Building a Puzzle

Yesterday Stephanie and I sat down to work on her farm puzzle together. She loves puzzles, but when we work on them, she gets frustrated if she can't immediately get the pieces to fit. (It's one of those wooden peg puzzles, where each piece has the same picture printed in it's correct spot.) She can match the piece to its spot, and often can put it in by herself. But if she doesn't get it right away, she'll ask for help instead of continuing to try. This doesn't bother me, because she's only 19 months old, and I think the fact that she can even get the pieces in some of the time is pretty good.

Well, after working on it with her for a little while, I needed to get up and do some things. She dumped the puzzle out again, and sat on the floor to work on it by herself. I puttered around, doing some things for about 15 minutes. At that point, I heard her exclaim "Stephanie, Yay!" I checked on her, and every piece was in it's correct spot. She proceeded to play with the puzzle for another 20 minutes, taking each piece out, and putting it back in. She never once asked for my help.

Now, you're probably thinking i'm just bragging about my child here, but honestly that wasn't the purpose of this post. (Although, as her Mommy, i'm amazed and proud, and want to tell everyone I see what she accomplished.) No, the real reason i'm writing about this is that it taught me a valuable lesson: I don't always need to sit with her while she plays and help her accomplish things. She's capable of doing it on her own, and in fact I think that sometimes it's better for her to work it out herself.

When I left her alone, she had to problem-solve, try, get frustrated, and keep trying until she accomplished what she was trying to do. All too often, as parents we want to jump right in and solve these problems for our children. But if we always do that, they will never learn to do it on their own. Building that puzzle without my help was a huge boost to her confidence. She was so proud of herself, and seeing that pride on her face made me happier than the fact that she built a puzzle on her own.

She is growing into an independent little girl, and it's important for me to foster that. I need to step back more often, and let her struggle through things on her own. It's hard, because I hate to see her get frustrated when she's working on something. But it's a valuable life skill for her to learn, and she proved to me last night that she is more than capable of doing certain things on her own. I'm a very proud Mommy today :)

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