Persistence and problem solving are two skills that are very important. While they can be taught and are worked on extensively in school, some children naturally have these skills and others just don’t. I have one of each.
Example of a non-persistent child:
Honeybun pulls out the sock monkey matryoshka dolls we have (nesting dolls, 6 sizes of sock monkeys that split into tops and bottoms and fit one inside the other). After 2 minutes of trying to figure out how to match and nest the dolls, she starts complaining. “I don’t know how to do this, this is too tricky. Mommy, can you do this for me.” After another 30 seconds Honeybun exclaims “I can’t do this!” and storms off to another activity leaving the poor monkey bits strewn about the floor.
Example of a persistent child:
Sugarplum pulls out the stacking cups. She works at trying to get them to nest together. After about 10 minutes she starts banging the cups and lets out a sigh of frustration I encourage her by saying “Sugarplum, you need to find the biggest one and then the next biggest and put them inside each other.” Meanwhile, I finish a blog post, collect laundry from the dryer, count her underwear for our upcoming trip and locate the missing pair, dig out new cold weather pajamas for both the girls and begin folding laundry. Throughout I hear the cups tinkling as she continues working at nesting them. 50 minutes after starting the cups Sugarplum wanders into the room where I’m folding. She helps me hang up her dresses and I ask her if she got the cups all stacked. She replied “my back huwts” (she has this complaint a lot, usually when she sits for too long with her head hung over an activity) but when I wander through the play room I notice the cups properly stacked.
These two events happened simultaneously. After abandoning the monkey Honeybun helped me with the laundry and every time I would say Sugarplum’s name (usually referring to a piece of her clothing to Honeybun) she would reply “I’m doing the cups”.
Zero to Three (which is the National Center for Infants, Toddlers and Families) has some great suggestions for building persistence which include:
- Asking Children thoughtful questions to help them solve problems on their own
- Pointing out how actions helped them achieve a goal (Encouragement!!!!)
- Supporting child in new skills
- Modeling persistence
- Letting children make mistakes
More on these suggestions can be found at: Tips on Helping Your Child Develop Persistence
