…teachable moment.”
That’s what I was always told. And I believed it for a long time. That’s why conversation at the dinner table looks a little like this…
Keegan: “I had the most FUN at Enrichment Class today!”
Mom: “Really, honey. Don’t talk with food in your mouth. So, what did you do?”
Keegan (swallowing): “We builded this cool tower out of these fat, flat sticks.”
Mom: “The word is ‘built’, buddy. Not builded. That’s cool. Do you mean you used tongue depressors?”
Keegan: “No, mom. They were flat, fat sticks.”
Mom (chuckling): “They are tongue depressors, son.”
Keegan: “Oh”
Everyone returns to their meal. Keegan is corrected in the proper etiquette of table manners, and the correct term for those ‘flat, fat sticks’. But we heard nothing about how the tower was built, why he enjoyed making it so much and what else he thought he could make with those ‘fat, flat sticks’.
Not every moment is a teachable moment. Sometimes you just need to let things slide. Would you enjoy talking to someone that constantly corrected you? Probably not.
Kids give you numerous opportunities to teach them.
Pace yourself.
I love it when my kids don’t say words correctly! Piper used to call lipstick “slipdick” and chips were “bitches” HA!! I never corrected her. I figuered she would switch to the right word and sure enough…she did! We sure laughed A LOT!
Seth couldn’t say fire truck or any kind of truck for the longest time. Instead, he said f*** for truck. So, all we heard for a year was “wook at dat fire f***.”
One morning a few months back he said, “Dere goes a fire truck.” I was a tad bit disappointed. So was our life group. How sick is that?
The Moral of the Story:
You just said a ton in a very short example! Thoughts, ideas, creativity gets stifled by so many people along the way in our kids’ lives (schools, teachers, coaches, etc) because we want things done “right”. You are so right about the teachable moments—the times to teach the “right” and the times to teach their expressions are valued.
I used to looooove grammar to the point of constantly correcting people. How Yucky to be my friend, huh?! 🙂
In working with kids, I have recognized the need to ‘teach’ them through correction, but I’ve done my best to do so in a way that still allows them to express themselves.
What I will usually do is rather than interrupt their story to correct them, I will enthusiastically repeat back what they just told me, but I myself will use the right word. Lost yet? In the example of the tower:
Keegan (swallowing): “We builded this cool tower out of these fat, flat sticks.”
Me: You built a tower?! Out of tongue depressors?! Cool!!
And then…if the kid looks at you, confused, like you misunderstood the whole story, then you have a chance to say, “Well, those flat sticks have a name–tongue depressors. Isn’t that funny?”
It’s just like the ol’ “lead by example” thing…eventually kids hear other people use words like ‘built’ correctly enough to say them correctly themselves.
But the tendency to correct on the spot is so strong, isn’t it?! I can relate!
When my youngest daughter was about 2, she loved watching the fish swim in the aquarium. One day she noticed that we had one of those large, algae-eating Pleco fish (“pleco” is short for some long Latin word that I won’t even try to spell). She looked up at her mom and said, “Look, it’s a catfish!” My wife corrected her by saying, “No Anna, that’s a Pleco. Can you say Pleco?” To which my young marine biologist replied, after a moment of thought, “No Mommy, that’s a catfish. Can you say Catfish?”
Thanks for the great thoughts Gina!
Eric
Wow! Even the LifeKid’s director has those “not so proud parent” moments, and i’m not talkin’ ’bout the kiddos!
Thanks for being so honest! You make the rest of us feel like we might not be paying for years of therapy later for our kids. Well, maybe just one year! We all make mistakes.