Indulge Your Child’s Interests

In addition to following your child's feelings, plan activities your kids are interested in doing. If your children want to visit the train station but you want to take them to the art museum, take them to the train station. Unless, of course, you want to have an absolutely miserable time filled with whining, complaining, and all manner of contentious bickering. Taking them to places they are interested in going cuts down significantly on the number of arguments you have to referee and the number of grumpy comments you have to field.

But you don’t have to give up on the art museum all together; you just have to wait until the time is right. If your children’s interest in trains is high now, that doesn't mean they will never be interested in art. If visiting the museum is really important to you, help your children find a reason to be interested in it. The key is to discover what fires their curiosity, and to help them pursue it when they are ready and eager to do so. As you study your children and respond to their signals and interests you will become a master at turning playtime, work time, and activity time into incidental learning experiences that will pay rich dividends.

As you continue to follow this blog, you may become concerned about what could seem to be excessive demands upon your time to do all of the activities recommended. You will find, however, that most of the upcoming recommended activities do not require additional time from busy parents. As you learn to recognize opportune moments to teach your child, you will find that much of your teaching occurs in the natural course of a day. You will teach as you dress her in the morning, as you feed her, as you play with her during the day, while you take her shopping, or when you put her to bed at night. The techniques are casual; the teaching is incidental and related to the real-life experiences of parent and child.

“How do I find the right balance between appropriately challenging my child with love and pushing him too hard?” The first answer is: PLAY with him. As often as it is feasible, play what your child wants to play when he wants to play it and look for chances to teach as you go. If your teaching is child-centered and child-directed your child is not likely to feel pushed, hurried or forced into learning. He will learn to love learning because he loves playing with you.