The month of February invites us to connect with the heart; to start, what is your child’s favorite object? What’s yours? Choices give clues–and practice.
Recently, I registered in a video challenge event. Each day, for 30 days, we create a short video and share it with the group. This helps to get past the reasons why and we get support and encouragement from others. The challenge for today was to ‘show and tell’ about a favorite object. Here is mine, entirely unedited and done all at once.
When we think about what objects we would choose, we get information about our own values. We reveal something about ourselves. Are the items rare or valuable? Or is it something these items represent and mean to use at a deeper level? In the video below, I’ll share with you two of my favorite objects. Obviously, there must be some meaning to choosing a potato masher. You are welcome to be an armchair psychologist but I hope you got a chuckle too.
Choosing isn’t easy for adults or kids. It’s a process and involves lots of thinking. As a skill, it’s critical. Where we live and what we do has depended on choices we’ve made in the past. To make good choices, kids need opportunities and lots of practice. This could be choosing what clothes to wear or toys to play with, what color of cup for a drink or book for story-time. You may need to guide the choices by making a few alternatives. Another way to play with choosing and choices might be showing someone a favorite object or telling about the best thing that happened in a day.
How a child makes choices also gives us clues about what kind of support is needed. Hesitant kids may respond to encouragement and need more time. Children who make choices impulsively, can name their number 1 choice and tell us about it, their number 2 choice and explain again, and a third choice. Then, they can choose from those 3. This way, they have engaged in some thinking beforehand.
Picking a favorite object was hard for me. There were so many things I could choose. When I did find something, I realized the choice was based on the story of the object and its connection. A super way to start February. For some fun and play today, what is your child’s favorite object?