Hello everyone, welcome to Trusting Children podcast episode 1! I’m Aisha your host, I’m a mum of 3, ex nursery teacher and early childhood development is my passion. I started this podcast to help parents respectfully navigate parenthood. I’m really excited to be launching this show, thank you for taking the time to tune in and listen.
Have you ever heard people telling you “you need to observe your child” and thought “sure but why and how do I do it?” This episode is for you!
Let’s talk about observations. What are they, why should we do them and how do we do them? I promise you by the end of this episode the idea of observing your child won’t seem scary or strange to you. You will understand the value of observations and you will come away with a clear idea on how to do them.
I want to start with WHY observations can be so valuable to us as parents. When we take the time to observe our children, we can really notice what skills they are currently working on developing. For example, when my twins were about 1year old I noticed them trying to stuff objects in different crevices. Now, yes, this could sometimes be inconvenient (plastic lid in heater, don’t tell my landlord), but rather than getting annoyed by what they were doing, I observed and noticed that they were repeating this action multiple times with various resources. I was able to see and understand they were working on the fine motor skill of “posting” (which all young toddlers love by the way) and I was able to provide them with something appropriate to satisfy that skill (DIY coin box) and redirect to if necessary.
Observations allow us to see what our children are capable of, they can help us see the obvious things like what our children are learning, what they are interested in, what they like, what they dislike. But we can also get an insight into what developmental phase they are in, what is their emotional state or what life events they are trying to process. For example, when my daughter was 2 years old, not long after the twins were born I was observing her playing with some giraffes. She was talking about how the baby giraffe is going to sleep with mummy and daddy and the sister giraffe is sleeping here “all on her own.” Because I was attuned and listening to what she was saying I immediately picked up on this. At the time, the babies were with us in our bedroom, and she had her own room. She still came to our bed every night, but this was something that was obviously on her mind and she was trying to figure out. So I made sure I gave her lots of extra attention during the day and we talked about why the babies are in my bedroom and how she used to be in my bedroom when she was a baby, how when they grow up they would be together in a room with her.
Observations help us gain a better understanding of our children’s behaviours and actions. By noticing the way our children behave, what they say we can determine if there is something that is making them feel worried. For example, when Mark used to go away for work I noticed that my daughter would become increasingly challenging and unhappy at bedtimes. By observing and trying to understand her behaviour I could begin to help her through this difficult emotion she was having. We were able to talk about how she misses him and how he most definitely misses her, and how when we love someone very much we miss them and it makes us feel sad but that’s because of how much we love each other.
Observations help us understand our child’s point of view. When observing we are forced to slow down to their pace and take in what our child is doing or how they are feeling, see things from their perspective which can help with understanding the reasons for certain behaviours. For example, walking back from the playground, my daughter about 14-15 months old, she had just learned how to jump off a step and wanted to do this on every single step on the way home. I could ignore her need and rush her to move along, but I knew this was something she had been working hard on and has just achieved so it helped me understand why she was stopping at every doorway.
Tonnes of benefits.
How do we start? If you’ve never done an observation before don’t sweat I will guide you through this. If you are an experienced observer and you may need a refresher stick around and if you think you know everything then listen too, and let me know if I’ve missed anything!
To some of us the idea of an observation may seem very formal, like pen and paper classroom style. If that’s what you are thinking, I want you to get this image out of your head. Observing our children at home absolutely doesn’t need to be a formal process. We want it to become part of our day, part of our routine, we want it to become natural to us. But in order for that to happen we have to start somewhere. Take this first step.
To be honest, you are probably already doing this every day you might just not be aware of it. We are observing our children pretty much all day every day. The difference, when we are talking about observations like this, is that we are intentional about noticing what is going on. It’s like the difference between just switching off while brushing your teeth every night, or purposefully tracking which teeth you’ve brushed and for how long so you are sure they all have received the same attention (ridiculous analogy but I can’t think of a better one). It’s all about NOTICING. If pen and paper are you thing, go for it, write things down. Some parents like to keep a little journal of their child. But the most important thing is really, REALLY NOTICING. Notice what they are doing, notice what they are saying, notice how they are behaving, notice how they are responding. This is the key and if this is the only thing you take away from today, it should be this. Make the effort to NOTICE.
We can distinguish 2 different types of observations. Spontaneous ones and intentional ones. The spontaneous ones are the type of observation you probably already do, so all you need to do is to take more notice of them. This is when our children say or do something suddenly that make us think “Oh wow, that’s what’s going on.” Like my daughter playing with some animals and telling the sister zebra she can’t come in because she needs to wash her hands so no-one gets sick (this was at the start of the pandemic). It gave me an insight into what was on her mind. It could be that you notice your baby working on the skill of rolling and one day they cross their legs, the next day they swing one leg all the way over and the following week they are swinging their hips round, almost rolling.
So when you find yourself thinking that, take an extra mental note… and high five, there you go, you’ve just done an observation!
The second type is intentional observations. This is when we dedicate some time to observing our children playing. This is a bit harder, because for many of us it feels unnatural. When spending time with children we feel like we must be DOING something with them all the time, we must be entertaining them. We might worry that not doing anything could be considered lazy or even negligent. This is where I am so grateful to have found the teachings of Montessori and Magda Gerber. They reassure us that observing is absolutely not negligent. In fact it is the complete opposite, while observing we are giving our child our full attention. 100% of our focus is on them. Contrary to what it might feel like when we are talking, playing, doing things with and sometimes for the children we don’t actually pay them our full attention. We are more focused on what we are saying or doing that we don’t notice or listen to the child. Sitting back and really noticing what your child is doing will help you learn a lot about them. You will realise that they are fantastic at entertaining themselves. Also, we don’t run the risk of taking over our child’s play. Another thing that can feel strange but is so important is to try to refrain from constantly talking to your baby about what s/he is doing. It’s not supposed to be a running commentary but rather a calm, peaceful, quality time together. Don’t be afraid of the silence. You might hear some interested expressions from your baby or some sentences from your child.
