As adults, we can forget that there doesn’t always have to be a direct cause and effect to everything. We have learned to be focused on responsibility, learning life’s lessons, trying to minimize mistakes, and multi-tasking–we might forget that for children, life is about trial and error. Many lessons and things are learned through experimentation for a child and as parents we can remind ourselves to not only expect some regular experimentation, but to tolerate and encourage it.
Think over your own childhood–remember all the experimenting and “messing around” that you did? Maybe you’ve forgotten all the discoveries you made or the life lessons (not to mention some academic realities) that you learned just by experimenting and trying things out. Maybe you learned about gravity, or that wet cement is more slippery than dry or some other universal truths by experimenting. You might have even discovered some of your still-favorite food combination and made-up recipes just by messing around in the kitchen or at a friend’s house. As old, reasonable parents, we can forget that experimentation is a huge, important part of childhood.
With experimentation comes messes, mistakes, things might get broken or used for things other than their “original intention.” This can definitely get aggravating. That new shirt you bought for your twelve-year-old may be newly tie-dyed and that can be amazingly irritating. And, I probably shouldn’t even mention all the hair cuts, clothing styles, and room décor that start as experiments. What I am trying to gently remind us is that experimentation is a big part of childhood–it is how children learn and how they discover who they are and what they do and don’t like. As parents, we don’t have to love it and we can definitely set limits and boundaries and rules–but we also should have some tolerance and understanding of all that natural experimentation.
Also: Responsible Business Owners Still Experiment