When my daughter was two we had a small group of children who would occasionally come play at our house. Many of these children were a bit older than her and their favorite thing to do was climb up on top of our little playhouse. Kylie would watch them and desperately wanted to get up there with them. She would try to climb but finding it too much of a challenge she would call to me for help. I would come over and say, “I see you want to climb on the house. It would be fun to be up there. When your body is ready you will be able to climb there.” She was often frustrated that I wouldn’t place her up there, but I stayed with it. All summer she watched the children climb to the top of the little house, and she continued to try to scramble up there herself. Many days it would be just the two of us in the yard and she would spend a great deal of time working on it. One day I was in the garden and I saw that she was getting close.
She swung her leg over the edge and she was up. She scrambled to her feet on top of the house. She threw her arms in the air and, not to me or to anyone else, shouted, “My Body Did It!” It was clear that she felt the joy of her own success. She had confidence in her body and her ability to persist, persevere and problem solve. If I had set her on top of that little house, she would not have had any of that.
Principle: Basic trust in the child to be an initiator, an explorer, and a self-learner
— Melanie S.
