Tag: minimal intervention

thankful for relationships

Desere

I follow RIE.

This is a respectful parenting philosophy that focuses on building a relationship with your child based on trust and respect. It’s about modeling instead of teaching. This means to raise someone who is respectful and authentic, I must model those characteristics myself. This philosophy is about treating kids like you would any adult you love and respect. And my husband and I love this philosophy because it really resonated with us, and we can see the effects of parenting this way is having on our 2 year old son.

But in practicing RIE we are not normal. This style of parenting is a minority.

I won’t force my kid to say please or thank you or sorry. If I make him say it, it’s not authentic. Instead these phrases get modeled when I say them naturally myself.

I won’t force my kid to hug you or kiss you. I am teaching my son to respect physical boundaries. To raise someone who respects another person’s “no’s” means as a child I must respect his own “no’s”. His body his choice.

I won’t distract my kid when he is crying. Feeling sad is ok, just like feeling happy and angry and scared is ok. Crying is the process of being unhurt. Tears release toxins from the body and oxytocin. When tears are not welcomed or stopped, this releases the stress hormone cortisol, and often leads to aggression because the suppressed emotion has to come out somewhere. (Aletha Soleter of Aware Parenting)

http://www.michellemorganart.com/

I won’t force my kid to eat. I provide the meal, with a few options that include veggies and meat and carbs. I set the rules about eating at the table and staying seated. The rest is up to my son. He eats what he he wants, as much as he wants from the options I laid out. I will not force feed him or use tricks like airplane-ing food into his mouth. His body his choice.

I won’t hold my kid’s hands when he climbs up the playground. If you want your child to learn spatial awareness, don’t help them do things they can’t do on their own. No one wants to get hurt. No child wants to fling themselves down the side of a play structure. But if they were always given a false sense of security when they learned to walk and climb, then they won’t realize the physical dangers of doing certain things.

I won’t show my kid how to play with something. I give my son open ended objects to play with, and let his creativity take it from there. This builds problem solving and independent play.

I wont try to fix how my kid plays with something. Even if it looks “wrong” to me, I won’t intervene. Is there even such thing as playing the wrong way?

I won’t intervene if my kid takes your kid’s toy. I won’t intervene if your kid takes my kid’s toy. Sharing is so overrated in this age of helicopter parenting. I’m sick of people saying they need to teach their kids how to share. Sharing is intrinsic. It will emerge when the child cares to share. At a young age, toy taking is simply exactly how kids play together. It’s the transference of toys. And when left on their own, kids rarely have a problem with this. When they do have a problem, they often can resolve it with little to no adult intervention.

I won’t ask my kid questions I already know the answer to. It’s demeaning to ask someone “Where are your eyes?” Or “Where is the blue triangle?” My son isn’t in school, and he didn’t learn English and Hebrew by me asking him to point to stuff or use flash cards to drill words into him. He learns words through life. He learns because we talk to him in our normal authentic voice.

But alas, these things make me odd in the parenting world. And that’s ok. I’ve made peace with being a minority because I love the person my son is becoming, and I love the type of serenity this parenting style has given me.

What makes RIE hard is that once you start it, you can’t unsee it.

This means once you see young children as fully capable people, worthy of respect, it’s very very hard to see how the rest of the world interacts with them.

But I can’t shelter my son. That’s simply unrealistic and doesn’t prepare him to forge his own life with his own relationships.

RIE is based on trust.

I need to trust in myself and the job I’m doing as a mother. I am raising my son with respect. A few disrespectful interactions with other people won’t “ruin” my son. Janet Lansbury likes to say parenting is about the steady diet not the occasional snack. What I do on the day to day basis is what will shape his character.

I need to trust my son. I need to trust that not only does he know the difference between the way different people treat him, but that he also is fully capable of self advocating. That a consequence of the way I treat him is that he WILL stand up for himself when he feels the need to.

That’s the key… it’s when HE feels the need to.

So many times I’m watching someone interact with my son, and I’m thinking why is my son just taking it? Why is he allowing this person to talk to him like that or force a hug on him when I know he doesn’t always want a hug? Why is he allowing this person to show him how to play a certain way when he normally likes to lead his own play time?

