Negotiation

The latest video that I made for my daycare blog started innocently enough. As I go through the various video clips that I accumlate over the days, I'll recognize a theme and start collecting more clips to go along with it.

The theme of 'Negotiation' started out kind of tongue in cheek. It was a light hearted way of trying to see the world of playing through the eyes of the kids here. As the days went along, I realized that I didn't have to search very hard or wait long for more footage. The kids spend their days working on the art of negotiation.

From taking turns ... to wanting a toy someone else has ... to dealing with a younger child who hasn't learned the negotiating art form yet ... to dealing with a peer that has a way of knowing exactly how to bug you ... the material that I had to work with was endless.

It was interesting to watch and rewatch the personalities as they knew that I was watching exactly what they were doing. In most cases this nipped negative behavior in the bud. In other cases it didn't make an iota of difference (as the child looked me directly in the eye and continued the behavior to see how far they could push it). There was one case between a 2 1/2 and a 3 1/2 year old. There were absolutely no words. It was all body language. And it spoke volumes.

Kids push their limits ... then they learn their limits. What they choose to do with that knowledge depends on the child. But the thing that never ends is the endless give and take that there is in a day, when you share it with a household full of other children.

It's all a learning experience. As these kids learn to deal with the various personalities within these 4 walls, it is starting to give them the tools that they will need when they are out in the real world of school. There will always be aggressive children, passive ones and every kind in between. The bickering and pushing of the limits is so hard to oversee on a regular basis. But when I looked at the footage of this video, I started to see with my own eyes just how tough it is to be a child.

Their day is full of negotiation.