4 ms·
Clearly it is a process - the point the article is making isn't that rules shouldn't exist, rather that any rule should just be a conclusion being explained to
by Latty 9y ago
Clearly it is a process - the point the article is making isn't that rules shouldn't exist, rather that any rule should just be a conclusion being explained to the child.
i.e: The answer to "why" should never be "because I said so".
I get that many kids will just ask why infinitely, and lots of parents say that because they are fed up and know the child isn't taking on board the answer, but I'd recommend instead insisting on a specific question - when they ask "why", ask "what don't you understand?" or drill down. This has the advantage of potentially catching a real miscommunication where the child doesn't understand something but truly is trying to work it out, and tends to remove an easy annoyance of the "why" forever.
If the child isn't old enough to understand that cooker == hot and hot + hand == pain, clearly you have to stop them touching the cooker, but that's not mutually exclusive with helping them understand why, if possible.
I remember my parents teaching me not to put my fingers in the door frame when it was open by putting a carrot through and letting me close the door, slicing the carrot in half. I wasn't afraid of punishment or following a rule - I understood why I shouldn't do it, so I didn't.
- matt_the_bass 9y agoThe carrot example is a great example. I think I’ll try it. Thanks! My only fear is that I’ll just teach them a new way to chop carrots :)
- Latty 9y agoObviously some things are not easy to make so visceral and easy to understand, but that one is indeed a great one. It stuck with me well.
- somethingsimple 9y agoPretty much this. A personal anecdote: a few months ago we realized our daughter was waking up very tired in the morning, so we figured she wasn't getting enough sleep. When we told her that bedtime was moving earlier, her initial reaction was to get very upset and ask why. Instead of saying "because we've said so" (like I know a lot of parents do), we calmly explained how it's important for humans to get adequate amounts of sleep, and that at her age she should be getting X hours of sleep at night (and we showed her the math matching the new bed time with the time she has to wake up for school). The explanation made perfect sense to her, and she's so into the new routine that we don't even have to tell her it's time to go to bed most nights.
- Latty 9y agoThis is it. It's definitely hard because teaching is not easy. It takes time to explain things to kids and it can be hard to tell what they are taking on board and when they are just asking questions because they can and not really caring (although making it a dialogue by asking questions back about what they want to know can help a lot). It definitely pays off a lot though, and I remember being a child and the frustration I felt when I didn't understand and rules felt arbitrary. I wouldn't wish that on any child.
- pavel_lishin 9y agoMay I ask how old your daughter was at the time?
- somethingsimple 9y ago9.
- belorn 9y ago"I find many adults are put off when young children pose scientific questions. Why is the Moon round? the children ask. Why is grass green? What is a dream? How deep can you dig a hole? When is the world’s birthday? Why do we have toes? Too many teachers and parents answer with irritation or ridicule, or quickly move on to something else: ‘What did you expect the Moon to be, square?’ Children soon recognize that somehow this kind of question annoys the grown-ups. A few more experiences like it, and another child has been lost to science. Why adults should pretend to omniscience before 6-year-olds, I can’t for the life of me understand. What’s wrong with admitting that we don’t know something? " - Carl Sagan, The Demon-Haunted World
- taneq 9y agoBut that's the best bit of having small kids. They ask the best questions!