Many times I have met parents of babies under one year old who tell you phrases like this, Let's see when it grows a little, I wish I was already your age (My children are between three and four years old) and the first thing that comes to mind is "you don't know what you're saying".
I understand that when you have such a small baby you will see that your life goes between breasts, diaper changes, walks with the baby in your arms and attempts, most of the time empty, for your child to say a recognizable word. We believe that when they are older and begin to interact with their environment, life will change us and everything will be magnificent surrounded by children releasing comic phrases that play ball, organize picnics at home and are surprised with our abilities. And in a way life changes, there are aspects that improve, I recognize that the issue of interactions with us is a great point in favor of growth, but there are also some aspects of our little ones that can drive us crazy and those that don't warn you.
One of the things I always tell those friends with young children who feel "envy"Older children are that you spend days of silence and noisy nights at a constant noise all day. If there is something that defines a child from two to five years old, their ability to be silent is extremely limited and tremendously short in duration. In fact, you get tense on the day that there is excessive silence at home, because you know that it is a sign that something is cooking and usually you will not like it.
Next we will expose some of the attitudes of our little ones that the Dr. Tovah Klein, mother of three children and Director of the Barnard College For Toddler Development Center It has been studied in children between two and 5 years of age, for more than 20 years. His method is based on the belief that children are not miniature adults, but small individuals full of desire for knowledge.
They lack the sense of time
Something that is quite frustrating for parents is the speed at which they do things. In a society marked by the schedules, meet someone who cares little enough to spend 15 minutes watching the life of an ant while you are loaded with the bags of the supermarket, or take to travel the path of your portal to the bus stop , which are not even 200 meters more than 20 minutes because it has decided to observe and catalog each and every one of the soil spots that we find along the way.
Another thing that a child does not understand is the "five more minutes of TV "," I'll buy it tomorrow"They don't understand it simply because your brain lacks the necessary structures for their understanding, little by little, with time and repetition they will understand it, but it will not be today. The children live in the present and if we tell them that we leave in five minutes, what they will understand is simply that we will not leave now.
For them everything is power and control
If we look at the world from their perspective we will see that there is not much they can decide or do, we tell them that they have to eat, what they should wear, when they have to play and when they have to sleep. Therefore, they are always in a continuous struggle to do things themselves. Decision-making skills are formed at these ages, so it is very important for their future that they can learn to decide for themselves, something that many of us have a hard time understanding. Giving them some options in which they can intervene and deciding for themselves will help them in their future.
What can we do? When dressing, we can ask you, for example, which shoe you want to wear first, left or right. If we go out to the park we can tell you to choose which path you want to go, why sidewalk or which zebra crossing you want to cross. If you know the colors of the traffic lights and their meaning we can ask you to tell us when we should cross the street. All this will increase your self-esteem and find your little hole in the world.
Happiness is not in trying to make you happy
It may sound obvious, but children are happy when they feel safe. Having empathy with them helps them overcome the frustrating situations of their life. For example, if the potatoes run out of the bag and your child starts crying asking for more, we can go and buy another bag or try to empathize with him and teach him how to handle the situation, teach him to realize that he can live without the potatoes, which It is not the end of the world (something quite difficult for them to understand)
They need to stumble and fall
As parents, we try to avoid the evils that lurk around our children and it should be, in a way. It's fine that we avoid situations that can cause serious damage to our children, but we shouldn't create a world of cotton either.
Growing up and developing is linked to weaknesses, slips and vulnerabilities, falling and making mistakes. A child cannot move forward unless they make mistakes, because through trial and error it is what helps us to take risks. And in life it's all about taking risks.
All the qualities that drive us crazy are the ones that they will need most in the future
The independence of our son, curiosity, persistence, stubbornness, even his passion can make us nervous. Situations in which it seems that they do not listen, that no matter what we tell them, they insist on doing it in their own way. All those traits that we are trying to correct today are going to be the traits that will help you to be an adult in the future. We better take it as a rough rock that will be polished over time to become a precious gem.
So I can only say that the best medicine for these ages is patience, that each stage has its good and bad things, but that we should not miss any.
