Growing Happens Little by Little
Thoughts for the Week:
Growing is often a slow, invisible
process, making children impatient at times that changes aren't happening more
quickly. They must sometimes think they'll never be as big as their parents.
They can even feel angry about not being able to make the kind of decisions
that adults are always making about who's to do what. Feeling angry at an adult
who cares for them can be scary for children. They wonder whether that adult
might stop loving them if they let that anger out. When we encourage children
to talk and play about their anger and their fears, those strong feelings often
become more manageable through the talking and playing.
One way to show children that they
are growing is to support their day-to-day "inside" growing that is
often harder than outside growing to see or measure: learning to share their
toys or learning to use words to let people know how they feel. Helping
children feel proud about their inside growing can make it easier for them to
wait for the time when they will be grownups and will make many decisions for
themselves.
-- Fred Rogers
Summary of the Week:
Mister Rogers talks about how he
felt when he was a boy and wanted to grow up right away so he could do things
that adults did, like drive a real car. As he plants a bean seed and sees a
video of a cat as a young kitten, he helps children understand that for most
living things, growing is a long and slow process. Some things, though, grow
rather quickly -- like our hair. Mister Rogers lets viewers watch as he gets a
haircut, assuring them that the scissors cut only the hair.
In the Neighborhood of
Make-Believe, Prince Tuesday is having a hard time waiting to be as big as his
father. A mysterious "Big Thing" arrives and surprises the neighbors
when it sprouts into a fancy flower.
