Photo Day Wednesday, More Play Observations

Dear Families,

School photos for our nursery class will take place next Wednesday. Please hold on to your order form and payment and bring it with you on Wednesday. Because it is not uncommon for some young children to find it stressful to sit either alone or with a group while a stranger (even a kind stranger) takes a photo, I am trying to schedule our class's photo time for noon or around noon. My idea is to invite parents to come a bit early on Wednesday (at, say, noon) and come to the photo shoot with their children; my hope is that this will make for a more pleasant experience for our children. I will send a reminder about our early dismissal once our photo time is confirmed.

More Observations of our Children's Play

A few things I observed this week reminded me of a brother and sister, twins, who were in my nursery class a number of years ago in Baltimore. At that time, a birthday child and two helpers carried extra birthday muffins to administrators and other adults in the building (much as our current Butterfly children bring rice, bread, and soup upstairs). One day, the sister was helping a birthday child bring muffins, and the kind administrator wondered if the nice children bringing muffins would like to have another muffin themselves (we had already eaten some in the classroom). They did so, and the sister--who was extremely polite and gentle with her words and not a child prone to teasing--let her brother know how lucky she had been to have a second muffin. At this point, he exploded, saying, "School has been ruined for me, and I'm never coming back!" and ranted for a bit because his sister had received two muffins and he had only received one. Fortunately, he did come back to school, but I think of this story often when I see how intense children's reactions can be when they perceive injustice (even if the injustice is that somebody else wants a baby doll and the child who feels wronged wants every baby doll in the classroom).

Here are two contrasting stories from this week in our class. While one might be tempted to say one is a happy or good image and the other unhappy, I want to resist that; they are both normal pictures of how young children behave and react in the group. Both occurred on the same day and involved some of the same children, but any of our children could be in these situations.

Near the teepee, a child finds flower blossoms that have fallen off the mums from the festival the Friday before. This child is excited and shows me this discovery. Another child bursts into tears and pines for a flower blossom also. The first child, without a lot of talking or confrontation, really wants to take the discovery home to Mom. The second child becomes more and more upset because the first child will not yield a flower blossom and is insistent on going home right away. I help the second child discover other flower blossoms lying about, and the child and I find a way to secure the blossom so that it will make it safely home. This child calms down but asks me several time if the flower blossom is safe.

Later that same day, inside the classroom, this same child shows me an invisible ladybug with much joy. This child shows the ladybug to many children in the classroom; some are confused because there is no actual ladybug; others feel inspired and begin building houses and gardens for the ladybug. This theme continues for a number of minutes, and there is a happy hum in the classroom.

While it is impossible to rid the children's play environment of every item that might cause jealousy, experiences like the above compel me to try to simplify to make the inevitable conflicts and feelings of injustice manageable and something to learn from. In Your Child's Self-Esteem, Dorothy Corkille Briggs writes on "Lifting the Mask of Jealousy" and tells us that some jealousy and rivalry is helpful for children's development. When there are too many things to be jealous of, children go into a self-protection mode, shut themselves off, and no longer engage in the process of learning. I recommend this chapter and the entire book; several copies are available in the Kathrine Dickerson library in our school's lobby. In a similar light, author and lecture Kim John Payne tells that the right amount of conflict helps our children (and us) develop; when conflict gets stuck, children need our help to move things along.

Based on these experiences, I make choices. I used to have lots of pretend coins that nursery children loved to play with (setting up markets, kingdoms, and the like), but the conflicts over the coins became more and more intense, and the more pretend coins I provided, the more intense the conflicts (one child might want them all). I now tend to have fewer fine motor toys and more gross motor toys that work better when many children participate. Celeen and I have been pleased to observe a couple of large building projects involving many children. We will be observant to make sure that every child feels welcome, and we have had to help builders realize that it is possible to have space for one more child, or for a younger child, or for this child or that child.

Some conflicts are complex. Last week a child was using 3 baby dolls to reprise "Rub a Dub Dub, Three Men in a Tub," so it seemed normal and fair that this child use the dolls (which had been lying there waiting for someone to play with them); once another child noticed, however, other children became very upset. We did our best to support the child finishing the puppet show and honor the emotions of the other children, and eventually the first child finished the puppet show.

Some of the children, like butterflies, seem happy to play in many areas, and may have taken up a new game in a new part of the room even before a teacher can let them know we will help them into this or that house. While we will not force this child (now happily engaged elsewhere) to try again, we will observe and try to be present the next time before an exclusion occurs. On Wednesday, a child found a gem in the woods near the teepee; the same child who had found the flowers the first day was now very upset that there was not another gem to be found; the first child, without prompting, reached into a pocket and gave the gem over. It could be tempting in such a moment to comment or praise or the like, but I chose to observe silently. The first child seemed content to move on to something else and went on to enjoy the rest of the morning.

With warmth and light,

William Geoffrey Dolde