Tag: study
Reena’s Xploration Challenge #252- Family Day Care: A Curious Adventure
Family Day Care* was my career choice for many reasons, not least of which, was the revealing nature of small children in group settings. Call me crazy but what many seem to define as a mundane, labor intensive, messy, job, was a fascinating and exhilarating adventure to me. I don’t ever remember not being curious about what makes people ‘tick’. Firsthand observation of ‘raw’ human beings was a golden opportunity and lots of fun.
Babies to Big Kids and girls and boys, all from endlessly variable homelives, made for a study of innocent, intrinsic human nature like no other.
Let me assure you, I have no doubt that boys and girls are different. Their concerns, socializing preferences, and strengths, are not absolutely or universally at odds but, after 46 years of observation, I’m convinced they’re not the same ‘animal’.
May I say, finding this out made me extremely happy because the two genders were obviously created to complement each other… and sometimes to keep each other in ‘check’. I can’t say I haven’t noticed exceptions to the gender tendencies, but those were not game changers, in my opinion.
There’s a thing known as “parallel play”. You can observe this most often in boys. Two boys can build towers of blocks or draw pictures while sitting beside each other never exchanging a word or glance. Men do this too. A father and son could replace a roof working side by side in almost total silence yet, if you asked them about the day, they’d probably tell you they had a great bonding experience.
Girls want feedback. They use language and eye contact far more than boys and feel shunned if they don’t get enough of it.
Girls are far better at manipulation and what I fondly call ’emotional torture’. My four-year-old daughter used to keep a group of larger boys terrorized by telling them mostly untrue things. A number of tearful complaints were about my daughter claiming she’d keep their jacket for herself or wouldn’t come to their birthday party. Those idle yet effective threats would not have as much power if used on other girls.
There are many more differences but those were the first two I thought of that seemed to be constant throughout the years. Keep in mind that these are little kids and as people grow, they become more complex and varied in their responses. I’m reporting my observations of kids at an elementary level because those differences seem instinctive when they represent a 46-year pattern.
So, my life was never dull and endlessly interesting during those day care years and my heart was always full. I would do it all again!
*Family Day Care is the caring for children in your own home. It differs from “baby sitting” by usually being licensed by the state and having a nursery school curriculum, safety trainings, and care with a professional attitude.
https://reinventionsreena.wordpress.com/2022/10/13/reenas-xploration-challenge-252/
Reena’s Xploration Challenge #248- Excavating History
We have a phrase this week to serve as your writing prompt.
…passing through a doorway in history
There is no restriction on format of the piece. There is no last date either, unless you wish to be featured in the Weekly Wrap.
Duncan’s head hurt.
His pursuit of truth is a hunger he knows can never be satisfied in a conclusion. He wonders, “Is the past truly a mosaic of endless opinions or is there more?”
To become an observer by passing through a doorway of history would give him more evidence but trusting his eyes and ears has limitations. The “who he is”- a being marinated in modern day culture and sensibilities- would be a tremendous disadvantage to an unbiased reenactment. He knows that the understanding of history is disserved by only studying collections of modern intellectual interpretations after the fact. It needs to be excavated for evidentiary fossils that prove each past moment was once alive and three-dimensional.
So, Duncan reads everything he can find… journals and diaries, essays and articles.
His focus is on the founding of his country. Not from any patriotic duty or political position, as one might guess, but because he has Spatial Sequence Synesthesia, and his personal ‘mental map’ oddly always balances on a fulcrum in the late 1800s. His internal visual timeline stretches to infinity toward the past and future from the 1860s every time he withdraws his focused perspective and tries to ‘see’ all of Time. His ‘gift’ is either a peculiar mental defect or a sign of something special and Duncan doesn’t believe in coincidences, so he feels compelled to understand more. He’s somehow tied to that period.
I wish him well.
He may never find a full understanding, but Duncan doesn’t care as long as he collects knowledge that he can absorb through his 5 senses and his heart, bringing the past alive again.
He’s a guy I’d like to talk with!
Girls will be girls…
I’ve watched small children for almost 40 years (as a Family Day Care Provider) and there are some “stereotypes” that, I must admit, are true.
Little girls and little boys are definitely “wired” differently.
This post is motivated by my anxiousness about the, soon to happen, summer school vacation. My 7-year-old granddaughter, her 6-year-old (girl) cousin and a 3 1/2-year-old girl, will be in my care every weekday throughout the summer. I am still recovering from the week-long Spring break with this trio.
Throughout my day care years, I was blessed by groups with more boys than girls. Don’t get me wrong, little girls make the better companions when alone. They are much more verbal and enjoy engaging with adults, a bit more. But, put them in a group, and there is competition without limits.
My scientific curiosity, about human behavior, always stems from Nature and, our similarities to animals. Females compete for the reason of propagating the human species. It is simply hard-wired into their nature, in my opinion. This further explains the many girls who find keeping “male friends” much more satisfying and less complicated through their early years. For me, the valuing of female friendships didn’t appear until after I was married with children. The “drama” created by groups of females always detracted from the uncomplicated “rough and tumble” play that I enjoyed most.
Many may feel this post is terribly sexist…to those who think this, I say, “Men and women are different. Instead of ignoring this, I suggest we embrace and value those differences.”
I am speaking from years of experience. Personally, it’s been a life-long study with irrefutable results.
The competitiveness of girls seems to be, grounded in, their superb awareness of non-verbal clues and their delightful social abilities. One example that I remember clearly:
A 4-year-old girl was sitting in a pout over not getting her way. I asked a 4-year-old boy to offer her some apple slices for snack. The girl turned her head away from the offer, since she wasn’t yet over her disappointment. The boy reacted with a shrug and happily kept the extra portion for himself. Then I asked a 3-year-old girl to make the same offer to the “pouter”. (There was “bad blood” between these two girls from other competitive moments but I hoped it might be the first step in getting them to be friendlier with each other.) The 3-year-old, happily offered the girl some apples. Miss Pout rolled her eyes and folded her arms refusing the apples. Without hesitation, the younger girl threw the apple slices in her lap and stormed away.
The boy was not at all insulted…even at 3, the girl who was offering the apples, knew she had been snubbed and, furthermore, took it quite personally.
I find the experiment quite interesting and don’t think a world made, from all of either reaction, would be fun. The boy’s reaction was far easier for me though! The girls battled daily after that and to my distraction.
Of course, these reactions can happen from either sex. Some boys are wound tighter and some girls are not as easily insulted. I am just offering a well-studied norm for your consideration. Actually, being aware of this tendency has allowed me to avoid putting girls “at odds” with each other and has reminded me to offer boys more “How do you think they feel?” moments too.
So my plans for summer are many well thought out activities. There will be well-defined consequences for extreme bickering and rewards for showing good-sportsmanship and sharing. Keeping decisions fewer and options greater may be my only salvation!
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