Making Sense of Preschoolers Preview

0:01 I'd like to welcome you to this course on preschoolers I must say that preschoolers are I think my favorite people in fact I love preschoolers they I love their integrity I love their transparency they are fascinating psychologically they qualify for about six different diagnosis without even trying obsessive-compulsive disorder bipolar disorder attention deficit

0:32 disorder oppositional defiant disorder and we're just beginning and it's all there if you understand the preschooler you've got the keys for everything you would possibly want to know this is what I found out I was i I started off with adults and I went to adolescence and then finally when I got to working and consulting with preschoolers or the parents the adults that were involved in preschoolers and working with preschoolers did it all come together

1:03 for me so I it's it's a privilege to be able to teach this course bring all the pieces together my heart goes out to preschoolers I do believe that there's probably no group that is more misunderstood more misunderstood they are brazen yes they are obsessive often they're precocious hysterical they are impulsive a compulsive anything but consistent and we shall see that is that is all the way it should be there

1:36 is a reason for this and that is important to understand we don't get preschoolers often because of they are not like us and that is important they are not like us and we should not be like them if we are like them there is a problem to try to make them like us is where most people involved are trying to do and this is a problem the appropriate analogy here would be caterpillars and

2:06 butterflies related yes fundamentally different creatures yes and I'm so glad cata era butterflies have not yet figured out how to train caterpillars to be butterflies because it would be a Royal flunk if they did and so this is the problem that we have is we think that preschoolers are like us just little versions of us little miniature adults and so the whole issue is is to try and get them to be more like us so

2:37 that they can fit in adult society and as we go along we'll find out that that that is where the greatest concern was Piaget one of the greatest developmental theorists and scientists studied preschoolers and that was his primary conclusion is they are not like us and that is why and that is what we need to understand now if society wasn't sync with developmental design we would not need this course if it wasn't sync with developmental design

3:09 we'd have culture traditions and rituals we wouldn't have expectations on spree schoolers that that really didn't didn't fit but they are not like us again and and so we need to we need to understand them from inside out and as I've subtitled it this it is what every young child needs us to know about them if the material in this course is applicable in every age in every arena largely because if the preschooler doesn't grow out of

3:38 that time we still have all kinds of traits of the preschooler that continue on I call it the preschooler syndrome so understanding this is is is important now the organization of the course of course is divided into four sections of approximately hour-and-a-half each and each hour-and-a-half section is divided into a half hour approximately half hour modules and so this enables this course to be taken by or taken in half hour

4:12 chunks in our chunks or hour and a half chunks designed the course this way because I realize that there are many individuals from a wide variety of venues daycare providers preschool teachers early our early childhood educators parents and grandparents who will be taking this course and need to divide it into into sometimes small chunks of time so hopefully this course will work in in this way fortunately there's no exam at

4:42 the end of this course the only challenges is for you to make sense of the preschoolers in your life in your in your care and and that will be the test of the course at the end of the day if you can do this so we'll begin with section 1-3 natural shortcomings not to trip over three natural shortcomings not to trip over by natural mean that that

5:14 that they're completely inherent to the preschooler period these are significant ways in which they are not like us we can't use our own in a sense of of empathy in this way because we're not going from our place in this and again we should be we should not be like them the three shortcomings are first of all

5:44 they're untempered nature temper comes from Latin it means mix preschoolers who have great difficulty mixing anything they are one at a time creatures one element one emotion one thought one perspective and this will be very very significant this is this is one way in which we should not be like them and they should not be like us and so

6:14 they're untempered in both their experience and expression they are inconsiderate of context and others or if they're very considerate of you at this moment in time they completely do not consider themselves and so there is a problem here again that they are one at a time individual so this and this meant to be as we'll go along and thirdly they have phenomenal separation

6:46 problems they are very affected by physical separation they don't like being apart togetherness is their primary concern and and they have they they have great difficulty holding on when physically apart so we're going to take a look at each one of these we're gonna flesh these out this will be the theme of our first section and in our our goal is to make sense of them not

7:17 only do is it is not only to make sense of them from inside out but also to understand nature's reason why why is it because there's something wrong is it simply a deficit that needs to be overcome is it a mistake or is it part of design and as we go along in this course hopefully you'll begin to have a lot of confidence that that there is a plan there is a plan and if we honor that

7:47 plan and and and assist in that plan the preschooler will become truly will move into much more the adult kind of version which they should not be at that point now I'm going to start with something with the untempered nature I'm going to start with this but in in this take a look at at some of the traits that stem from from their untempered nature I'm

8:19 calling this a preschooler personality profile and all together we are going to have twenty four traits that are characteristic we'll cover them in this section twenty four traits that are characteristic of the preschooler that are not genetic so you can't blame your in-laws or your parents or your spouse and and they're not learned and these simply come these are all in here and every preschooler shares these this is

8:50 what they all have in common that's why there is a preschooler personality and a and and and these come from from a certain developmental places we'll start with a preschoolers they have a purity of emotion their emotions are pure they're unsullied there is no mixture in this there is no on the other hand they do not say I feel rather ambivalent today I

9:21 have double feelings they're not bothered by on the other side or on the other hand and because of this they have an innocent belief in magic they're not troubled by a Santa Claus on this corner and another Santa Claus on that corner it completely misses them and it should miss them and you can do the most wonderful games with the magic forks to feed them by things that appear and disappear and all kinds of things but

9:54 they do have a wonderful belief in magic a certainty in their thinking but they are absolutely sure once they've arrived at a thought it is the thought they do not doubt themselves they have a wonderful certainty in their thinking that they're not bothered by shades of grey they they're driven by one emotion at a time and they act out of that emotion that emotion determines their behavior they're impulsive and because they're impulsive it means that only one

10:25 emotion can it could be expressed at a time and so the emotions have to take turns and they can be afraid but you don't see any fear in them because they were excited right then and then later on all the fear comes out it's always one at a time this is very important to understand because unless adults get this they don't get a lot of things about the preschooler and think there's something wrong they're short-sighted they're unable to make sacrifices

10:50 towards a goal if you promise them an ice-cream cone now or if the for ice cream cones maybe tomorrow there'll be a sucker for the ice cream cone now every time now it is now that is important they're not worried about the future they're unreliable they know much better than they behave you can even you know please please how many times have I told you now you know please eat with your mouth closed and you know wait to talk until

11:22 mummys finished a talking and so on and they'll interrupt your interrupting of them or or do this there is they know much better it said didn't we talk about this yes why did you do this I don't know they have no clue there they're good intentions are easily eclipsed by the impulse of the moment and again there's nothing wrong with this as we look this is part of design they're terrible at problem-solving there only take one factor into

11:51 consideration at any given time and so they cannot solve any complex problem whatsoever they can't even solve the problem of preferences what would you like would you like the apple pie or would you like Lee you know the ice cream want the apple pie no the ice cream no the apple pie no the ice cream and so you go on and on and on they can't even figure that out in terms of how to solve that