Your Child's Journey

wisdom for the big steps little children take

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Play Matters!

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Pauline is an Aussie mum and teacher who shares her love for play, math games, writing and reading activities at: LessonsLearntJournal.com

I was reminded of the adage that play is a child’s work. It’s easy to get tired of the mess our kids make when they are playing and forget the real value of that play. On the other hand, we can get goal oriented, planning their play and not allow for their own experimentation and joy of discovery. With that in mind, consider Pauline’s five main points about play based learning.

1. Let them choose. This means letting them choose who to work with, what they want to play with, and where they want to play. Children learn best when they are motivated. Having more control of their own play and following their own interests motivates them to learn.

2. Let them be creative. This doesn’t mean we need to teach in a more creative way. It means we provide time and resources for children to think outside the box.

3. Let them be curious. This means letting the child choose what they want to investigate. They discover the world about them through questioning and testing their ideas.

4. Let them take risks. This means letting the child try and fail. It can be very hard to let them try some outlandish way to solve the problem, but they often learn best by failed trials. Encourage their resilience and perseverance in problem solving.

5. Let them connect with others. Pauline wrote, “Children are social learners. A key part of being a social learner is the communication between those playing, whether that is adult to child or child to child. Let them try out their ideas in a safe and secure environment while learning the rules of a range of different forms of communication including talk, body language and turn taking. E.g. we share our ideas and listen to one another; we talk one at a time; we respect each other’s opinions; we give reasons to explain our ideas; if we disagree we ask why?; we always try to be kind and loving.”

Visit Pauline’s blog for a wealth of ideas to provide your child great opportunities to learn through play.

Decisions and Choices

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Happy New Year! I hope you had a good Christmas and New Year’s season.

I’ve been thinking a lot about making decisions. I’m not talking about resolutions. Those mostly get broken before we get out of bed on January 2.

I’m looking at choices instead of resolutions. A resolution is what you intend to do. A choice is what you actually do.

Life is made up of hundreds of choices every day. Many of these choices are simply instinctive. Those are the ones we make without even realizing we made a choice. We get in a pattern but may never recognize it is a rut. Ruts resist change. So getting out of a rut takes deciding to change and then opting for different choices.

We start with a decision. A decision is a process of analysis that cuts off some options.

Here’s how it works. We make a decision after considering the results we want and consequences we want to avoid. The decision makes certain options no longer available to us.

Let’s take an example from parenting. We decide we want children other people will like. That’s a good decision. It’s nice when we like our kids, but it’s even better when others like our kids. The consequences of leaving this to chance mean our kids may or may not be liked by others. Making a decision means cutting off some options. For instance, letting them stay up so late they are screaming and running around when our neighbors would like to sleep, or giving them whatever they want, whenever they want it so they become tyrants.

Now we get down to the nitty gritty. We make a decision in a sane moment of contemplation, yet we make the choices moment-by-moment. Neglecting to consider the little choices means we allow ourselves to slip away from the good decision we had made.

So my personal challenge is to look at my behavior and consider my choices. I have made some wonderful decisions in the past. I have decided to grow as a Christian. I have decided to be a loving wife. I have decided that people are more important than tasks. But often my little choices do not support my major decisions. I may choose not to read my Bible one morning, thinking I’ll do it later in the day. Or I choose to get irritated and snippy with my husband. Or I choose to not make a phone call to someone who would appreciate even a few minutes of my time. Instead, I dive into a new project with abandon.

It’s much easier to just do what comes naturally, but many times those natural responses do not reflect my decisions, but rather my selfish desires.

I am making a conscious effort to look at my behavior as choices. As soon as I realize I made a bad choice, I’m consciously choosing to do something that agrees with my decision. It is a tiny step to seeing my big decisions bear fruit.

Will you join me in looking at your choices? Let’s see if we can’t be closer to our goals at the end of 2014 by making this small change in our thinking.