Pre-schooler Development - A Father's Thought

[Vishess]

I'm a father and a scientist by training. The latter point will become more relevant in a moment.

I'm interested in what people do at home with their preschoolers to encourage their development. Here, I'm talking about the usual things you will come across if you do some digging: fine/gross motor control, sensorial, numeracy, literacy, emotional/social development, resilience/grit.

I imagine this sounds like a science experiment to some, it kind of is and isn't I guess. What I know, by reading over years of scientific research by World leading paediatricians and psychologists is that we should care about preschoolers development in these areas and we should do this by focussing on learning through play (I know, some of you are thinking, you had to read science to figure that out!? Haha). However, as part of our social-norm, we outsource these services through nurseries, etc. This isn't the answer to the problem IMO and we can't rely on this. So what do you do?

The thing that gets me is complacency. I get a lot of this form some close friends and family: "they are a three, let them be, it will be fine", "just leave them to it", "aren't they too young?". I'm really not talking about military school here haha.. I'm literally talking about things like: "here's are some blocks, have fun, create something - let you imagination run wild, now - pause for a moment, can you sort them in size order, and if you can't, that's OK, we'll try later". This process has major benefits for children i.e. fine motor control, spatial navigation which has been shown to correlate with future math and problem solving skills, creativity, building resilience (which has been show to be associated with "success" < let's not get in to show you define that, but just go with it for now).

So I'm intrigued, what do you do? What do you really swear by? Or if you don't do anything - that's fine too! In fact, I want to hear from you, why don't you do anything? I know you care about their future, so what is the reason for letting them just be?

Hoping for some really cool discussion here - call it a Father's day present and hope this question doesn't "rub anyone the wrong way" ;)

I've never read a parenting book and I'm not here for parenting advice as I've already done it all. I'm here purely for the entertainment as there's far more to this site than parenting topics.

When I brought my eldest up initially I realised pretty early on that I had a very useful “roadmap”. By that I mean that I had my own childhood experiences from 2 university educated parents that I could simply follow and it would most likely lead to yet another university educated child. Not sure it is “instinct” as such. I am sure if I grew up in a different county/continent I would have done things differently. I never read many parenting books, but relied more on friendships with like minded mums (and dads) and by observing what nurseries do. It is an often spouted fact that 80pc of a child’s brain is formed by the age of 3. I have had several very interesting conversations with friends who have grown up in eg foster care/less involved parents of their own for whom certain things like constantly talking and playing with a child and reading to a child did not come instinctively or naturally.

Which to be honest is off the scale #mansplaining

💯 this.

So what exactly is the point of this thread? “Have you considered playing with your kids, I hear it’s really good for them?”

I have no idea why someone found OP condescending or offending. OP is asking what you are doing with your children to encourage their early development. Or, if you think you are not doing anything, just say that.

Answering myself.
My DD loves when I read her books, so I do that, and make sure that books are appropriate to her age. Now she is 3 and I hid all the book that are more appropriate for 1yo.
We have some puzzles from Smart Games (Three little pigs, Snow white, etc), playing with, trying not to help too much. Some board games from Orchard Toys.
We are buying magazines with her favourite characters and puzzles. She usually tries to solve everything in one go.
Sometimes she just doesn't want to do something. E.g. she didn't want to draw completely until recently and we weren't too pushy about this to not discourage any further.
IMO, rule(s) of thumb: don't be too pushy, identify what they like and try to offer more in that direction (e.g. DD liked jigsaw, I bought slightly bigger jigsaw), sometimes offer new activities (don't be pushy), great advice from yourself to stop mid-game and ask something (sort blocks etc).

Upd. to my previous post
Actually all these ideas and strategies belong to my wife.

Because what parent who is involved enough to be on a parenting forum would say "nah, I stick them in the corner with the TV on with a fruit shoot to keep them quiet"?

OP needs to consider selection bias if they genuinely were interested in collecting data.

For me, I would no more use a cutting edge paper on childhood development than I would use one for a statistical method in my (stats-adjacent) role. For both I want to apply practise that has been accepted enough for it to have moved out of dialogue and papers and into books. Unless I cover up against something really of of the ordinary in either role.

Surely, the answers will depend drastically on the child in question? Each one of those skills can be developed in many different ways, and it’s most effective (and easiest!) to follow the interests of your child. That’s why it’s “learning through play”. My 3yo DD LOVES drawing, so she has a white board and a set of pens and on any day has probably spent a couple of hours at her board (not all at once, but in chunks as ideas come to her). This is pretty good fine motor control (for one hand at least). But it wouldn’t work for a child that didn’t like drawing.

In her case, drawing is also a big route into other forms of development, because we talk about her drawings - who they are, how they are feeling, what happens next etc in the same way as we talk about books that we’re reading. We also do some literacy this way - she draws speech bubbles for me to write in, or asks me to write underneath as if it’s a picture book. Sometimes she writes some of the words if prompted, or writes their names (bonkers, made up spellings!). Sometimes I start her off by drawing something that could be several different things and asking her what she sees and to add to it - can be quite surprising.

Gross motor is mostly outdoor stuff. Balancing on a brick wall if we find one, or jumping over cracks, skipping or hopscotch on pavements. She goes out on her balance bike sometimes. She used to go to playgrounds, but obviously not at the moment.

“Letting them be” I think it IS important to do this sometimes, especially when they are with other children. THAT’S when they learn social skills and develop some resilience. And that’s why my DD goes to nursery. It gives many more opportunities to develop resilience than being at home! She only attends part time, and that balance works well for us.

Not offended by your question, but also not sure what discussion it was likely to prompt. As I scientist, may I suggest if you want information, you don’t start by describing what you do? You will bias the answers you receive.