I want to step in so badly. But I don’t because my son doesn’t need rescuing. He isn’t in danger, he is with people he loves and who love him. If I did step in, I’m now making it about me, not my son.

I need to let him build his own relationships with people around him, in his own way. I need to trust him to do so.

I am thankful for RIE. This philosophy taught me to sit back and enjoy the person my child is becoming, to really see the beautiful relationships he has made and how much certain people mean to him. I am thankful he has such strong relationships with people around him. I am thankful for how much he enjoys people who behave differently than I do.

Happy Thanksgiving!

leave them alone

Desere

Being a mom has taught me a lot about relationships. My relationship with my husband, my parents, and my friends changed, because I changed. And I expected this to happen because I knew being a mom would change everything.

But the one relationship I never really thought about before having my son, was the one I would have with him.

Over the past year I have been developing a relationship with him that was mostly based on his dependence on me. He depended on me for food and to maintain his sleep schedule. He depended on me for love and affection.

Furthermore adopting RIE into my parenting meant that I tried to base the relationship I have with my son on respect.

But now that Frank is one year old, I realized that it’s not enough for me to respect my son. I want a relationship based on mutual respect.

Well, what does a mutually respectful relationship look like with a one year old?

I think I show Franky respect when I give him space to play on his own (baby led play), when I tell him what I am going to do before I do it, when I ask for his help when changing his diaper, or when I think about his needs before taking him places.

I am teaching him to build respect for me when I leave him to shower, use the bathroom, or cook dinner. Because as a self-caring adult, I need to do these things during the day. And as a self respected mother, I refuse to give up these self caring acts, nor do I think I should have to.

And I really think leaving him briefly during the day to take care of myself, is teaching him to respect me and my needs.

So my advice for you to have this type of mutually respectful relationship with your baby or young toddler, is to leave them alone.

Don’t be with your baby or carry them around all day. In other words, attachment parenting is not recommended, it provides a false sense of presence. You will not be there by their side forever, that’s not how life works. Your child has the right to learn this.

Furthermore, your child has the right to learn how to be alone, that being alone for a few minutes is ok and that you will return (because you always do).

We build trust with our babies when we tell them “I will be back in a few minutes”, and then we actually come back. This idea takes time for babies to develop, of course. It relates to psychological development known as object permanence, I still exist even though you cannot see me. But there is no reason or harm in starting when they are little.

In fact there is countless research that shows as long as you are present with your child during the day, really present, there is no proof that they feel fear or abandonment when you are not there.

This brings me to my next point, sleep.

You cannot make someone sleep. You cannot make someone eat. You cannot make someone leave you to play with others. These actions require readiness, and your child will do them when they are ready.

Today in RIE class we talked a lot about sleep, specifically what happens when our child begins waking up during the night after months of being a great sleeper. What is triggering them to wake up? What is the respectful approach to handling them at that time?

We talked about different strategies on what to do. One mom recommended the happy sleeper method, and our teacher discussed the issues of using any one cookie-cutter method.

Babies wake up for all sorts of reasons, teething, a loud noise, stomach ache, hungry, over-tired, change in routine, developmental milestone, etc. We cannot treat every reason the same. We can, however, remember that we have needs as well. It is unreasonable to go in every hour, or for every cry. It is unreasonable to create crutches, tricks that our children rely on to fall back asleep (rocking, nursing, singing …) Remember, we deserve respect too. And no self-respected adult should go night after night losing sleep for no reason.

So instead we provide the timing and place for sleep. We provide a predictable routine. We acknowledge. And most importantly, we leave.

When it’s around 6:15 and I have completed the bedtime routine that I do every night, I tell my son that I’m going to place him in his crib and then lay him down. I tell him I love him, that I’ll be downstairs, and that when he wakes up I’ll be here. And I leave.

If during the night he cries for longer than a minute, I return and acknowledge. Remember, I am not a fan of the ‘cry it out method’. Instead I go in his room and say something like, “I see how hard this is for you, but this is resting time. I love you. I am going to go back outside.” I rub his back for a few minutes and sometimes even blow him a kiss as I leave.

