"Basic trust in the child to be a initiator, an explorer, and a self-learner."
In Janet Lansbury's blog post, "Would You Let Your Baby Do This?" she discusses the mastery of a piece of playground equipment by a 15 month old. Concerning this mastery, she says the following about basic trust: he's given the space, time, and freedom to discover his own way of doing things.
I am standing outside with the preschoolers. About six of them are on the climbing structure at once. One child begins to climb down from the structure when suddenly she turns and jumps the rest of the way down. Inside my heart lurches forward and urges my body to move with it, but I know these preschoolers. I trust that they know what they are capable of so I stand back and I watch. The daring jump of the first preschoolers is quickly noticed by the others and in a nanosecond a second preschooler is climbing, turning, and jumping. Then a third. Then a fourth... until all of them but one has reached the ground through jumping. The last preschooler hesitates before jumping. She looks at her friends, smiles, and jumps down.
This is basic trust. Believing in and giving the preschoolers room to try out this idea is important for them. Confidence is being built, ideas are seeing fruition, and curiosity is being satiated. This is true for every age, too. Allowing children room to show us what they can do and believing that they are capable beyond our help is one of the biggest gifts we can give children.Some resources on basic trust that we love:
http://www.rie.org/educaring/ries-basic-principles
http://www.janetlansbury.com/2011/11/would-you-let-your-baby-do-this/
http://www.janetlansbury.com/2012/01/100-fool-proof-parenting-7-key-ingredients/
For other Tumbleweeds blogs on basic trust:
http://tumbleweedinfanthouse.blogspot.com/2012/01/basic-trust.html
http://tumbleweedinfanthouse.blogspot.com/2012/01/basic-trust-our-new-climbing-structures.html
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