The key to encouraging your child to learn through play

In all my years as a stay-at-home mom, the observation that kept coming up as I watched my children play was that they are natural scientists.

Even as babies, as soon as they could sit up and play with toys, they would try to figure things out—how to make a ball roll or how to get a toy to fit into a box. They would try and try over and over again to figure it out. Sometimes I might show them how something worked, but most of the time I allowed them the time and space to figure it out (even if it was frustrating). They just needed the time to explore.

My children aren’t unique in this—all children inherently do this. As a parent, it’s tempting to try to overtly teach all the time. We often want to use every single moment as a learning opportunity that we have to guide, especially those of us who have a little bit of an overachiever nature to us 😉 We are eager to see our children learn in the way we (or the world around us) expect learning to show up.

One of the most vivid examples of early learning happened when my older son was about two and was learning about colors.

I had been showing my son the different colors of objects for months and labeling them, “Blue ball,” or “This ball is red.” It didn’t quite seem to be sinking in. When I would ask him directly, “What color is this ball?” he would oftentimes not answer correctly.

Then one day, we were playing with blocks and had different-colored blocks laid out on the floor. Out of nowhere, my son said, “Can I have the blue one?” I was amazed. He knew colors (at least blue). But what struck me in that moment was that the learning had to be intrinsically motivated—led by him. Sure, I had to introduce the concept of colors to him, or he might never have learned it. But what really made it matter to him was when he wanted to use that knowledge to get what he wanted. He didn’t need or want me to quiz him on colors, but when he wanted a particular color block, he knew how to ask for it.

Real learning versus formulaic learning

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