and the arms and the torso. That’s not too bad. It doesn’t look exactly like a sweater, but who’s complaining? Everyone already knows I can’t paint. Now here are his pants. I’m making sure to wash my brush carefully between colors, and dab it on the sponge to make it dry.”

After a few minutes, they were all pretty impressed with what I could do, even though I assured them I can’t really paint. Then we started the project.

Around eight or nine years old, children start to look at the work they do differently. They are able to hold more clearly in their minds an idea of what it “should” be in relation to what it is. They think of drawings more as realistic representations, less as imaginative impressions. In brain development, their left hemispheres are becoming more active. The children are more analytical. It’s very strange, but they have to practice being imaginative, or they will lose the ability. This is the beginning of the separation between childhood and adulthood.

: : : Self-criticism needs to be tempered with boldness and a light heart.

listening

Eric had some difficulty with rest time in kindergarten afterschool. Instead of lying down, he tended to run in a circle around the room. I had tried explaining the routine ahead of time, moving through a series of preparation activities, giving him physical activity before; but this boy just really didn’t want to rest. I waylaid him on his next pass around the room and moved him to the couch, lying on his back.

I said, “Eric, this is your spot for rest time; stay right in this spot.” I wasn’t holding him anymore, but he kept squirming as if trying to escape from a web of ropes. I was nearly at the end of mine. I looked straight into his eyes and said quietly and forcefully, “Eric, you are being so still!” To my eternal astonishment, his arms and legs went stiff. His wide eyes fixed on me, and he did not get up.

The suggestibility of young children is hard to overestimate. They act out exactly what is going on in their minds, and often the source of their behavior is a direct impulse from their environment. So why didn’t Eric listen to me more? I think he listened more closely than I realized, and possibly more closely than I really wanted.

Children interpret tone, facial expressions, body language, and literal meaning. They do not always recognize the adult’s thought process or social expectations, but they certainly know when adults are displeased. That negative focus can actually increase the behavior we think we are trying to stop. The words “stop touching the curtains” immediately strengthen the thought of touching the curtains. It takes great discipline to cultivate the habits of thought and speech that are always encouraging, but then see what the children do in response!