I return because I love him.

I acknowledge because I respect him.

I leave because I respect him so much that I want him to learn how to sleep, and fall asleep, on his own.

My biggest weakness was nursing my son back to sleep. I knew I had to stop for my own sanity, because there were months (like when Frank started standing) where he would wake up twice or three times. After our pediatrician reaffirmed that at this age, they do not wake up because of hunger, I decided enough was enough. I am going to leave my baby alone.

And I think, actually I hope, that he is learning his body and how to put himself back to sleep without me. I hope that he also respects me for giving him the space to be able to figure this out on his own.

So whether you are struggling with your child’s sleep patterns, or simply needing time to get anything done during the day, my simple advice remains the same… leave them alone.

relaxing play date

Desere

My last RIE class reaffirmed why I love this parenting philosophy so much.

When I walked in there was just one boy there already with his mom. I sat down with Franky on my lap and waited until he was ready to leave me. I waited until I could feel him leaning out of my lap. But he didn’t. A few minutes went by, five, then ten minutes, and my son sat on me, completely content.

When he was finally ready to leave, he didn’t go to the toys like every other class, he kept going to the other boy sitting on his mom.
My son was craving a social interaction, a connection with someone, not something.

The other boy, however, was simply craving time on his mom.

I learned that this boy goes to day care a few days a week, because the mom works part time. This is one of the few times during the week he probably gets his moms’ 100% undivided attention. So he was soaking it up.

And the best part about RIE class is that this boy could stay on his mom for as long as he wanted. He could hug her for the entire 1.5 hours of class. Because RIE class gives the space for kids to just be.

Just like my son could sit on me for longer than he normally does.

It’s important to allow the space for babies to warm up in their own way and to decide for themselves to be independent of us as their caregiver. There are so many times where we are the ones that put our kids down and leave them. How often do we leave them to use the restroom or prepare dinner? And how often do we give them the opportunity to leave us?

Later, a third boy came with his mom.
And that was it for today’s class, just three boys.

When the third came he began playing with the toys and my son went over to play with him.

Everything was so relaxed and so mellow. It was so refreshing.

I realized that this is the only time in the week  that I can have a play date where the moms are not distracted. There is no noise and chaos from kids screaming and running around, while moms sit around and chat about this and that.

When I go to those types of play dates, I feel like us moms are there for each other, not our kids. Which is valid. Being a stay-at-home mom is tough because often you spend most of your day without speaking to another adult. No conversation can mess with you. And so having a play date with the true intention of having other adults to talk to is completely understandable.

But I don’t like it. I don’t like it because my son’s needs get ignored. I don’t like entering those play dates and putting my son down so I can catch up with my mommy friends. I don’t like watching other kids clinging on their moms, craving a connection, but being pushed to “go play with the other kids so mommy can talk”. I never feel relaxed at these events.

I like RIE class because there is a predictability each week. The predictability is in the time and space we are providing for our babies, and for ourselves.

We always sit against the wall and observe. The room is always set up with the same wooden, silicone, and plastics toys. Our kids are always the ones that get to choose when to leave us to play. And they are always given the freedom to explore, or not.

I love being able to let go of preconceived ideas of what our kids should do or how they should play.

We get to let go because we know it’s a safe space. There are two teachers and several moms observing and providing minimal intervention if necessary.

We get to slow down.

Consequently, our kids get to slow down too.

Our kids get to take in every adult’s face. They get to climb, and fall. They get to play with open ended objects. They get to explore wood and metal. They get to go outside.

They also get to sit on us whenever they want, for as long as they want.

RIE class is the most relaxing of play dates I’ve ever had.

self control

Desere1 Comment

In my last RIE class there was an incident that led to a big discussion about self control.

One baby, let’s call him A, kept going to a little girl and hitting her on the head. Although we have the two teachers and all the moms there, we were not always able to block the hitting. Whenever it happened, the girl would go to her mom who would hug her until she felt better.

