Interacting with children sometimes means…
… Having to explaining complex concepts in words they understand. These topics often include science, medical conditions, race, culture sometimes even art and as an educator, my job is to teach. So how do I put complex topics into words that they can understand whilst giving them an honest, truthful answer?
I try not to use complex words. If a word has a complex meaning, it often has a simple word that you can use instead that will get your point across. It might take a few more words to explain what you mean when you don’t use the ‘big word’, but the child your talking to will understand you better. One of my favourite examples is when I was reading a book to a five year old that had a Harry Potter reference in it, the child asked why is there writing on the cupboard under the stairs. So I explained that there’s seven books and eight movies about a character named Harry Potter who is a boy who finds out that his a wizard and goes to a special wizard school. When he comes home form wizard school he has to sleep in the cupboard under the stairs at his mean aunt and uncles house. Is that the whole story, no. Is it enough, yes. Does it start a bigger conversation, probably and that’s normally a good thing.
I preach having honest conversations with young children. It teaches respect, honestly, language skills and emotional awareness amongst other things. It also prevents potentially harmful attitudes from prevailing. Another child asked me why his skin was black in a classroom of mostly white children. I told him and a few of his friends that he had more dye in his skin than his white friends so that his skin wouldn’t be damaged so easily by the sun. I added that outside of his darker skin tone, didn’t change how his body worked on the inside and that skin tone shouldn’t be a reason to think your better or worse than anyone else. After all, we’re all the same on the inside.
Look when I was a kid, my grandmother told me it was raining because I made god sad. Outside of the potential to offend different families with different beliefs and putting me down, it completely ignores what is actually going on. Rain happens because water evaporated into the air, condenses becomes to heavy to stay within the atmosphere and falls. But children don’t understand the big words and you want to be honest. Again as an educator I try to tell as much of the story as humanly possible in a way they understand, by using my small words and taking the time to have more of a conversation. I tell children that when it rains, the water will eventually dry. That water turns into clouds and when the clouds get to big it squeezes the water back out. Not wrong, it gets the point across, but not the expiation that a scientist would approve of. Even better, it carries none of the potentially harmful aspects of my grandmother’s expiation.
You can use the same methodology to give a logical answer to everything around you. Why trees need there leaves, why the dog doesn’t like it when you pull its tail. Put whatever the answer is into terms they can understand. Use your little words. The trees need there leaves to get energy from the sun, pulling their leaves off is like me taking your mouth away. Everyone has wires in there body that let you feel things, demonstrate that adding that the dog has the same wires in it’s tail.
It’s not hard to tell the truth in a way that everyone can understand, having a chat about it can show their understanding of a topic and teach moral values. Regardless of how complex that topic is and how ethical the values of others are. As an educator I ask my colleagues and parents to be honest with their children and have that conversation with their child. In other words, don’t be my grandmother.
Activity of the week, Jelly sensory tray
you will need,
plain gelatine
water
food colure
bath toys
Make your jelly per packet instructions adding food colouring if you wish. Set in a tray with some of their favourite bath toys. Allow your child to play tough and feel the jelly.