When babies are tiny we moms just do what we can. Sometimes our wise inner voice is strong enough to be heard and sometimes we just flail about, grappling for survival.
I remember my world as mom when Claire, my second baby was born. I was pretty fragile emotionally...and overwhelmed with two children! Ben was the two year old who obviously did not need as much sleep as I did! He gave up this only daytime nap on the day I brought Claire home from the hospital.
Filling my need for sleep was a challenge till I learned how to "talk" the two year old to sleep. It's a technique I developed by nearly figuring out how to talk in my sleep!
After the bedtime book was over I would turn out the light and begin the narrative...I would recite the story of Ben's day in very careful detail. I'd begin by describing what how his hair looked when he woke up and how he hopped down off the bed and his footie pyjamas would swish as he followed me down the hall...on and on and on until either he'd be sleeping or I'd end with the story about telling the story to a child who dreamed a dream....
The descriptions came from my point of view but I wove in his part of the conversations and likes and dislikes ...described the emotions (tantrums, laughter, frustrations with the new baby etc), I talked about everything because it took him so long to fall asleep.
So now I'm thinking...after reading articles on how children learn and how a vocabulary at 3 is a good predictor of a child's reading abilities in third grade, and how the brain lights up even more when THINKING words or music and how their brains light up more for "story telling" than reading a book....that my storytelling of Ben's day was creating pictures in his mind, giving him a vocabulary, and showing him an example of a stream of consciousness....maybe showing him HOW to think....
Do you think so?
In our Kindermusik classes we have the opportunity to think out loud with our children when we explore instruments. I remind parents: Label everything. Name the instrument, what's it made out of? It's shape, color, size...describe the sound it makes, name the action it takes to make the sound....Add the musical element of the day (fast, slow, high, low, loud, quiet...)Talk, talk, talk, talk......
We add "scaffolding": immitate the child's action with the instruments while doing all this talking (that's very affirming to the child) and making suggestions for extended music making (like "I see you shake your eggs. That's fast. I hear the chk, chk, chk....Can you shake them slowly, great big shakes? Yes, look at that, great big slow shakes. Your arms go up and down slowly. I hear the shakers make a steady beat. Maybe you can march your eggs......" etc.
I'd like to think they are getting an idea about how to think. After all how does a 2 year old figure out how to have "ideas"?
Interestingly I've noticed that as my children grow up through the teen years their interest in adult conversation becomes more intense. I've had 12 year old Anne at my elbow for a lot of lively political discussion lately. She's not tired of hearing me talk yet!
Your thoughts on this?
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Yvette
Mirror play helps toddlers work on finding out about their bodies; naming body parts like eyes and nose, figuring out that you can move your own eyebrows, understanding emotions, and working on the concept of being a separate person from their primary caregiver. That's a big job!