At one point the boy walked (he is one of two in my class that can already walk) toward the girl. Our teacher who narrates said “A, no.” The boy’s mom, taking our teacher’s lead, began saying “no, no” to her son and scooting toward him. Then the boy hit the girl, hard. She was crying uncontrollably. Our other teacher, who interacts with the babies, came over. The boy’s mom and the girl’s mom came over. Three adults, 2 babies.

Both moms were trying to console the girl. Then the boy tried to hit her again. This time, his mom grabbed his arm and said “no you cannot hit her.” The girl was screaming. The three adults were hovering. The whole debacle seemed to upset the boy who just walked away to play with the toys outside.

This is when our teacher began a conversation about modeling. You see, when my teacher said “A no” her ‘no’ was indifferent. There was no shame or warning in her statement. There were already a few times that the boy hit the girl and was blocked. So this last time, when he walked over, the teacher simply stated, ‘no’. The mom’s ‘no’ was not the same. She said it a few times and it was done admonishingly. Furthermore, she resorted to grabbing his arm to stop his last attempt.

Who can blame her? This is an emotional scene. It is emotional because we as adults lose our self control and just react in the moment. Whenever we see our own child doing something to another child, or if another child does something to our baby, it is extremely hard to breath and calmly walk towards them. It is extremely hard to resist the reactionary “NO!” and the arm grab. And why wouldn’t it be extremely hard? It is a tough and emotional situation.

Yet we never get any repercussions for losing our self control.

Babies do not have a lot of self control. Self control is a skill that babies learn, slowly, over years and years. And although they do get better as they hit several developmental milestones, they are still led by their emotions. They can’t help it. When they feel something strongly it will take over and they are no longer acting out of reason or logic, but out of emotion.

The problem is the moment we grab their hand, the moment we act aggressively, our children will want to resist. They will resist when we physically hold on to their bodies. They will resist when we yell “no”.

“So what are we supposed to do?”, the boy’s mom and I both asked our teacher.

We can never model non aggression with aggression. If we do not want our children to be physically rough with another child, then we cannot be physically rough with them. There is never a time when we should grab our child’s arm or body to stop them from doing something. If we want to stop them, we block. This means simply placing our hand in between them and whatever or whoever we are trying to protect. If you find that simply blocking, as stated above, is not working, the best thing to do is to physically remove your child from the situation.

Practicing respectful parenting means not only respecting our children, but also teaching them to respect themselves and others. This happens organically of course because we treat them with trust and respect. We are models to our children.

Furthermore, our teacher noted, we need to remember that babies are building their self control and to notice the times they are demonstrating control rather than only noting the times they lose it.

Yes, toward the end of class A was constantly walking over to the girl and trying to hit her. What about during the first 30 minutes of class when he would walk over to her and admire the bow in her hair? What about all the times he walked by another baby, once even just inches away from them, without touching or hitting their head? What about when my son had a ball in his mouth and A walked over and grabbed the ball out of my son’s mouth without touching any other part of my son’s face? Most importantly, what about when he removed himself from the emotional situation to go outside? There were so many moments within the 90 minutes of class where A showed incredible self control. Which is not easy, especially for a baby who is walking among crawlers.

When I started teaching, my mentor gave me a book, Tools for Teaching by Fred Jones. This book had so much advice in it that correlates to RIE. One thing I remember reading was about controlling our own anger as a teacher. The book outlines ways to do this and the biggest rule is to breathe. When students get out of control or do something in class, first take a few breathes. This is because simply breathing forces you to calm down.Your heart rate goes down, your muscles relax. This also buys you a few seconds to think about what just happened, to act accordingly. Then walk over and do whatever disciplinary action needs to be done with the students. The high school where I taught, discipline was the #1 priority. If you could not control your class, there was no hope in teaching them anything. And I cannot tell you how many times this breathing technique saved my classroom environment.

It’s not easy though. It is not easy to have such control.

So back to parenting and back to the little boy. At the end, do we punish him for hitting the girl. No, we do not. Because he lost control. Which we all do. What we really need to start doing is what I had to do when I was training to be a teacher. We have to work on ourselves.

We need to train to have better self control. We need to slow down. We need to breathe. We need to reflect, respect, and respond (the 3 R’s), rather than react. We need to act gently.

