The wonderful world of my two year old!

My boy - he's such a wonderful little man! He is teaching me so much and his independence is growing in leaps and bounds each day! Take dressing himself for example, something he really wants to be able to figure out all by himself. He is learning how to fasten the popper on his jeans and today I watched him struggle patiently with this for a while. I heard him talking to himself about it and then he said, "get up on the chair". He proceeded to climb up onto his chair (we were getting ready for lunch) and then continued trying to get the popper fastened. Why on earth would he think that getting up on a chair would help him in this I wondered! I was laughing silently to myself as I watched him work on his task and then it came to me....that was how he got it fastened yesterday! How? Let me explain. He was sitting at the table last night waiting for dinner and again trying to fasten his jeans. I saw him struggling, so I told him to stand up on to his chair and I helped him fasten it. Task done, Niyi was a happy camper and we sat down for dinner. Well my boy didn't know why I asked him to get up onto the chair, all he knows is that getting up on to the chair solved the problem! So... fast forward to today and he is yet again presented with the same problem and his smart brain puts all that information together and he thinks the way you get your trousers fastened is to stand on a chair!

This is a funny situation of course, one I think I will remember for a long time, but I also think there may be something we can learn from my son! All too often we (by 'we' I mean 'I' of course!) don't give a second thought to how we explain things to our children. We expect them to pick up on what we are telling them immediately and get frustrated with them when we need to repeat instructions or they need to be explained in a different way. When we (again..'I') talk to our children it helps if we remember that for the most part of the first three years of their lives all they are doing is learning new things. Activities that are second nature to us, are learning experiences for our young children. If we take a moment and think about this maybe we ('I' !) will be parents who are more understanding and patient with our children...

Little Man after a hard day's learning!!