Helpful Hints
We recently took the children to a regional children's museum, where they had a great time! They love the indoor playground that looks like a forest, with a waterfall and treehouse. There are a lot of play areas like a pretend grocery, diner, construction site, etc. The water area is fun. There's even a section just for the younger ones to play without being trampled by the school-aged kids. But my favorite is the section set up with machinery that kids can use to play with balls. There's a treadmill to run on that moves balls up to the ceiling, where they roll through tubes that take them to a dumping chute. Once the chute gets full, a bell rings, and the balls dump out on the floor (and all the "brave" children that happen to be standing under it). I love this place!
Of course there's a down side to all this, and for me it is all the signs posted throughout the museum, giving "helpful hints" to parents. This drives me nuts! They're most prevalent in the toddler/preschool area, because these are the kids who supposedly aren't reading yet. So while you're watching your 20-month-old daughter play with a ball on a ramp, your eyes are naturally drawn to this text posted all over the walls at adult eye-level. It's written by the child development "experts", who know so much more than the parents of children this age. They've studied children for years at the university, so they have the authority to tell parents of young children things like
"It's natural for your child to want to do something over and over again. It makes them feel good to be able to do something they can control"
and
"'How do you play with this toy?' There's no right answer! Children are naturally creative and they can easily come up with many different ways to play with the same toy! Encourage your child's creativity."
There's nothing like friendly, expert advice to make parents feel stupid, marginalized, and ill-equipped to raise their children without input from the professionals. Not only that, but there are times when their advice is debatable. For example, they assume that 4- and 5-years olds shouldn't be able to read yet. Oh no! My child was reading at age 4! Paranoia! Is something wrong with him? Am I pressuring him too much?
I put all this advice under the category of Oprah and "What to Expect when You're Expecting". Too many weeds in the with the good stuff so as to be highly annoying and worth avoiding.
Of course there's a down side to all this, and for me it is all the signs posted throughout the museum, giving "helpful hints" to parents. This drives me nuts! They're most prevalent in the toddler/preschool area, because these are the kids who supposedly aren't reading yet. So while you're watching your 20-month-old daughter play with a ball on a ramp, your eyes are naturally drawn to this text posted all over the walls at adult eye-level. It's written by the child development "experts", who know so much more than the parents of children this age. They've studied children for years at the university, so they have the authority to tell parents of young children things like
"It's natural for your child to want to do something over and over again. It makes them feel good to be able to do something they can control"
and
"'How do you play with this toy?' There's no right answer! Children are naturally creative and they can easily come up with many different ways to play with the same toy! Encourage your child's creativity."
There's nothing like friendly, expert advice to make parents feel stupid, marginalized, and ill-equipped to raise their children without input from the professionals. Not only that, but there are times when their advice is debatable. For example, they assume that 4- and 5-years olds shouldn't be able to read yet. Oh no! My child was reading at age 4! Paranoia! Is something wrong with him? Am I pressuring him too much?
I put all this advice under the category of Oprah and "What to Expect when You're Expecting". Too many weeds in the with the good stuff so as to be highly annoying and worth avoiding.
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