A Child's-Eye View
Once your child begins to miastcr language, It may sCem imp0ssible to stop him from talKIng ic Chatters On cndlessly-not only to you, but to toys, stuncd animals and imaginary playmates. AS you listcn to what he has to say, it quickly becomes apparent that his way of looKing at the world is quite different from that of a grownup. His way is naive, charming and often wildly imaginativeC. t includes beliels that experiencee and growing knowledge will soon modily, but it also is rich with perceptions that older folk may miss. An understanding of this child's-eye view of reality will help greatly as you encourage your youngster's natural curiosity and creativity and assist him in developing his mental and physical skills.
Many of the preschooler s ideas are similar to those held by ourprimitive ancestors-young and oid alike. For example, the two- or three.year-old talks to inanimate objects as though they were alive. In his mind they are. He believes in magic and the supernatural, and he takes everything he sces or hears quite literallya habit that leads to lanciful explanations tor whatever he does not understand.
Above all, he grasps the world-pecople, pets, even natural phenomcna-from his own perspective only. A child of two, for instance, covers up his eyes and says to his mother, "Now you can t sce me. He assumes that things he did-or failed to do-explain other, unrelated, events. FHe might say, "I haven't had my nap, so it isn't afternoon.
To be sure, this ingenuous perception of the world 1s not unique to childhood; amusing remnants of ancient thought processes survive among sophisticated adults. Some talk lovingly or angrily to their houseplants and even to their cars, while others, carrying umbrellas on a cloudy day, explain, "It's to prevent rain." But most adults do these things without believing in their etficacy. Grownups have already acquired more rational concepts of everyday experience-of logic, cause and effect, time, size, quantity, distance and sequence. This growth in knowledge comes rapidly in the early years ot lite, as a child learns of the world firsthand
How rapidly the child's- eye view starts to mature is indicated by changes in a youngster's understanding of money. Given ihe choice of several pennies or a dime, most three-year-olds focus on the size or number of the coins and choose the pennies, assuming that because they are larger and there are more of them, they are worth more. But by the agc of five or six, chil- dren begin to learn that coins have different values.
Your own child's fantastic stories and delightfully twisted explanations of the world around him may be like those illustrated here and on the following pages. You may wonder, "How does he come up with these hings? lhe answer is simple: It is part of growing up"
