Listen to the Children: 10:30

I used to take my daughter to the gym so she could enjoy ALL the apparatus and equipment.  I hoped to see her enjoy running on the mat, swinging on the bars, hoping into the sponge pit, etc... However, each time we visited she wanted to spend the ENTIRE time at the trampoline! Of course, many other children were there waiting turns so we spent the hour jumping for about 3 or 4 minutes, wait for about 10 minutes, jump for 3/4 minutes, wait again, jump, wait, jump, wait!!  I was going crazy...Don't you want to go down the slide?  Don't you want to run on the mat?  Let's try something else too.  Sometimes it turned into a struggle and we both became frustrated with one another.  The times it went the best are when I accepted her need to jump.

At least I thought that was the main attraction...

So for her 3rd birthday, we thought she would be over the moon if we bought her a trampoline of her very own!  And she was excited but she hardly ever wanted to jump on it.  UNLESS we jumped with her.  Over time, I began to realize that it wasn't the jumping on the Tramp that was the main attraction...it was the waiting.  She was focusing on taking turns, waiting, being patient.  This doesn't mean she wasn't also loving the jumping part, but during the wait time, she was able to observe the other children, perhaps get new ideas about what she wanted to do when it was her turn, and watch how the teacher used her adult Power to designate whose turn was next.  

I won’t go into details on the mistakes of buying your children something they clearly enjoy somewhere else, only to find it loses its excitement when it enters your own house… We have all been there, right? 

I hear it all the time in class by the parents and nannies…”You have been in the Flour pool for a long time, don’t you want to try something else?”  “The worms again?!” These struggles are all too familiar to my own parenting experiences.  We only want our children to experience all there is in life.  Isn’t it up to us to broaden their focus, introduce them to new ideas and interests?

Recently, I have been reading more and more on personality, dispositions for learning, temperaments… Shouldn’t the goal for every human be to discover who we are?  So many of us grew up doing the dance lessons, music lessons, art lessons, honor society clubs, chess, etc… And our parents were quite proud of us and our limited skill in each of those areas!  We were so well rounded!

However, how many of us floundered in college confused about what we should do as a career?  Having no idea where our true passion was?  Some even doubting that true passion for something, anything, simply passed them by.

What would happen if we truly listened to our children?  Not only listened but respected and trusted their choices of interest?  Might we and more importantly they learn something about themselves that could help shape their passion for lifelong learning?

Sometimes interests are a passing fancy that we can’t 

quite understand the meaning behind it…but more times

than not, children are giving us lots of clues, if we can

just look deeper.