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Encouraging a toddler
My son is into simple hidden pictures and mazes. He's pretty good at them, but it's willing to try very hard when he doesn't get the answer right away. As soon as he starts going through a maze and finds a dead-end, he stops and wants me to show him how to do it. I know that if he gives it another try (or two) he'll get it, so I refuse to show him and try to encourage him to do it alone. Often at that point he insists on moving on to another page.
Am I not helping by not showing him? I talked to him about how sometimes we all need to try again and again at a task. He has a very, very strong will, so it's not easy to talk him into doing anything he doesn't want to do.
What are your suggestions?
Am I not helping by not showing him? I talked to him about how sometimes we all need to try again and again at a task. He has a very, very strong will, so it's not easy to talk him into doing anything he doesn't want to do.
What are your suggestions?
Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by kommishoner on -
Have you tried giving him minimal help? Like just enough to get to the next step and have him try again from there? Or maybe talk through where he feels stuck and present some options? That's what we try to do with the little man, though they also have such short attention spans at this age he's often just at the end of what he's able to do with a particular project.
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Permalink Reply by Herasmus B. Dragon on
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Sometimes I pretend to be worse at it and little one jumps in to "show me how it's done". If I have confidence that they really CAN find the correct answer and are just giving up.
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Permalink Reply by mcglory13 on -
Oh, I do what HBD suggests ALL the time. He may not want to do something at first, but when I'm comically and hilariously bad at it, it's amazing how fast he can show me how to do it. And sometimes he's just tired and tells me he just wants me to read the story, or whatever, and I respect that.
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Permalink Reply by mightyninjamom on -
I totally used HBD's method as well with B. I also discovered sometimes, that if I took too long puzzling it out or if I was just reading the directions, he'd go and figure it out before I could help! He does like to lord it over his mama, when that happens.
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