Sitting on the sidelines at a recent holiday preschool
party, I watched my 4-year old zig-zag with glee around the gym. She pushed toys, pulled kids in wagons, chased
her friends and danced to the music.
Forty pre-schoolers were getting on famously in the spaciousness of a
full-sized gym while having free reign of the toys.
When the organized events started, I noticed a shift in the
mood. Kids raced to line up for the
face-painting, craft-making, and treat-gathering. Sitting close to the face-painting station, I
noticed the kids in the front of the line struggled to maintain both their
patience and their pecking order. Some
kids in the back of the line tried to work their way up closer to the beginning
of the line. I watched out of the corner
of my eye, as I usually do, allowing the kids to work out any squabbles over
their status on their own.
It’s hard to watch them negotiate conflict without
interfering. It’s even harder to keep my
partner from jumping up out of her seat and manhandling the situation. She’s one of those parents whose natural
instinct is to knock someone right off their block if they messed with her
child, even if it was another child.
Most times she’s all talk and is able to keep her over-protectiveness at
bay, but sometimes I feel as if I need to remind her that it’s just kids and
they’ll learn how to handle themselves without our intervention.
Today was one of those days.
Our daughter was close to the front of the face-painting line. One of the little girls from the back trying
to get up front finally had managed to permanently finagle her way in front of
our little one in line. My girlfriend
started frantically motioning to our child, as if she might be able to give her
a hand signal as to how to handle the line-jumping. I cut her off and told her to leave it alone,
as the kids would figure it out.
Peace was restored as the little girl was once again shooed
back to her place closer to the end of the line. Another little girl tried the same routine….up
to the front she trotted and this time, one of kids at the front, tired of
defending her stance, allowed the child to take her spot. My girlfriend this time started to get to her
feet to “help out.”
“Let them be!” I scolded.
“This is how they learn.”
Ten kids had lined up for the one-woman face-painting by
this time and the 4-5 minute turn-around time was not faring well with the
figgety costumed kids, so I jumped up and asked the face-painter if I could
lend a hand to keep the line moving.
Before I could get the brush to the paint jar, one of the earlier line
jumpers moved up to the front again.
Abandoning my edict of toddler self-regulation, I told the
little girl to move to the back of the line.
She stood her ground so I started guiding her back to her own
marker. Another kiddo about 5 back, tried
to sit in the chair to have me paint her face.
I picked her up out the chair and moved her back to her place in line
and had the next kid in line sit down.
Once on my knees in front of a four-year-old princess whose
face I was painting like a cat, I made eye contact with my girlfriend and then burst out laughing at myself, as I had
augmented my motto of “letting them work it out” to “let them work it out, unless
I’m close by.”
1 comment:
Watching first is a good idea, because you can see whether they actually are able to figure it out. Seems to me that even at 4, kids are at all different stages of development, some might have older siblings so know how to rough /finagle it out, maybe some have been in daycare for a couple of days a week and already are militant queue formers (and jumpers?) and some haven’t found their voices yet and need help knowing how to handle conflict in situations. I think letting them thrash it out means the assertive ones are shown the strong get what they want and the others learn to put up with it. With intervention, could be a complete learning opportunity for all though, “I see you moved forward out of your spot!” How does that make [everyone else] feel? Can someone ask him to go back to his spot?” He goes back feeling none the worse, someone else finds their voice and everyone learns that it’s not acceptable to jump ahead and take someone else’s place. I think there are so many of these situations that we miss (just coz they happen so fast), that one you catch should be addressed. You were right! Love the sign language approach, completely get that!
Post a Comment