This takes some practice, so take it slow and start with short bursts of time. Dedicate 3 minutes, then 5 minutes, then 10. Once you get used to it you will really start seeing the value of it. The more you observe, the more you will learn to notice and the more information you will collect and understand the importance of it. It’s totally up to you how often. If you can manage every day, then go for it, if you can do it once a week that’s also perfect. Like I said the most important thing is being aware and noticing, not sticking to a timer.
“To spend some time sitting peacefully in the room while your infant is doing her own thing […] will make you much more sensitive to your child’s needs, her tempo and her style.’ – Magda Gerber
Now I want to reiterate that observing our children at home is not a formal thing. This absolutely doesn’t mean sitting there with a stern closed off look and not speaking or responding to our child. Of course, we talk to them, we respond to them when they interact with us, but we prioritise watching and we make sure that the play is THEIR play, that THEY are leading it. It doesn’t have to be silent, but the children should be the ones making most of the noise 🙂
I’m going to give you a few examples as this will look different for different ages.
A non-mobile baby, you may be sitting or laying on the floor next to them. You may notice them grabbing their left foot, giggle and then look straight at you. “You found your foot! How did that feel, did it tickle?” Eye-contact is a great and easy to remember rule of thumb to know when to speak. Or your baby is lying on a mat and a loud motorbike drives past outside, you see her/him startle and turn towards the noise then to you. “Whoa, that was a loud noise! That was a motorbike driving past outside the window.”
It’s important to remember that even the youngest babies deserve the time and space to lead their play. We want to avoid waving objects or toys at them and and allow them to decide what they want to do. Babies are incredible observers, we can learn a lot about observations from them. They will observe the world around them, they will watch a ray of light coming through the window, or a tree waving in the wind. Before babies can grab objects, their body is their first toy. If you spend some time observing you will really see how they explore and play with their body.
An older baby might crawl over and bring you an object. You can say “oh, thank you for bringing me this blue ball.” And then you wait. You don’t need to suggest “oh let’s roll it, let’s put it in this box, let’s hide it” wait for your baby to make the next move. They will probably take the ball back from you, maybe pass it back and forth a few times. If there is a box in the vicinity, they might try to put it in… and if they do you know it has come from THEM not from you, and this is a skill they are working on.
When playing with a toddler I want you to remember, have at the forefront of your mind is IT’S THEIR PLAY. So if they’re lining up animals, and they want you to be involved, you can. You can hold the animals in your hand and they can take them from you, you can sit near them as they line them up, the key is not to project our own play. With toddlers especially, they are so capable and up to so many things, that if we suggest one little thing it can totally change the course of their play. Whilst if we can sit on our hands, we might be so amazed at what they do. For example, I was watching one of the twins playing with the coloured rainbow. What he was doing didn’t really make sense to me, he was kind of placing the pieces flat on the ground. I fought the urge to correct him and “show” him the right way of stacking it. I waited and he then got some cars and placed a car in the middle of each semi-circle. If I had interfered I would have spoiled his original idea.
Remember most toddler play DOES NOT look like it does on Instagram and Pinterest. When you see beautiful structures built out of colourful blocks, rainbows, roads etc, I don’t want to make anyone feel bad, but I can guarantee that it was not setup by a toddler. And older child, absolutely but no way a 1 or 2yr old is going to build an elaborate structure like that. So don’t expect that of them, let them explore the materials and resources in their own way and they WILL eventually get to that. I can give you another example of my twins playing with magnetic tiles. Over time, they went from sticking the tiles to each other, to experimenting with other surfaces they could stick them on (baby gate, radiator), to being able to stack them vertically. By observing them I could appreciate and see their exploration and development happening.
With an older child, who is verbal they will want a lot more interaction from you. I find it much easier observing babies than my 4year old. She wants me to play with her, she gives me characters or animals and then gets frustrated when I say something or put them in the wrong place. Again, we come back to…LET THE CHILD LEAD. Yes, it does sometimes feel strange, and it took us both a while to learn, but now I wait for her to tell me. The daddy goes here and he’s going to bed. I follow her instructions. The mum and the baby are going out now, bye-bye, I follow her lead. It’s HER play. I can play and observe at the same time. During play is often when older children process life events, things that are on their mind, their worries, their fears. If we take over, that opportunity for them to express their thoughts is shut away.
Observations help with so many aspects of being a parent, you will see throughout this podcast I will keep referring back to how important observing our children is and how much it can do for us as parents. So who’s ready to start? I’d like you to decide on a time today or tomorrow, give yourself a time (after breakfast, after nap) and dedicate 3—4 minutes to sitting down and observing your child. Key points are noticing and letting them lead. If you and your child are not used to this, start slow. Start with 1 minute. If they are expecting you to keep talking or doing something tell them, be honest “I’m going to sit near you and watch you play for a little bit.”
If you go to my Instagram page @trustingchildren I will be sharing more tips and ideas on how you can start with observations. If you would like to share your observation with meAlso, if you’d like a little observation reminder printable sheet then sign up to my newsletter on my website www.trustingchildren.com and you can get a link to download that.
That’s all from me today, thank you for taking the time to listen to me. I hope it was useful, I’ll see you in the next episode. We’re all in this together and we have got this!
