Teachable Moments

What do children need most from us? Many children are spending substantially less time in one-on-one engagement with adults, particularly loved adults. More time with parents, grandparents, uncles and aunts, or neighbors is being replaced by managed time in groups. At the same time, there is more pressure on parents to recognize their responsibility as educators, a reasonable imperative, but one that often leads to instruction, quite often self conscious and well-meaning intrusions into the child's experience.

What children need more of is authentic time with adults: relaxed times of conversations, nurturing, and the give and take of mutually interesting interactions. It is through conversations with adults, watching adults do real things, and having adult attention focused on their own efforts that children learn the most. Children need adults in their lives who know that what motivates children is to have their questions answered, not the adult’s. They need adults who stimulate more questions than provide answers – who ask "why?" and "how?" and "what do you think?" and "can you tell me about it?" Instead of teachable moments, look for learnable moments, when children are doing the work of seeking to understand or master new skills.

How do we know when we have crossed the line from mentor to teacher? Certainly there are many opportunities for games of sorting or color identification, word or number play, what’s that? or how many? A good test is to look for the interest and joy in the child’s eyes, and if it is not there, do something instead that you both enjoy. Time together with your child is too short to spend on teaching, which sometimes has far less value than simply spending relaxed, fun time together.