I often wonder whether this has a lot to do with how we treat our kids. I often catch myself acting uninterested in my daughter's interests (she's two and often wants to show me things for the 50th time that were pretty boring in the first place.) She doesn't have any attention or behavioral issues in general, but I was amazed when a friend of mine came to visit who is an early music educator. They didn't do anything music related, but watching her interact with my daughter was eye-opening. She was very present and respectful with regards to my daughter's interests and what my daughter wanted to do. I guess more or less she treated my daughter more or less like an adult. Thinking about it, it's so easy to be flippant or dismissive about what our kids are doing or are interested in without even noticing.
I was really amazed to see how much my daughter reciprocated the attention and my friend was able to get her to pay attention to this or that or be much more engaged than I usually can.
This is obviously a very small sample, but it really made me think about the ways that we don't treat our children like adults (and how maybe they act like children because we treat them that way.)
An indirect way of encouraging this is including kids in what you are doing, as opposed to engineering activities for them.
A lot of kids' world these days is an artificial reality, made for them. School, soccer, art class, play dates. The reason the activity exists is to give kids an experience. We're not interested in it, because it's kid stuff.
When I was a kid, some of the most formative activities were fishing, sheep farming & vegetables gardening (grandparents on a farm), home repair jobs like painting or brickwork.
When I was very small (2-4), if my parents were painting a room, I was also in old clothes with a paintbrush "helping". Same with spring cleaning or whatnot. I had a little hammer I could bang, to help my dad assemble IKEA furniture.
You don't have to conciously "engage" in their stuff, just let them engage in your stuff.
> When I was very small (2-4), if my parents were painting a room, I was also in old clothes with a paintbrush "helping". Same with spring cleaning or whatnot.
One of my favourite childhood photos is me mowing the lawn (with a plastic "bubble spewing" lawnmower). A thing I used to walk behind my father as he mowed the lawn.
It never really had the soap to make bubbles in it. Didn't care about that. I was helping
I second this. I'm a father of a 5½ year old boy. Like the grandparent said, I try to treat him as an adult with no experience, knowledge or skills and with a plastic mind.
Small kids have an instinct to learn: they follow you around and copy your behavior. It takes great responsibility to shape the future of a person. And with your own flaws replayed in front of you, you change, you become a better person because of it.
I remember that age. And I loved when I was doing stuff with my dad. Before I was 7 I had worked with wood, handled the axe and knife, welded metal, messed with bikes, capsized a boat, tied knots and shot rifles. I wasn't good, I didn't contribute, I was just given small tasks to free my dad to do the real work. I felt I was on the team, and I learned a lot.
My father always answered all my weird questions, and if he wasn't able to, he looked it up and told me at bed time.
When I was 12, and enthusiastic told him about a game have played on my Commodere 64. He listened and was understanding of my enthusiasm. Then he said: "But did you program that game?", and I replayed "No, of course not...". And my Dad replayed: "So you are only running other peoples programs...". That sentence is the reason I'm in IT and reading this site...
Until about age 6 I didn't understand about nails. I thought I was being helpful with just the hammering.
Then I went through an uncanny valley period where I was too young and uncoordinated to use nails, but too smart to be kept busy with pointless hammering.
> I often catch myself acting uninterested in my daughter's interests
I read a book that talk about how to improve on this [0], when ever my 5yo daughter shows me some of her drawings I try to take notice of some detail and comment on it, not just say 'that's nice dear'. She draws masses and masses of pictures of stick girls in dresses, but I always try to find some detail that she's done different.
We often draw or paint together, maybe once or twice a week. The last time we did it, I painted a picture of a boat on the sea, she painted a space portal that takes you to another world.
Well, it sounds like in the Mayan village, a kid would have the opportunity to run off and interact with someone else, or do something else, a lot more easily than in an American suburb or city. I don't think we can conclude from the NPR article that the Mayan mothers actually have to put up with looking at the same thing 50 times. It sounds like Mayan children have a lot more physical space to explore, and a lot more other children nearby.
My perspective shifted over time as I watched children become teens, then adults, and marvelling at how I thought of them changed.
It sounds lame, but I came to think of kids a people too vs just children. As in they are adults whose brains haven't finished wiring themselves and they deserve not just to be treated with respect, but also to be thought of respectfully. It's obvious to me now, I mean I can remember how some adults treated me all the way back to 3 yrs old or so. I'm that kid, just older.
I was just explaining what you have said to someone two weeks ago! Am actually a Sunday school teacher. If you treat the kids as you would other people I think you help improve "the wiring". They become mature and intelligent faster than their friends who are treated as lesser humans.
Treating your child with adult-like respect is one of the principles of RIE parenting. Worth reading more about, if you want to learn more about different parenting styles.
> She was very present and respectful with regards to my daughter's interests and what my daughter wanted to do.
I am sure if she came over to your place for 50+ times she would also act different than the first time. I think It’s ok to be bored with a 2 year old request to show the same book or the same picture over and over and over again.
I'm not sure how to solve for this, but I'm trying to instill that conversations and interactions have to be two way, so just because "you are interested in X" doesn't mean that talking at someone over and over about things they are not interested in isn't a way to foster satisfying interactions for all parties involved.
A parent might placate and be always "oh that's so interesting!", but their peers? Their peers might ignore them leaving the kid confused as to the response.
It's also usually not the thing itself that they are valuing.
It's the interaction. She wants you to read the same book to her because she knows that you do the voices and act it out and she gets to interact. That's the point. If you ask them, they'll tell you what they value. You don't have to think your way around them, they know, even by the time they're 3 or so. People have desires, and they can tell you what they are, with some help and elicitation.
Speaking personally, it taught me a combination of self awareness (no one is as interested as you are in the thing you are or for the same reasons; don’t spend so much effort trying to change their minds you lose your own passion) and empathy (trying to get interested in the things others are may grow something between you).
If she goes on and on about the same thing, to me that seems like she wants your approval. Give it but also try to gently direct her to do something different?
Good point. I think all these engagements have to be done with an eye into the future personality of the child. My friend works with a girl who expects everything to be done for her (including asking the security lady to get two frozen chickens from the office fridge to her car). So should kids be treated the same way different people would treat them in life (with the exception of being abusive of course).
Reciprocity of being interested, by example, FTW. Makes sense to model and ensource behavior
If I get amped up, I become a firehose of consciousness tangents ADD-I but it's usually better to chill, listen and only say what's most important than no-filter crunk-tired.
I was really amazed to see how much my daughter reciprocated the attention and my friend was able to get her to pay attention to this or that or be much more engaged than I usually can.
This is obviously a very small sample, but it really made me think about the ways that we don't treat our children like adults (and how maybe they act like children because we treat them that way.)