The Half A Step Back Experiment
The Lab on A Wonderful Mess: Downloads to Support Your Parenthood
Little moments with low stakes are great places to practice letting go of control and allowing kids to learn new skills. Children develop in different ways, and some children (and their parents, too) benefit from scaffolding. The download below is just one way to think about opportunities for supporting your kids’ learning. Instead of thinking of a kid taking on a task or responsibility as one big whole, break it down into half steps and slowly give those pieces to them. As they step forward, you step back at whatever pace is right for your unique child. When you step back, you may find your assistance is still needed, but even just the pause gives you and your child some space to be surprised how it can go differently. Also, this may be a part of summer on A Wonderful Mess, but it goes without saying, you can experiment all year long.
A note on exercises or practices
Some of these exercises have appeared before in the early days of this newsletter when I was sending out an exercise weekly. I’ve updated, added to, refreshed, and put them into PDF form for your convenience. This makes it a lot easier than trying to dig through the archive. All downloads are located here. Here are some additional thoughts about exercises.
You may see writing exercise or mindfulness practice and think that’s not for me or that is not my thing. That’s okay, but it might be helpful; you will never know unless you try.
Sometimes you might have a lot on your plate and you just can’t do one more thing, and that’s okay too. Put it away for a rainy day.
We all have different ways we learn and process information. There is no one right way. So take what works for you in the way it works for you.
I have the official disclaimer at the bottom of the page, but these are for educational purposes only and do not qualify as therapy.