I guess it’s really easy to get caught up in educating our children, filling them up,making them smart. I feel relieved when I’m reminded of the simple needs children have and of the inner drive they possess that pushes them to grow without our input. It’s comforting to think of my job as a support and a guide rather than a creator or developer.
One of the fundamental needs of children is a role in their environment. A place and a belonging fosters dignity.
So when I share activities like this one, I hope you understand that they came from little ev and not my premeditated efforts to do “educational activities” or to create an “early reader” or to give her an “advantage”. How shallow would my personal efforts compare to that vital drive she has been endowed by Mother Nature.
This “activity” in fact wasn’t an activity at all.
After one year, yes one whole year, of me writing the grocery list at the Saturday morning breakfast table and inviting ev’s input, she has decided to have her own list, even to write it. I suppose a year ago I could have attempted to fill her up with all my wonderful knowledge on how to sound out words, how to make columns and how to check off. I could have really insisted. I wonder if today she would have so joyously asked me to spell the words as she recorded them. I wonder if she would have felt dignity in her role to help fill the pantry had I enlightened her as to how it should be done.
I wonder if it’s usually easier for me to impart my knowledge than it is to have patience as she unfolds herself.
If I am aware on this one point, I have been grossly blinded by myself on so many others. I hope with all of ev’s unfoldings I can muster the humility to guide rather than to create.
ev Reaches 