REDDAM EARLY LEARNING SCHOOL WOOLLAHRA NEWSLETTER
Dee’s Message
20 May 2022
Dear Parents and Caregivers, We all know people in our lives who are really good at listening. And then there are those who we know are only listening with half an ear. The art of listening really is just that – an intentional act, to switch over from whatever is keeping us busy or on our minds, and purposefully to give our attention to what another person is saying. But what of small children? How do we help them to become better listeners? We can all think of those moments when we have tried to get a child to listen to us and known that not one word is going in! This is especially when they are completely engrossed in some activity, which has captivated their attention – or when they know that they are expected to do something which definitely doesn’t fit with what they want to do at that moment!
dutifully sit and listen intently to what we are saying. There always seems to be some other object which demands their attention, or something which needs to be played with, or a body which insists on wriggling around. This is not unusual, however, as there is so much happening in the complex neural pathways which are being laid down in the early years of a child’s life that it’s not unusual for their minds to be elsewhere when we are speaking to them. Children are also more likely to focus on only one activity at a time and they have not yet learned to see things from other perspectives apart from their own. One educator puts it this way, “Young children are developmentally the centre of their own universe. When absorbed in playtime, they may not be able to perceive anything outside of their little world.”
As we can also probably all admit, there are not many moments when our little people REDDAM EARLY LEARNING SCHOOL | WOOLLAHRA NEWSLETTER
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