18/01/2023
Childhood is not preparation for adulthood. It’s not an inconvenient phase to be rushed through so we can get to the ‘important’ part, not an incorrect way of being that needs to be trained out of us.
Too often, we as parents get caught up in the race to a perfectly developed child. A well behaved, well spoken, emotionally mature child who learned to read early, crawled before the other babies, slept like an angel and rarely leaves a mess behind from their play.
If it sounds unrealistic, that’s because it is.
It’s time to stop racing + lift the expectations from ourselves to raise children who don’t behave like children.
Instead, let’s work to understand child development and normal childhood behaviours, to understand the inherent value of simply being a child.
One of my favourite fundamentals that I learned while studying early childhood education is Erikson’s stages of development, where basic conceptual lessons around the way the world works and how we exist in it take place. It’s been something that massively helped me to support the children in my care, and then later my own children, securely + respectfully through their childhood.
Swipe to see an overview of the first few stages, and let me know what you think - have you noticed these tendencies in your children?
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