Literally

It sometimes slips my mind how literal my three year-old, Andrew, is. Take as an example what happened today. Yesterday, I told him not to drink my sugar out of the sugar container. You see, I have one of those containers like they have at coffee shops or Waffle House. So, instead he first poured it into a cup and then drank it. He made sure that I knew that he didn't drink it from the container.

He is a very literal child. If you tell him to clean his room, he takes everything and puts it in his closet. Therefore his room IS clean. You have to make sure to tell him that he needs to clean his room and his closet.

I know that I need to make sure that I explain things better to him, but it just doesn't seem to happen that way. As parents, we are so busy making sure everything is done and giving orders that we often forget what each child needs. They all understand and process things differently. I am sure all my teacher friends are very aware of that. However, as a mom I find myself forgetting it. I need to find more creative ways to express to my children what their boundaries are, what we expect, AND how proud we are of them.

So, my challenge to myself and to you is to figure out what language your child speaks, and then practice speaking it to them.