Stepping Stone Stages

One of the most helpful things for parents to know, as they accompany their children through development, is how some behaviors are stepping stones.  They are stages that come before, and are necessary to, a later goal.  If we don't understand the purpose of these stepping stone stages, we might spend energy and negative emotion on squelching them, when we only need to understand and manage them.  I'll give a small example and a bigger one.

Around 2 or 2 and 1/2 years old, children see many things as either/or.  There are two possibilities, in opposition.  They DO and they DON'T want juice.  They WILL or they WON'T try the pool.  They love you or they hate you.  Someone is their friend or their enemy.  Here is a scenario I witnessed:  A 2 year old boy plays with a new set of vehicles at the library.  He is one of those children who knows the names of vehicles.  He calls one vehicle a cherry-picker, placing a toy figure in it and putting it up to fix things.  Later, another child comes to the table and calls it a fire engine.  The first child mutters "It is NOT a fire engine, it is a cherry-picker".  This child likes to say what things are and what they are NOT.  He likes telling you what he did, and what he did NOT do. Before long, he will know that some people call it one thing, and some another. He won't need to say so clearly what IS and IS NOT.  But he can't grow into an understanding of nuance and difference unless he walks through the stage of YES and NO.  It's the first, basic differentiation.  Parents don't need to do anything but understand it, help him through it when it gets in his way, work around it if necessary, and wait for it to mature into a wider sense of possibilities.

Another example, harder for parents,  is that hoarding and claiming need to come before giving and sharing.    We want our children to be willing to share toys when they are playing and to respond to another person's longing, within reason.  But before they can give something, they have to solidify the notion that it is theirs to give.  They do this by claiming. It goes hand-in-hand with their budding sense of being an autonomous person.  Just as they are saying ME they are also saying MINE.  They are naming that there are things and people that belong to them, as part of understanding that they themselves are separate beings.  Until that sense of being autonomous, and having a claim on things, is established, giving up a possession feels like coming apart as a person.  Paradoxically, when you support a child's right to claim something, they move more quickly to being able to let go of it.  Once they feel that their stake in things is honored, they can experience the pleasure of giving.

Many times I have watched children in the Preschool who turn down requests from other children to see a toy that they have brought from home.  When teachers honor the child's right to decide about her own toy, and tell her she doesn't have to share it (while she may have to share school toys), she can relax into the sense of ownership. And before long, she is letting other children use her toy.  Some children take longer than others to move through the claiming stage, and some do it more intensely.  Either way, it is a stepping stone on the path toward a generous spirit. You can't give what you don't know as yours. 

It's still hard for parents, when a child is at the pool or in a play group and is strongly claiming something that other children want.  I'll write more next time about how to manage this stage, because while we are understanding it as a phase, children still need help as they move through it.  But I hope it helps to know that it serves a developmental purpose!