It’s on us to change our behavior if we want to influence our children’s behavior. We need to work on ourselves so that we can be the best models for our kids.

And no…it’s not easy. But no one ever said parenting would be easy.

 

the 3 R’s of rie

Desere1 Comment

Recently I described one of the biggest tenets of RIE, baby-led play. In other words, letting your baby lead their own play time with yourself as an observer. This is true not only when you are home, just you and your child, but also when you are at play groups with many other babies around. Therefore, part of baby-led play includes the idea of waiting before intervening. It’s a simple idea, but one that is incredibly hard to master for most people.

I described about the first RIE class I took, and how the instructor was modeling ways to intervene with her hand. Babies like to touch one another, and that is not necessarily a bad thing. But since our number one priority should always be safety, sometimes babies touch roughly and we do need to intervene.

The hard part is then deciding, when to intervene and when to let babies explore in their own way?

When should I allow them to place their hand on another baby and when do I need to protect the other baby’s face? When do I let babies explore their surrounding and when do I support their body from falling? This is when my teacher told me there is something in RIE when observing known as the 3 R’s.

  • reflect

  • respect

  • respond

The first rule is reflect. As an observer, you should be constantly taking in the situation around your child. Look around and see what exactly your child is looking at, what are they interested in, what is the other baby doing, etc.

  • During one class I went to, my son was playing with a small white ball and mostly holding it in his mouth. Another baby came over and was looking at the ball too. He reached over and carefully took the ball from my son. His fingers were curled so perfectly, he was only touching the ball and not my son’s mouth. Almost as if he knew he just wanted the ball, and not to hurt my son’s face! Really waiting and observing allowed all the moms and I to see how gently this boy acted. And why would we stop him? He didn’t hurt my son. He didn’t scratch his face. My son was not disturbed by the ball being taken. Remember, babies don’t normally care if toys get taken from them. It seems ‘wrong’ to us as adults, but this truly is how babies play.
  • In another class, a boy was pointing to different parts of my son’s face with his index finger. The teacher was close by, but she didn’t intervene because she was watching the boy and how gently he was placing his finger on my son’s face. My son didn’t really react, he simply stared into the face of the boy. As long as he was being gentle, there was really no reason to stop him. The boy was interested in my son’s face, as babies often are.

The next step to remember is respect. This should be easy, since it’s basically the #1 rule of RIE. Respect your child, they know what they are doing. Trust them to know their own body and own limits. If babies don’t like something, they will say so long before they are able to talk. They will cry, or move away. You might find, however, that in most situations they will be undisturbed. Also respect babies to resolve conflicts on their own.

  • A little girl was laying on the carpet and a boy came over and began crawling on top of her. She seemed completely undisturbed. He eventually crawled away but later came back and was about to crawl on top of her again. The girl’s mom stayed at a distance, because she respected the girl to set her own boundary. This time, the little girl sat up and moved back. She was now saying, I don’t like this very much, and moved away herself.
  • My son had a toy and another boy came and took the toy from his hands. This upset Franky, so the teacher said “Frank you had that, and now E has it. You seem upset. You are resourceful, you can find something else to play with.” My son seemed to hear her words because he instantly went to another object, picked it up, and seemed incredibly content with his new toy. Both boys were happy, and my son learned that he has the power to get something else to play with if he wants.
    • Compare this to a playdate where my son had something and a girl took this toy from him. The girl’s mom told her daughter that she shouldn’t have taken it from Frank. She instantly brought another toy and dropped it in front of my son, telling him he could play with that instead. I didn’t intervene but inside I was angry at the dismissed opportunity for my son to either retrieve the same item back from the little girl or resourcefully get something else.

The last step is to respond. Respond to the situation that you are observing with the most minimal intervention that you can. We do not want to ‘fix’ anything, but we are there to protect and guide. It’s about responding not reacting.

