If variety is the spice of life, then we’re all salt and pepper around here these days. After 22 weeks on bedrest, I’m running out of new and different things to do with my toddler. He’s a very active 2 year old who loves to build, pretend, run around, and go new places. Running around, taking walks, and going to parks, the nature center, and museums — some of our favorite activities – have been (unfortunately) up to Daddy and visiting grandparents for months now as I rest and wait for the baby to come. Widget is doing fine, but I miss the active life!
Instead of new activities and trips, I’m learning to take a new attitude towards the everyday. For instance, on Monday we had a minor toddler disaster when Widget dropped the soda tab into the drink I was pouring. He got upset (it was almost dinnertime) and I moved to fix it. Then I stopped for a second and decided to use it as a learning experience.
Me: What’s wrong?
Widget, pointing: dere.
Me: How can we fix it? Let’s find a tool.
Widget, handing me a spoon: Soon.
Me: What do we do with it?
Widget, putting it in the glass: Here.
Me: That’s right! Let’s use the spoon to get the tab out of the glass.
And we did. Laughing and cuddling, we pulled the piece out of the glass and celebrated with a sip of orange soda. It wasn’t exactly a trip to the Building Museum, but it was a learning moment, a fun moment, and another chance for us to learn to solve problems together.
Solving problems is the key to doing science. In fact, it wasn’t until I was nearing the completion of my physics Ph.D. that I fully realized the reason why new science Ph.D.s are so in demand by industry. For the most part, the appeal may not lie in our mastery of subject matter, or the ability to discourse for hours (or years) on the distribution of this or that particular isotope in a particular sample of matter, but in the very nature of the Ph.D. training experience. By persevering through years of designing, building, and running experiments, analyzing data, and publishing the results, we learned to identify and solve problems.
Thinking about toddler science in this context, I am now realizing that so much of it is not memorization of facts or utilization of polarizing materials or litmus paper, but facilitating little discoveries by these littlest ones, and helping them learn to solve problems. So whether we’re confronted with a book lying across the tiny train tracks or a mess in the playroom, we now make a point of identifying the problem, coming up with a solution, and trying it. If it works, we celebrate! If it doesn’t work, we try something else.
Just think, every time we help a small child learn to identify and solve a problem, we’re helping them grow into small scientists, engineers, and problem-solvers. Talking about solving the problem increases verbal abilities; coloring a picture reinforces mastery and artistic inclinations — there is so much that we can do with our toddlers to help them learn and grow, and I’m finding it an incredibly exciting time. Even from the couch. 
Categories:
