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Parenting
with Gary & Anne Marie: Toddlers
Toddlers and Curiosity
Seasoned moms know that a
little mud, whether on your toddler or in his stomach, won't really ruin his
dinner, and to the curious toddler, a bowl on the head makes a great space helmet
even if it is filled with pancake batter. Is curiosity an impulse or a drive?
We do not know, but a toddler has a reservoir of it, and for good reason.
Whether endowed by creation
or nature, curiosity is a mechanism of the toddler's brain, serving as a stimulus
to learning. There are two types of stimuli, direct and natural. A parent sitting
with a book reading a story to an attentive two-year-old is an example of a
direct stimulus. Are direct stimuli important in the chain of knowledge? Absolutely!
Curiosity, however, is a natural stimulus-a child's birthright-a survival mechanism.
It is the key that unlocks the treasures of toddler knowledge and opens a world
of discovery. Curiosity is a corollary mechanism of logic and reason.
Curiosity is also the precursor
to your child's developing imagination. Curiosity drives the child to investigate
and explore items of interest, to touch and handle, to walk away only to revisit
it again. Between the ages of two and three, a child's curiosity becomes less
dominant, and imagination begins to take over. The natural endowment of imagination
is a function of play as much as it is a function of learning.
For example, RJ only showed
curious interest in the Tommy Train boxcars and engine he received on his second
birthday. He touched the tracks, spun the wheels, and even tried to stack the
cars, but he did not understand the play purpose of a train. But at three years
of age, RJ's curiosity gave way to his developing imagination. Now a more dominant
cognitive process begins to rule his thinking. At three he plays the role of
engineer. His mind constructs mountainous terrains out of pillows, wobbly bridges
from a shoe box lid, and special tunnels through chair legs. Train sounds begin
accompanying each circle of the track, as the train becomes real in RJ's mind.
Big changes took place in one year. The same will happen with your toddler.
At three years of age, make-believe
and other imaginative activities begin to occupy an important place in the child's
mental world. Imagination will do what curiosity cannot. It will carry a child
beyond the boundaries of time and space. Through imaginative processes, a child
gives life to inanimate objects while assuming a controlling role as chief operator
of his own play. We mention this here only to highlight the fact that while
curiosity will play a dominant role in the early days of your toddler's expanding
world, it is only a precursor to another very important mental process yet to
unfold-the development of your child's working imagination.
A toddler's curiosity is
almost unlimited. He is interested in everything, including himself. Yet curiosity
is not an end unto itself, nor is it profitable without parental supervision.
The duty of parents is to neither deny nor suppress their toddler's curiosity,
but to manage it. We will say right up front that giving a toddler unlimited
freedom to go along with his curiosity is not useful management, but rather
poor stewardship of his mind.
What do we know about curiosity
and children? First, curiosity is but the first piece in the educational process
of discovery. Associated with curiosity are the activities of attention and
investigation. All three are necessary components of learning for young toddlers.
Consider the first step.
Curiosity
For toddlers,
everything in their unfolding world is new, exciting, and worthy of at least
a glance. It is the newness of an object or activity that provokes toddler interest.
Winding the grandfather clock with Dad, making funny faces in the mirror, watching
a cord get plugged into an outlet, or hearing a blow dryer and feeling the warm
air on his hand-all fall under the spell of curiosity. Understand that curiosity
itself is not the teacher of your child; rather it is the impulse or vehicle
that takes him to the classroom environment of potential learning.
Potential
is the qualifying word. The essential characteristic of a stimulus that arouses
a toddler's curiosity is its novelty. Toddlers explore novel objects and then
turn to other things when the novelty dissipates. A matter as simple as opening
and closing a door, or turning a faucet on and off, satisfies these moments
of curiosity and becomes a source of enjoyment as long as the activity remains
novel and slightly challenging. When turning the faucet on and off becomes too
easy, it is then abandoned. The novelty wears off, but the memory of discovery
stays intact.
Clever moms
will use this fact to their advantage. Those nasty habits among toddlers of
touching everything insight, which troubles a mother concerned with cleanliness
- his hands in the dog's dish, his preoccupation with the toilet seat, or the
trash can - are new attractions. How should you manage these unhealthy and potentially
dangerous challenges? Help the child lose interest in them, not through suppression
or distraction, but by substitution. To suppress is to deny the child a specific
action; to distract is to attempt to redirect the child to a new activity. Substitution,
in contrast, offers an equally desirable experience similar to the original
one that caught your toddler's curiosity, but the place and timing will be under
Mom's control.
For example,
that little splashy hand in the dog's water dish produces amusement and laughter
for your thirteen-month-old, but it also produces a wet floor, a wet child,
and a mess for Mom to clean up. The power of attraction during the toddler phase
is easily averted by substitution. Place a similar bowl of water in a mother-friendly
location-the patio, the laundry room, or maybe the garage-and let the child
have at it. Do this just before bath time or a diaper change.
A little hand
splashing and getting wet is the novelty. The location is secondary to the child,
but primary for Mom. And what about his preoccupation with the toilet lid? Get
clever. You're not going to purchase a second toilet just to satisfy Junior's
curiosity with porcelain and wood. You might instead find a small bucket with
a lid that he can play with. Something so simple often does the trick-it's a
win-win situation for everyone. The bathroom stays tidy, the child gets to explore,
and Mom is relieved that the toilet is not the toy of choice for today.
Keep this truth
in practice: During the toddler years, often-repeated joyful sensations become
less interesting with the loss of novelty. Novelty is what attracts a toddler.
Once satisfied, he moves on to other objects. But while he is at the object,
a second powerful force keeps him there-attention. Attention is what holds a
child in the moment of exploration, whether it is ten seconds or ten minutes.
Attention is the power of attraction. Attraction is the result of sensory nerves
working in conjunction, holding a child's interest to an object. It could be
the color of a magazine, a shiny new pen, the odd-shaped lamp, or the musical
ring of your cell phone. Color, shine, shape, or sound-all are in need of investigation.
Curiosity draws
a child to an object, attention holds him to the object, and investigation brings
the toddler the excitement of discovery and learning. He picks up the item,
manipulates it, bites it, points it, throws it, and taps it. The developing
brain is working, processing, reinforcing, and gaining usable sensations. This
is all part of a young toddler's discovery process.
Article
by Gary Ezzo / Anne Marie Ezzo