  • In class, a boy came over and touched my son’s face pretty violently. The boy’s mom came over right away and simply put her hand in front of my son’s face. She said “I’m going to protect Frank’s face.” She didn’t say this out of anger, she simply stated what she was doing. It was such a respectful interaction. There was no shaming, no accusing of the boy for hurting my son, no yanking his arm out of the way. Minimal intervention. Her response was proactive, “I’m going to protect Franky’s face” instead of “don’t hurt his face”.
  • My son pulled himself up halfway on an outdoor sandbox and stood like this for a long time. Five minutes, ten minutes… at what point should I step in and help him down? Is he stuck, or is he just enjoying standing up the way he is? Reflect: His knees began buckling. Maybe he was tired and wanted to sit down. His face however suggested he was completely fine, with no sign of struggle or fear. Respect: I know Franky likes standing at home all the time, and I trust his ability to use his legs this way. I have seen him stand for long periods and then sit when he is ready. Hmm… but his knees don’t usually buckle. Respond: “I am going to move closer to you”. With my teacher’s guidance, I placed my hand under my son’s chest. Minimal intervention. I am letting him know, I am here, I support you, and if you need to sit down you must still let go yourself.  My son sat back and gave me a smile.

My RIE teacher mentioned that the best part of the 3 R’s is that they force you to slow down. When something is going on, stop to reflect the situation, respect your child, and respond appropriately. This way you are not reacting emotionally, or projecting your own feelings onto your child. (like when a child ‘steals’ a toy and we as the adults are horrified)

It’s this idea of observing in the sense of getting to know who our kid is, how does he move one leg over the other, what type of choices does he make when he is left to make them on his own, how does he resolve issues with others?

Observation without concept, without any agenda, without any preconceived ideas of what should or should not be. This is what the 3R’s let us do. 

baby-led play

Desere2 Comments

When I became a mom, I was overwhelmed with the idea of play time. Making sure my son was entertained, as well as developing certain skills, was exhausting. All day long I would pick up toys and show my son how they worked, hence playing with him. I would build towers and show him how to push them down, push buttons and sing along for him, and stack rings in the correct order. I would place my son down with his toys and if he didn’t start playing right away I would bring the toys closer. I would go to events like baby story time at the library, picking my son up and down to the music like all the other moms. I figured as my son grows, becomes more aware and more mobile, then play time will get easier.

It didn’t.

I was still playing with all of his toys and still feeling more exhausted every day. Something didn’t feel right. It felt incredibly forced, like I was being pressured to play with him because I thought that was how we were supposed to play with babies. 

And the problem definitely was not that we didn’t have enough things, because we did. We had all kinds of toys.

Toys that light up and play music

Toys that develop hand-eye coordination 

Toys great for imaginative play

Interactive toys with smart stages that grow with baby

I could go on… but you get the point. 

When I began learning about respectful parenting, I realized how I could let go of this idea I was stubbornly holding on to, the idea of playing with baby. I was looking at it all wrong.

This is when I got my aha moment, baby-led play.

You see, babies are motivated by all sorts of things that we don’t always understand. Simply placing your baby (on their back) in an area full of safe things is enough to get them going. Your baby will start playing with something, maybe not right away, but they will. Why force it?

As long as babies have our attention and are in a safe environment, they will play. This is because babies learn about their world through play, it’s in their nature. It’s about trusting and respecting your baby to lead their play time.

I trust my son to play with something for as long as he wants. I trust his choices. If he goes to one object and decides to leave it after less than a minute, who am I to bring it back to him and tell him to play longer? If he picks up a ball and plays with it for an hour (as he often does whenever we go to RIE class) before exploring the other objects, again why stop him? He must really like that ball!

I respect my son’s ability to play with a toy however he wants. When I got the Fisher-Price stacking tower for my son, my whole family and I would show him how to put the rings in order on the tower. What did my son want to do? He wanted to first eat the rings. When he was more mobile, he wanted to throw the rings across the floor to watch them roll away. I used to show him again and again how to place them on the tower. I think back on this and wonder how I could be so selfish. My son was amazed at the ability of the rings to roll away, and I was trying to take that away from him. Why? To build him hand-eye coordination according to the label on the box? The thing is, he was building hand-eye coordination in his own beautiful way.

When I taught high school math, I spent most of the time as a facilitator in my classroom. This meant stepping back, waiting, and observing my students working in their groups. I would never lead them in solving a problem. It was not about projecting my own agenda or ideas, it was about building off their ideas.

