One-Sentence Gratitude Journal: Child Development

[tiger_spot]

Today I am thankful for the increasing self-entertainment capabilities of children as they age. Also for the ability to speak for stuffed animals, invent scenery and imaginary props, and adapt to their play partner's preferences in matters such as "Shall we play more chase or shall we lie here on the bed where we have fallen?"

Also for a kid who is willing to tidy up after art projects with minimal prompting and no complaining.

Comments

[artan]

Also for a kid who is willing to tidy up after art projects with minimal prompting and no complaining

Yes, that is definitely something good.

[tiger-spot.livejournal.com]

It's funny; there's a definite threshold around three things. If she's got one or two things out, she'll put them away when she's done pretty much on her own, but if there are more than three or four things out she can't figure out where to get started and needs a lot more scaffolding and help to clean up. I guess this is where that "breaking a task into smaller tasks" skill will come in handy once she learns it!

[artan]

there's a definite threshold around three things

That probably has something to do with the problems around here - there's a lot of "but that's (other child)'s thing" when asking to clean things up, and if each of them has not cleaned up one thing and is using one other thing, we're over the magic 3 threshold and they get paralyzed.