By Holly Hartman
Children are born imitators – it is the way they learn how to be human. Every parent has found themselves having to explain to friends something their child has said that we never intended to teach them. The child sensed the power in the language that Dad thoughtlessly blurted out and picked up the “bad word” immediately. Whoops.
One day a friend’s 3-year-old disappeared. Mom frantically began searching, finally finding her daughter at a neighbor’s house. Mom scolded the child for creating the scare, and the little girl folded her pudgy arms (just like Mom) and said, “I wrote you a note.” Wait. What? The child marched into the kitchen and pointed at a small note stuck about a foot off the floor on the front of the refrigerator. The note had a picture of a house on it. Mom said, “I don’t understand.” The indignant child, with hands on hips (just like Dad) said, “That’s me, and that’s Margie’s house.” She had watched her parents jot notes and stick reminders and messages on the ’fridge, so she did the same.
All kinds of skills are learned through imitation, for both good and ill. When children see adults or older siblings regularly choosing to read, they will eventually mimic reading and move along the road to literacy. But children who never observe anyone reading aren’t likely to be interested in learning it themselves. The same goes for things like musical skills and sports, but also for behaviors like curiosity, organization, and flexibility, and negative ones like shaming, bullying, and teasing.
Like it or not, children constantly imitate us - our behavior, our language, and our habits. The things we spend the most time doing are the things most likely to “stick” in their growing brains, and we teach them far more through our actions than our words.
What has your child learned by watching you today?