Sometimes this meant solving problems took longer. Actually… it often took longer. But when problems were solved, my students were able to truly own the moment. This is part of student-led teaching. And the result was resourceful and self aware students. Because I trusted my students to be able to learn with me facilitating rather than lecturing, they were encouraged to try new things and persevere.

Sometimes they didn’t quite answer the problem. And when I first trained to be a teacher this bothered me. But my mentor made me realize that ultimately the point of being a math teacher is not to get students to solve problems using preconceived equations. The point is to give students the tools to problem solve through several types of situations, to try out their ideas, possibly fail, and keep trying out more ideas. This is what will prepare them for life beyond school. This is better than teaching the pythagorean theorem and students asking me, “when will I ever need to know this?”

So my students didn’t always finish a problem. But there was so much math happening and so many ideas tried, that they were learning every step of the way.

I like to relate my teaching to my parenting style because baby-led play is very similar to student led teaching. I can sit back and let go, while my son discovers his toys in his own time and his own way. And the outcome is similar to that of my students. Since adopting RIE at home, my son has a longer attention span and much more perseverance. Even though I exchanged many of his toys for simpler items like bowls, tubes, containers, and rings, he will play for longer periods of time. And like my students, I don’t care if he doesn’t play with something correctly (like I mentioned above with his stacking tower). I don’t even care if he ‘finishes’ playing with a toy.

We do less, so that our kids do more. I mentioned this idea when introducing how I feed my son and how I change his diaper. With teaching, I did less so my students were doing the heavy lifting. Consequently, they were the ones learning. Play time is the same. I trust my son and he feels trusted to do what he wants and to figure toys out on his own.

The best part is that I now feel so relaxed!

  • I don’t wave toys in front of him.
  • I don’t check Pinterest for activity ideas
  • I don’t take him to several classes during the week to entertain him
  • I don’t worry about songs to sing or making him clap his hands

I just let go.

At this point you may wonder what is so wrong with playing with a baby. When we wave a toy and they happily crawl over, that can’t be a bad thing? My mom often questioned me about this, saying that my son seems so happy when she plays with him and shows him toys. He is enjoying it!

Well, of course he is. Babies will enjoy when you play with them. The problem is that they will begin to rely on this stimulation. This will grow into a habit of needing someone (or something) else to entertain them. This is also a distraction, and we should never mistake distraction for enjoyment.

Moreover, when we do this, we are ignoring the ideas that our children are trying to form on their own. We might think they are bored, but they may be about to come up with something. This is like sitting down to write a blog. I can feel all these ideas coming up, but then my husband walks in and begins talking to me, or the doorbell rings. I lose my train of thought. As an adult, I have the ability to block out external distractors (doorbell or phone), and the capacity to often get back to my ideas. Babies aren’t like that. They are run by their emotion and the stimuli will take over. Therefore as the parent we need to provide the space to nurture their ideas.

The last and probably most important part about baby-led play is that being forced to be an observer lets me learn about my baby. Every day I observe him and take in all his wonder. I try to see the world through his eyes and learn who he is as a person, what his personality is like.

And I have learned that, ironically, he too is an observer. When I set him down in a new place, he likes to wait and see what is happening before jumping in. He likes to people watch, and baby watch.

He likes to find one object that is fascinating to him for whatever reason at the time, and hold on to it for a while before exploring more. He likes to test objects out by banging them on hard surfaces to see what they are made of and what sound they make.

He likes lids, anything with a lid to open and close.

He likes scooting forward in a superman pose, using his toes to propel him forward, and holding something small in his hand.

He likes the way the sun goes through the shutters in his bedroom in the morning, and the pattern it makes on the wall.

Because of baby-led play, I am learning who my son is. And at 9 1/2 months old, he is incredible.

 

first RIE class

Desere1 Comment

I have outlined my style of teaching.

I have talked about the mommy struggles.

I introduced RIE.

For a while, I thought I would keep trying things at home based on what I had read in articles I found online. But ultimately, reading ideas in theory is very different then seeing the application of those ideas in real life.

So I decided to enroll in a RIE class. Continue reading “first RIE class” →