What have we learned?

Look! Kalina "reading" to Elise
on her lap!

We've recently discovered that Kalina is a rather abstract thinker. Looking back, we've known this for quite some time (after all, we've spent much of the last 3 1/2 years conversing with blocks instead of stacking them). But there's just something about an official personality description from a real book Matt recently finished that drives the point home.

Abstract thinking informs much of what Kalina does. And although she's very concrete about the precise way in which Lamby and Rudolph must be bathed before their bedtime, she'll also toss them into an imaginary dryer when they're finished and reassure them that no raccoons will come into the room in the middle of the night.

Of course, the last thing I want to do is pigeonhole Kalina at such a tender age. And all young kids tend toward the abstract--just look at their artwork. But understanding the girl's tendencies really explains a lot. And particularly, for this post, anyway, about how she learns.

Matching outfits from Grandma!

I've noticed that Kalina, for the most part, only likes to learn about what she wants to learn about, when she wants to learn about it. She is, therefore, a veritable expert on the sewer system, the planting of seeds and various family members' favorite animals and colors, while she flat-out refuses to even try to write her name, and would much rather spell words than attempt to read them. For a good six months of her 2s she showed a strong hostility toward numbers.

If I can pretend I'm not actually trying to prepare her for kindergarten or real life or anything, it can be fun to observe Kalina in the process of traditional learning:

Me, in my best enthusiastic teacher voice, trying to copy preschool's Ms. Dorie, who as yet has been the only one successful in this particular task: Hey, Kalina, wouldn't it be fun to write a K? Look, you can connect the dots!
Kalina: You do it, Mommy.
Me: Why don't you try? Wouldn't it be fun to write a K for Kalina? Look, just draw a line from this dot to this one! (I show her and trace it with my finger.)
Kalina: But I don't want to.
Me, imitating the voice of a K, because sometimes this works: Write me, Kalina! Please, I'd love to be written!
Kalina: (smile)
Me: Should we use pink? Here, I'll help you!
Kalina, allowing herself to be helped, but as we near the end of the K, scribbling over the whole thing: And the K went into the sewer! Now it's getting hooked up to the balloon, and the balloon is pulling it out. They go onto the houseboat for a ride, and now they're going fishing! More scribbles follow.

Grandpa Tom visited and we
took him out for ice cream
and bunnies at the museum!

Or maybe we're trying to do phonics flashcards (yes, we picked up a set for $1).
Me: Hey, Kalina, U is for umbrella! Uh, uh, umbrella! (Holding the flashcard over my head.)
Kalina, finding other flashcards: The kitten needs an umbrella because it's raining. The horse gets dressed up in its rainboots and they go splashing in puddles together. Splash, splash, splash (bouncing on the rug)! The chick wants to come too! And now off they go in an airplane! (Flying the cards around the room.)

Sometimes, learning just doesn't work very well with an abstract thinker. But wouldn't I be a fun teacher for any other kid? Sometimes I try educational toys on Kalina, but the kittens don't usually like them so we quit, or turn them into rocketships so the kittens can fly to the moon instead. You may say that other kids are like this, too, but I have seen other kids, and they enjoy writing their names--mine has only done it once for her preschool teacher, whom she adores, but definitely not for Mommy, whom she also adores.

Who's teaching who how to "fix" that car?

The amazing thing, to me, is that Kalina at 3 1/2, even with her aversion to studying anything that's not soft and fuzzy (or mucky and gross, like the sewer system), has learned to legitimately read a tiny bit, spell decently well, write a teeny tiny bit, count to 100 (with ambitions of counting to a trillion) and even add a little, all in 30-second increments of teaching, with a glimmer of a promise to continue. Yay, Kalina! I honestly don't know how you did it.

Honestly, our best success has come from educational placemats. Do they make them for advanced English composition or world history?

Learning, itself, is such a tender topic. Do you start flashcards at 18 months, or wait until they beg you for a set because all their friends have them? Do you enroll them in programs and watch educational TV, or cross your fingers and hope nature takes its course and your child learns through thin air? Do you worry or not?

I've got a kitten on my shoulder!

I remind myself all the time that it's certainly not a competition. Each child learns at their own pace and their own way. But then why, when we get ready to sign them up for preschool, do we feel the sudden rush to make sure they know their planets, in order, not to mention deliver a full princess education, so that we can be positive they'll keep up and not be laughed at?

And then there are the playground comments to the tune of: "My child loves flashcards!" or "Watch my 1-year-old count to 10!" Which are all fine and good, until you notice your own child detests flashcards, except as plates for her animals, and was extremely adverse to numbers for just the longest time. Then, you miserably smile and congratulate the happy counting toddler while your own sits just as miserably on the bench beside you at the park, begging to go home, and you can hardly blame her.

Not that I mind bragging--I think it's great when parents are proud of their kids, and I've probably had my moments. But they're more to the tune of, "After Kalina bathed all her animals last night, she put them down for bed so sweetly and sang them all little songs!" Which is certainly brag-worthy in its own right--it just won't get her into college.

[The truly ironic part of all this is that I'm pretty sure Elise will love flashcards, and with her older sister to teach her, she will probably be counting to 10 by this time next year. A great imitator, she already knows how to do her sister's jack-in-the-box dance from music class, change a poopy diaper on her doll (including carefully and proudly shaking the "poop" into the toilet from the diaper), and that 3-year-olds who happen to clean their plate receive what's known as a "treat," which must be delicious but is unfortunately never offered to 1-year-olds. She can also mime just about anything she wants done--"That cookie into my mouth, please," or, "Those balloons, yes, the ones tied to the real estate sign, in my hand, please."]

Possibly the most infuriating part of educating kids is that almost everything you do for them is wrong, depending on the context. Research shows that toys make kids smarter--it also shows that toys spoil them. Do you go along with the wise advice that you shouldn't fill your house with toys, or the wise advice that kids need lots of fun things to expand their minds? Shouldn't a stick and a rock be enough for any kid? So why isn't it, so often? And did you really have to take them to the museum? Shouldn't they be content in their own backyard? I don't pretend to know the answers, but either way I'm visited by mommy guilt. Sometimes I throw caution to the wind and just have fun with the little tykes before they're shipped off to kindergarten. For this reason, we're "only" enrolling Kalina in 2-day-a-week preschool next fall, and I take the girls out for ice cream more than I probably should.

Any way I look at it, however, both Kalina and I are both learning a lot. Her that by counting her kittens she can better assess how many servings of brownie a la mode she'll need, and me that by not forcing Kalina to count her kittens, she's more likely to actually do it. And in the end, I still believe my child is brilliant. In her own abstract way.