a child's problem-solving skills

I have been recalling times from my childhood, sometimes difficult times, and looking back, I see myself just unable to take seemingly logical steps to solve problems in my day to day life. I wonder when and how a child learns these things? Or was it just me who was so inept? I feel even now, decades later, that I am still learning to solve problems. Often, these have to do with speaking up for myself and telling other people what I want and need. I wonder why we don't teach children these things? Do some children just learn them automatically? Or are we all that way when we are young? On the other hand, I think, what power does a child have to say what he needs and wants or truthfully what the real issues are for him or her? Does he/she even know? And even if he knows, can he articulate them?

For example, when I was in kindergarten at a school quite a long walk from my home, I used to sometimes "take the long way home" and arrive at home a long time after I was supposed to. When my mom would ask, I would say "I got lost" or "I stopped to pick flowers" or some other lame excuse. I would get in trouble for this. Really, I just didn't want to come home because I didn't get along with my mother and was scared of her. But how do you tell your mother this when you are 5 years old? I would get in trouble for this behavior. My mom would yell at me and my dad sometimes beat me for this repeated disobedience. I just didn't have a solution so I kept doing this despite the consequences. Was there another solution? Even now, I'm not sure what it was.

Another example was that I was hit by a car crossing a very busy road when I was in first grade. I became scared of crossing this road with its traffic whizzing by. Unfortunately, I had to cross this road each day to get to school. I was often too scared and so ended up not going to school that day, just playing hookey and goofing off, wandering around the neighborhoods or hanging out at the public library. I got in big trouble for this too, but kept doing it. Sometimes I could cross the road if I was in a big gang of kids, but if I was alone, it was too scary and I just couldn't do it. Again, I was punished for this at home. I guess I was too embarrassed to admit I was scared to cross the road. I'm not sure that excuse would have been accepted by my parents, anyway. Maybe it would have, but I had this idea they would think that was just an excuse to get out of having to go to school, like I was malingering or something. And it was embarrassing to be so scared and weak, so I just let them think I was being bad and playing hookey.

I try to keep these things in mind with my own kids when they are seemingly disobedient in what seem to be irrational and uncharacteristic ways. What is truly going on there? I remember in first grade my youngest daughter would sit at her desk at school and cry. She wouldn't do the assignment that they were supposed to be working on. Why? We finally discovered that at these times her pencil would be broken and she was too shy to ask the teacher for permission to get up and go sharpen her pencil. So she just sat in her chair and cried. Being a kid sure is hard. How do we teach kids to speak up? I don't feel like I ever encouraged her to not speak up. She is in high school now, and does well in school. She is a natural introvert and seems to be accepting of herself. Recently, she was nominated to be in the honor society at school (for good grades). She has to apply and list all her extracurricular activities and "positions of leadership." She does do some sports outside of school, but she has no positions of leadership. It is hard enough for her to join a team, much less be the team captain or club president. Why is it necessary for a 15 year old student with good grades to have to have "positions of leadership" in order to be in the school honor society? ARe Honor Societies just for extroverts?

You didn't speak up because you were scared of punishment. Some kids don't speak up because they are perfectionists and hold themselves to such high standards that they are really hard of themselves (that's my youngest son). Some kids are by nature introverts and just don't speak up because it just isn't in their nature. There are a multitude of reasons why kids don't speak up. As parents and teachers, we have to be pretty astute observers of kid's behaviors sometimes to pick up on it. We assume the kid who doesn't speak up is doing fine, but that isn't always the case.

As far as the National Honor Society goes, leadership skills is just one aspect of recommendation for acceptance. Some kids are leaders in the classroom even though that isn't recognized as a formal position, that's why teachers generally also fill out recommendation forms. She should simply fill out the forms as completely as she can. Many students in NHS are leaders in organizations, but they aren't all. She will be recognized for her academic leadership and participation in extracurricular activities.

Yes I agree we do sometimes have to be like detectives in trying to figure out children. I was painfully shy as a child and definately had trouble articulating my feelings. I was raised when they were allowed to use the strap, so I was terrified of getting in trouble. One time our class was being watched by another teacher while our teacher went to the doctors. She told us not to get out of our seats but another kid threw my pencil across the room - I forgot and got up to get it. The teacher walked in and slapped me several times with a ruler. I was mortified because I was never disciplined physically at home. So I ended up pretending to be sick for a week, until I finally told my mother. She flipped out and called the school on my behalf.

