Children discovering things for themselves

Tee, my cheeky fairy princess…..

It is common knowledge that experts have always advised parents to leave their children alone during play to allow them to learn about the world themselves. For example, if you give your child a set of blocks, then let him play with it himself. Don’t offer suggestions of what to build or worse, tell him what to build. Let him discover it for himself. Let him learn that when he releases a block, it falls; when he knocks over a tower, it collapses, when he lines them up in a row, he makes a train track or a snake; when he moves the blocks in different positions, he makes different things!

Sometimes, a child doesn’t do anything with the blocks. Perhaps he has been spoon fed with people telling him how to do things all the time or perhaps, he is lacking in confidence to even attempt to move the blocks. That’s OK. After allowing him 3 tries, give him a hint and take it from there.

I have always believed in this train of thought and recently, Tee discovered some physics with her own play time. I was so proud! She discovered that when she puts heavy object into water, the water level rises. She did this in the bath and she did this with a cup of water where she put glass beads in and noticed that the water level had gone up. This all started with a book about the thirsty bird who found a bottle of water in the desert except that the water was too deep for the bird to suck the water out. How did the bird solve his problem? Tee just had to try this!

Another time when she was much younger, she discovered that she could fill empty plastic bottles in the bath and squirt the water out and also that they produced bubbles when squirted under water. So fun!

Recently, she discovered that when she squeezed those plastic bottles of water towards her ‘down there’, that it was ticklish!!!! She was so excited and yelled out to me to show me how she tickled herself with water.

I almost fainted.

Masturbation at four?

I didn’t want to make a big deal about it so just entertained her and laughed along, subtly trying to distract her to do other things. But I’ve noticed now that she plays her tickle game at almost every bath time!!!

*faint*

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