Children & Their Teeny Happiness

Children find happiness in the simplest of things - just holding a spoon, opening/closing a bottle cap, carrying a small mug of water, using a fork, trying to drink water by themselves etc. - All these that she is not perfect at seem disturbing to you due to the clean-up required. But, do not yell, Let the child be messy. Allowing the child to be messy and having patience to deal with the after effects is the most creative gift that a child can get.

Always think from your child's perspective. Think about all that she is learning when she is doing something that you don't accept (unless it is a socially unacceptable behaviour, of course). But, refrain from yelling at simple messy things that the child does.

Like, when she wants to put her little hand in rice while eating, let her - she wants to feel the texture of what she is eating, she wants to take that little step of trying to hold the food particle with her fingers and at some stage, put in mouth which is a good thing. Do not yell. You may not like such mess, but, some day, she will learn to eat clean. Until then, let her learn. Do not tend to stop her from discovering those little things around her.

Is she messing in the kitchen picking up spoons, bowls utensils and throwing in a corner? Do not yell. She is learning how to hold things and observing what sound one specific item makes when it is left free.

Always think from a child's perspective. You may be knowing that reversing a glass of water makes all the water spill over the floor. But your child, she doesn't even know that there is something called gravity that makes all objects fall to ground. When she wants to put her hand in the glass and play, let her do, she wants to know how water feels like, she needs to learn that water is something that cannot be firmly held in hand and she needs to experience that water will flow down when glass is reversed. Or for that matter, she needs to learn that upon throwing any object, Gravity would ultimately make it land on the ground.

Until she learns all these seemingly little things, let her try, let her play, let her mess around. Feel her joy and you will understand how happy she feels.