» Learning from Children

Children have lots to teach us - if we watch and learn

There’s a lot of disagreement about how soon children are able to understand things and take responsibility.

In the area of money, for example: how early can you start to teach children key lessons about spending and saving? And how soon should you expect them to understand the consequences of their actions?

Watching our daughter discipline her first child was an educational process. She used a version of the ‘naughty step’ – in her case choosing a suitable corner for her daughter to go and stand while contemplating the action she had just been disciplined for. Rather than putting a time limit on the visit to the corner, the child was told to stay there until she had worked things out in her own mind. After a few minutes, mother would ask if she was ready to rejoin the family. Often she was, and the first action would be a quiet discussion between mother and daughter to ensure things had been understood correctly.

But sometimes when asked – and this always made me smile – daughter would say she wasn’t and would be left a little longer. Once she was ready she was allowed to tell her mother this, and again there would be a brief discussion before anything else.

We witnessed this process when the child was only 3 or 4 years old, and she was certainly capable of understanding it and benefiting from the consistent approach it gave her.

A couple of weeks ago our daughter and children came to stay with us in Greece. The youngest child is now four, and she too gave us some insight into how even young children can take responsibility. If you’ve visited Greece you’ll know their plumbing is interesting, a key feature being that you can’t flush toilet paper or other similar items down the toilet, otherwise the narrowness of the pipes will lead to a blockage.

Most public places such as hotels, restaurants and airports have prominently displayed notices and it’s one of the things you need to do to acclimatize guests. It’s always a bit worrying with visitors from countries with more usual plumbing: will your memories of their stay include that visit from the plumber to unblock your drains? Faced with visitors aged 8 and 4, the outlook didn’t seem positive. But we were pleasantly surprised.

Mum explained the prohibition to them on their first day and we only had one instance of forgetfulness – that from the older child, who immediately realized her mistake and came to tell us before flushing, seemingly willing to fish the offending paper out if necessary. And the younger child – who I took to restaurant toilets on more than one occasion – was impressive. She reminded me each time about the need to put toilet paper in the bin, not down the toilet.

We were also impressed with their attitude to money. Mum had given them a daily spending limit, this being money that they could choose to spend on anything they wanted. They were free to waste it if they chose, but once it was gone, it was gone. And by negotiation they could have an advance if they wanted to buy something that cost over their limit, but this was an advance from their own money, not a sub from mum.

Both children handled this situation well. Each chose her own purchases, sometimes not spending all the allowance, other times frittering it away on games. The eldest bought a swimming mask which turned out to leak; the youngest a branded ‘goody bag’ that failed to live up to its promise. But there was no complaint, no expectation that they should be reimbursed by mother for purchases that failed to satisfy. They accepted what had happened, and that this was part of life.

And neither child trailed around shops uttering the immortal ‘mum, can I have …?’

Who says you can’t teach ‘em while they’re young?

And if young children show this capability to learn, understand and apply their knowledge from an early age, how is it that many adults struggle to do the same?

Like many of the clipart images I use, this is from Paul Sherman’s extensive collection at www.wpclipart.com which Paul started a few years ago as a ’safe’ collection of clipart for his children. If you’re looking for an image, why not give it a visit…