Let your child discover more from everyday experiences.
Like most parents running full schedules, we often overlook the need to help our children connect with the real world. According to an expert childhood educator, the most important thing we can give a child is all the time he needs to explore his environment. This needs us to pace down and engage him in observations; to let him discover what makes his day-to-day world tick. In this way, we nurture his investigative curiosity, language and recognition skills, and help make sense of the world that surrounds him. The question often asked is, given our hectic life, how can we achieve this for our children? You might find these suggestions useful.

Start by building junior’s recognition skills
Use the precious moments you spend together to explore. A simple trip to the supermarket, the doctor or the petshop, actually presents both of you tremendous opportunities for discovery. Do remind yourself that whenever your little one is sparked by some activity, resist the urge to give snappy answers. It will only end the exploration. Discuss ways to find the answer instead. The idea is to encourage, not stop his sense of curiosity.

 

Whenever you spend time outdoors, let him connect with nature. Not only will this help develop his recognition and sense of value for plant and animal life, it will also stir his compassion for them. Pause with him to observe nature’s many small but enchanting activities. Stop your car to watch a tractor at work in the field. Or if you’re in the city, watch the fire-engine leave the station to answer an emergency. That’s more important than getting to the supermarket on time. Be involved, fully, in your child’s investigation, be it about a leaf, occupation or people. Your enthusiasm can be contagious!

Whatever he learns outside, bring the experience home so he can re-enact, through collections of objects and toys. Through play, you can develop recognition skills so he can easily identify activity, people and objects.

Tricks to make difficult subjects easy
With children, make-believe is a wonderful way to express thoughts and feelings. Replaying life’s events is a way of processing their discoveries. Thus, children love to play ‘doctor’, ‘fireman’, or ‘teacher’. Allowing your child to re-enact real life scenarios with role playing actually reinforces what he’s discovered, about how people behave in different situations. It also helps him identify with other people’s feelings. It challenges his memory, nurture problem-solving and decision-making skills, build confidence and ideas!

Scaling down big world experiences
By using playsets such as a dollhouse, we bring big world experiences down to a level children can comprehend and be enthusiasistic about. Sit back and watch your child play. You'll see re-enactments of things you do; “It’s bedtime, so trot off to bed, little one!” (it’s said to be one of the joys and often, revelations in pretend play). Do participate. For example, you may urge "It seems like little Boy Boy is tired. Do you think we should put him to bed?" and see what happens. What matters is not whether your child accepts your idea, but to plant ideas to enhance play.

Using theme toys to demonstrate
With playsets, you can even tackle difficult topics such as road-safety rules or ways to care for the environment and why!. Manipulate a toy character to ‘Look left, then, right and left again’ before ‘crossing the road’ with vehicles ‘moving’ strategically on the ‘road’ to illustrate. Or have ‘Daddy’ ‘wash the car with rainwater’ , then give your child his first lesson about conservation. The possibilities for civic education is enormous.

Helping children identify people and their roles
There are many playsets in the market with a variety of themes that can help your child identify with a variety of life scenarios. If you have a ‘farm’ playset for instance, help your little farmer know what it’s like to plant or sow seeds in your garden. Go to the library and borrow picture books to help him identify items within the theme and the different tasks they are used for. You might also want to reinforce what he’s learned with field trips where he can see, feel and experience the real thing. Challenge his memory and thinking skills by asking him to repeat a sound he knows: ‘What sound does the goat make?’. Or repeat dialogues that identify with certain characters from a movie, or from a book. Such replay lets him practice what he’s learned, forces him to think intelligently and form ideas.

Nurturing good social skills and habits along the way
It’s more beneficial if you encourage your child to play with a pal or two. This actually teaches him how to work as a team, lead, cooperate and negotiate…all of which are important for developing social skills. Role play engages emotion, language and sensory skills, among others.
Why not use play to teach your child about chores and errands? Choose toys that trigger such imitative play. It could be playing ‘house’ or driving a battery-operated ‘family car’ or looking after ‘kids’. It will help him understand your world, feelings, who you are and what you do. With your encouragement, he will acquire important life skills that will help him grow into a more understanding and independent young adult.