Your child is asking "Why?" and seeking meaning. Listening and responding encourages refl ective thought.
Now that our children are spending more and more time in virtual reality, making connections with their minds is becoming even more important. Thinking requires an individual to formulate an idea into a conceptual thought that can be recalled and analyzed. A parent can help their child think clearly by actively participating in their learning. Listening to your child means your child will listen as well. The child is seeking meaning.
Thinking Together With Children
A Tapestry of Lifelong LearningBy Jeanette Kroese ThomsoniUniverse, Inc.
Copyright © 2011 Jeanette Kroese Thomson
All right reserved.ISBN: 978-1-4502-7230-8 Contents
1. The Birth Of Life And The Small Child...............................................................12. Thinking From A Small Child.........................................................................133. Imagination, Dreams, Stories, Myths and Reality.....................................................214. Wayland Smithy & Epona The Horsewoman...............................................................255. The Child Takes Control.............................................................................376. Time For Reflection: The Unhurried Child............................................................437. Concepts That Change................................................................................538. Dogmatic Thought: The Mind Caught In A Web..........................................................599. The Marsupians: A Living and Expanding Concept......................................................7110. The Mind Revealed Through Laughter, Art, Music, Nature, and Color..................................7911. Metaphor and not Prose.............................................................................8912. Wellness: A Concept Towards Well-Being.............................................................9913. Human Ecology: A Study of Basic Human Needs: Food, Clothing, Shelter, & Family.....................10714. Reverence For Mother Earth: An Ancient Universal Concept...........................................11315. Here and Now.......................................................................................125
Chapter One
The Birth Of Life And The Small Child
The first art of 35,000 years ago depicts a mother involved with nature. This female figurine has been found from Spain and France all the way to Germany and Russia. Made of enduring ivory, she is mysteriously faceless in her demeanor and she is pregnant. The little statue is something a woman might grasp in her hand as she goes through the earth-shaking act of childbirth. This Paleolithic art of the mother goddess is found deep in the caves. 6000 years ago at New Grange in Ireland, the deep underground chamber has a birthing stone seat facing a laser-like beam of light. In Shanidar Cave in the Zagros Mountains of Iraqi Kurdistan, the skeleton of a young woman lies with the evidence of individual floral bouquets placed around her.
A female giving birth must give way to nature. At some point birthing moves beyond the control of the woman to life-death awareness. This vulnerable state puts the woman into an ecstatic and eternal dimension of life. In many cases down through history the woman may have died to allow the newborn to survive. When there was only the natural process without any medical intervention, the female may have held the female figurine to have the courage and strength to survive. The older woman who knew what was to happen for the younger woman may have placed the small object into the young woman's hand. It was a passing of power for survival. The Mother Goddess symbol in this sense has nothing to do with religion; it has to do with surviving the birth of new life.
Tell me, Why, oh Why? Oh Why? Oh Why? Why, oh Why? Oh Why? Because, because, because, because.
The question of "why?" is part of the human dilemma. The little girl asks her mother, "Why?" Her mother has experienced oneness with nature in the very act of childbirth, the giving of herself in nursing at her breast, the offering of her hand to lead her daughter along the path of her first steps.
The child is asking "why?" at a beginning awareness. The question of "why?" stays in the order of rules and the realm of what she can understand. The small child is exploring new ideas and is held "in check" to her parent's sphere of understanding and cannot go beyond it. The child does understand that certain acts may be punished but is not capable of taking on the rule. The parent sets the rules. The young child is unable to consider simultaneously their own views with the perspective of others. The child asking "why?" may want to stay within the safety of the parent's thinking. The older child that says, "you are always right" may be staying under the parent's authority, rather than his or her own autonomy. The child may try to bribe the parent at some point to achieve a goal. Staying up later than the designated hour at night is one of those times when children use a particular approach that may include bribing to get their way.
Jean Piaget, the Swiss child psychologist, explains that autonomy of mutual respect is put in place by maintaining a set of rules. There are four levels of rules at this first stage of morality. Eventually by 9 or 10 years old, a cooperative state is acquired in regard to keeping rules. He believed that the child advances through the various stages of rules to cooperative decision-making and problem solving nurturing moral development by allowing young people to work out common rules based on fairness. Piaget's second stage of moral development moves to the laws of society that lead to liberty, equality, and justice for all. This will be discussed later in the book.
Amelia at two and a-half-years old has a new question for her mother, "But why?" In the beginning her mother, Dawn, answers her question as best she can for a two year's old understanding. When the same question, "but why?" starts repeating itself at every turn, Dawn one day repeats the same question back to Amelia, "But why?" With a start Amelia replies, "That's my job!" Whether her question has become a game or not, the truth is there. It is the child's job to ask questions. Sometimes to the impatience and exasperation of the adult. The mind of the small child is continually alert to the present. When something occurs to be questioned and understood, the answer is needed right now. The child is never in the mood to wait. Most times the answer can be given fairly quickly and no big detail is required. The happy child is satisfied that her world is safe and in order.
Jess at three years old, is told that soon there will be a baby arriving in their home. About a week later, Jess asks, "Where is this baby?" His mother, Dawn, pointing to her unrevealing tummy said, "Right here, Jess." Jess with amazement says, "I didn't see it go in." At three his thinking is working one hundred per cent. His father says, "Someday Jess you will call us Dad and Mom, not mommy and daddy." Now Jess is saying Mom and Dad, to the chagrin of Dawn who wishes he would still call her Mommy. Jess insists, "No, Mom and Dad." At five, he made a mathematical conclusion about his own growth with his grandfather on the telephone. His grandfather asks, "What height should I make the basketball hoop in the garage? I saw that you had grown taller." Jess replies, "I'm smaller again because I just had my hair cut!"
The dialogue between parent and child can help solve questions the child may have about what is going on. Everyday activities include a wide range of events that require adjustment and understanding for the small child. An incremental process is occurring that is molding a personality. The child is absorbing many ways of being to make decisions on their own. This includes what to eat, what to wear, what toys...
