Teaching Social Skills

I was talking with the father of three wonderful children, and I boasted how Siiri can recognize all the letters of the alphabet! Really! At 1 year and 5 months she immediately points to the correct capital letter when I ask her, "where is E?". She only mixes up letters when she's distracted by something and that doesn't happen often - she is occasionally more focused than I am. She is absolutely unnaturally focused for a kid her age. I would be worried if she sometimes didn't have completely excited and playful moods as well.

So I told about Siiri's wonderful skill to that father and he got quiet. He contemplated whether to say anything about it but then told me in a slightly concerned way that it is not necessary to educate children so much. He is actually right. Lately there has been much talk about Lost Childhood - children are no longer allowed to simply behave like children. They are constantly prepared for something, whether it's kindergarten, school, or university. Some Estonian children who go to kindergarten have already been tutored in English language to give them an advantage in life. Their parents are so eager to make them into something that they never allow them to simply be kids. He casually added that preschool children gain more from education of character (e.g. role-playing) than from the kind of education that school is meant for. I quickly reassured him that Siiri is genuinely interested in such knowledge and no wrong has been done. Learning the letters was simply a logical next step to learning different animals from books. Siiri pointed at things, whether dogs or cats or different letters, and grown-ups told her what she was pointing at, and later asked her to point to the correct picture, giving her an opportunity to show off her new knowledge. But it still got me thinking that role-playing is a wonderful idea. The following day I went to the store and bought a couple of glove puppets - Hedgehog and Monkey.

For most of my closest friends, when I say role-playing, they think: GOBLINS , magical armor, DRAGONS, priests kicking ass and vanquishing evil, damsels in distress, LOOT! For children less than three years old, it's something quite different. There's puppets and dolls, make-belief scenarios being played out and later Spiderman costumes and pretending a mere twig found from under a tree is a lazer gun. I haven't done much puppet theatre to Siiri but recently she has started to show readiness for such games. Namely she often offers snacks to her dolls and stuffed animals. One time she took a small toy cow and dipped it head-first into a bowl of snacks and made content sounds as if the cow was enjoying the meal. Another time she took the hand of a Barbie-like doll, submerged it into a bowl of snacks and pulled it out with a snack between her finger and doll's hand, or in this context, with the doll holding the snack and then feeding it to Siiri.

Role-playing for children can be quite educative because it can give them experiences that they hadn't yet gotten from real life. Lately I've been especially concerned with Siiri's paralyzing fear of other young children, perhaps because of some earlier experiences with loud children running and screaming like lunatics (something Siiri sometimes does herself ). So I got a wonderful idea . I should role-play positive social situations to Siiri so she's better prepared for when she makes her first attempts at being social with other kids. It's not absurd in any way. Role-playing is frequently used for improving social skills and it is one of the best methods for this goal, possibly second best after real experience.

My first puppet-lesson to Siiri was Sharing. As an only child, Siiri rarely has to share with anyone else and she is very unaccustomed to it, so I decided to show her how sharing works. Siiri brought Monkey a snack and Monkey happily ate it. But then phlegmatic Hedgehog came along and said, "Monkey, you have a snack. I don't have a snack, but I would also like to eat it". So Monkey said, "Hedgehog, lets share!" and they both started munching on the snack. Siiri looked at it with confusion and then with disapproval. She made an agitated sound, came and took back the snack and cave it back to Monkey. I snickered and continued with the lesson. Again came the Hedgehog, "I no longer have a snack. Could I have some, too?". Happy and energetic Monkey said, "Come! I have plenty, I can share with you!" and they both started eating the same snack. Siiri was not pleased! She came, took back the snack, pushed Monkey further from Hedgehog, gave Monkey the snack, and kept a close eye on Hedgehog. Of course Hedgehog came along and acted all hungry. Monkey proposed, "Lets split it!". I carefully made the small puffy snack into two halves and put one in front of Monkey and the other in front of Hedgehog and made munching sounds. That seemed like the perfect solution until Siiri came, took away hedgehog's half a snack, gave Hedgehog a mean look and ATE IT!

All is well that ends well. Siiri got to use her imagination to solve a recurring problem and I got a good laugh out of it. Everyone wins. Except for the Hedgehog.

PS! Siiri currently has at least 16 actively used phrases or words. There are so many that she has forgotten, but I'm not counting those. She can follow simple commands, such as, "Siiri, please put the rabbit in your cupboard". I don't point to either the rabbit or the cupboard but she does it anyway. She understands most of every-day talk. Perhaps I should have taken it into account when I was reading some child developmental stuff out loud to Erkki. "They say Children Siiri's age should already be drinking from a cup. We assist Siiri, but do they mean she should be able to do it without any assistance? They can't possibly mean that.". The entire next day Siiri demanded to hold the cup herself and by nightfall had learned to drink from a cup unassisted.