On one bright sun-shining afternoon,
I was enjoying a cup of coffee in a favorite cafe when my friend joined me. She
looked like she had an exciting morning. She explained, after a moment with the
coffee cup, she had been volunteering at a local child care facility. Over the
next cup of coffee, she told me about her experience with the children.
Questioner:
It was a very busy morning. Today, I was helping out with the
toddlers. They have so much energy! They
are so curious and are hard to keep up with, but they are so much fun.
However, there was sort-of a situation
where two children started crying. The
other workers and I didn't see what happened and didn't know what the problem
was. Luckily, the children weren't hurt and the suggestion of playing with the
bubbles got them back to their giggling happy selves. But, my question is how
would you figure out what happened in such a situation—who did what?
Wanda:
Let me recall a situation that helps
to explain why it’s so important to talk with children. One day at the child
development center, a teacher came to me with a little girl about 3 years old; I
will call her Sophie. Sophie was crying
with an obvious wound on her knee—it appeared she had a little accident while
playing. After we cleaned her up and
soothed her, I asked her about what happened because she said that Lilly did it.
Wanda: Sophie,
where were you when you got hurt?
Sophie: On the
train. [The center had a little push
cart in
the shape of a train that the children
could sit on
and push around with their feet.]
Wanda: Who
were you playing with?
Sophie: Lilly.
Wanda: Where
was your knee when it got hurt?
Sophie: In Lilly's mouth.
My suggestion for the adult is to make way for the child to
give an accurate explanation. We did
not see what actually happened between Sophie and Lilly. In fact, I originally thought that Sophie
bumped her knee and accidentally scratched it on the train. Rather than confront the child, it’s better
to ask a question that gets to the child’s feeling and thoughts. In this case, Sophie gave the exact answer to
what happened.
Questioner:
Ok, I see how you can’t assume what happened. But, what do you do now with the biter? How would you correct the child without
placing blame? I can see that this could turn into “she did such-and-such
first” and it goes back and forth. After
all, I guess we really don’t know who started what, but that’s not important
right now.
Wanda:
Well returning to the example, I would say to Sophie:
“Come on Sophie, let’s go find Lilly.” Once we have both children together, we would
talk about the problem. We would say
something like this:
“Lilly, I know that sometimes you wish you could play
with the train all the time. But, there
are two of you—Lilly and Sophie—and there’s one train. So, Lilly, you can say to Sophie,
‘Please, let
me play now on the train’.
And Sophie, you can say to Lilly,
‘Let’s take
turns. You can play and then I can play on the train.’”
I would explain
to the children that we use our words to get what we want.
Questioner:
So, we “rehearse” the proper way to get along using
words?”
Wanda:
This is what it means in guiding behavior—help the
child know how to use their words. So, they will use their words instead of
their bodies to solve a problem.
Questioner:
Hmm, I see that makes sense… We would need to teach
the child how to use words. I think it’s
reasonable for us, as adults, to expect a child to innately know the power of
words as soon as they start talking.
But, what about biting?
Wanda:
We will save that discussion for the next cup of
coffee.