Luckily both my girls are very out going but my 8 yr old occasionally gets worried about being prepared at school. Over Xmas vacation I saw her crying and when I asked her - she said she was worried about not remembering the story they were reading before Xmas break. This teacher who comes in to read in mean.

Sunrise - I'm glad you're more patient with your own kids. I'm sorry you weren't made to feel comfortable when you were younger. I think children learn how to solve problems when they know they can come to their parents and be open. But we also don't want to constantly rescue children, turning into 'helicopter parents'. If we always solve their problems for them, they'll never learn the skills themselves. I've heard of graduate students applying for jobs and their parents calling for them, to see if they got the job lol.

This is something that my T and I were just recently talking about.

When I was 4, I stopped walking. I crawled everywhere and said my legs didn't work. My parents had to take me to the doctor, and when the doctor said I was fine, I had to walk out of there.

This was shortly after I had started being SA by a family "friend".

T was saying how I was CLEARLY trying to say "something is wrong, somebody help me", but living in an abusive home, I was too scared to speak up. Crawling was all my 4 y/o self could come up with.

I have these little cards that I ordered online, and each one has a gentle reminder on it about parenting our children with respect. One of the cards says "Listen...what is your child trying to tell you?". T loves it.

I always try to pay attention to the message behind what my kids are saying/doing. Sometimes I think they're just not mature enough yet to know how to express their wants/needs with words. I am literally teaching them how to use words to express themselves. So, for example, my youngest son is sometimes sleepy at bedtime and wants me to brush his teeth for him. He used to wander around saying "I'm too TIRED to brush my teeth" and sort of moaning and groaning. Once I figured out what was going on, I told him that he can just ask me to brush his teeth for him, and I will. Now, he simply says "Mom, will you brush my teeth?" and I do it. He says what he needs and his needs are met. It's a little thing, but I'm hoping if they can learn it with lots and lots of little things, they'll have the skills they need when big things come up.

I've ONLY started doing this since being in therapy, because before I was in therapy, I literally had no idea how to express my needs or ask to have them met. Or even to identify them, really. Learning to ask to have my needs met is really one of the greatest gifts therapy has given me...I'm so glad my kids can learn this as children.

Thank you, farmergirl, lynn P, and treehouse for your thoughtful replies.

Farmergirl, I strongly encouraged ("forced" is too strong a word) my daughter to fill out the NHS application. I kept in mind what you said, and I reminded her that she was an academic leader in her classes, even if it is not an official appointed or elected position. She had never thought of it that way (and neither had I), and she seemed to like that. I reminded her that recently an essay she wrote on "what I would do to change my school for the better" was chosen as the best in her grade--again, an academic high point, but not what she thought of as leadership. So she felt better about herself after this conversation, and she did fill out the NHS form. She was supposed to submit it today, and I hope she did.

Good point, Lynn. It is a balance between helping them and letting them do it themselves, and the balance shifts as they get older--a bit more responsibility each year. Hopefully!

Treehouse, thank you for sharing this story. It does seem really clear that your crawling was an attempt to communicate, and actually a very smart thing to do. Did anyone understand the "message", you were trying to send? Now I look back in this same era for me and I see a behavior I engaged in--pulling out my hair, one strand at a time. I remember my mother would comb my hair over my bald spots so I would look presentable to go to school. Again, it was a signal and message that something was wrong. But no one understood the message. My mother took me to the doctor to see about my bald spots and what was causing them. My family didn't realize that I was pulling out the hair myself, and I never would have told them, because I would have been in big trouble (or so I would have thought back then). I was always scared of this particular doctor, so no way was she going to get anything out of me, especially while my mother was sitting right there with me in the exam room. I think the doc did realize I was pulling out the hair myself. As the family lore goes, she told my mother I was suffering from "nerves" and needed a calmer, less stressful environment at home. Like, yeah, it would have been great if my mom took that to heart and quit beating me and the other stuff too, which I won't mention. But instead, my 3 older siblings came to me and said that they had been told by my mom they had to treat me nice and be calm and gentle with me, because this was what was causing my hair to fall out. They were mad at me that I had somehow "blamed" them for all of this and gotten them in trouble with my parents. And I never did this at all--it was something my mother told them and I had no part in it. They called me a baby and a liar. I remember then feeling that no one "got" it or understood what was happening, what more could I do? I kind of gave up after that.