Yes, it’s been a very long time since I last blogged… The last few months have been crazy non-stop… Well, last week, I stopped by my friend’s house because I was in the area. I got to spend some time w/ her 2 kids. Her older one just turned 3 years old. As I was trying to talk to my friend, he kept wanting to play with me. We started building a tower on his colorful pegboard. Once we finished our tower, he took the four pegboards and started quizzing me:
B: What color is this?
Me: Blue!
B: Greeeeaaaaat Joooooob! Now what color is this?
Me: Red?
B: Veeeerrry Niiiiceeeee…. How about this one?
Me: Yelloooooow.
B: Yesssss! Gooood.
This quizzing continued for about 15 minutes. I couldn’t stop laughing. First, it was ridiculously cute. Second, I was dying because I could definitely hear his mom’s tone and and intonation in the way he said “great job,” “very nice,” or “good.” He was talking to me as if I was the child. He was only repeating what he hears from his mom and other adults… We often talk about how scary it is “what kids pick up from adults.” They pick up words, actions, context, attitude, and even intonation. They truly observe everything…. and often repeat in the right context!
I was reminded how important it is for us adults to model for the little ones around us! I’m also guilty of not being the best model around kids at times. But if you’re around kids often or all the time, you really need to think twice about how kids are catching your behavior, actions, words, and attitude. As they say, monkey see, monkey do!
How can you change what your behavior, actions, words, and attitude to be a better model this week?
gloria s. lee 