My Five Most Valuable Life Lessons Came From a 3-Year Old

         We know many adults whom are teachers to children, I am one myself, but how many children come to mind when you try and recall your own teachers? We often overlook the wisdom that a young 3 year old can have. We overlook and disregard their vivid imagination because their time to ‘play’ is up, and ‘we’re too busy’ and don’t want to see their ‘mess’ anymore. Their creative ideas are covered up by the ring of a bell that determines their play needs to come to an immediate halt. Clean up time occurs, and what we view as placing old wooden building blocks back on the shelf, they view as having to destroy the spaceship they just built. The bell, timer, or words ‘clean up!’ harshly remind the dress up corner that for now, they are not real princesses; merely they are children and their costumes and tea party must come to an end. When we stop play, we’re not just putting toys away; we are destroying their castle, spaceship or magical tower. We’re ringing the bell on their creativity and asking them to “hold it”, resume later. Have you recalled a time when you were in the flow, and creativity was pouring out of you onto the paper, or the canvas, or into the microphone, or in the dance studio, and suddenly you had to stop? We have all experienced this in some form, and we know it can be quite difficult and energy consuming to get back into that ‘groove’, to re-create our masterpiece when we were on such a roll. Imagine if a bell rang on us as adults and asked us to pause (not during the work week, as I imagine many of us wish we had these opportunities), but rather during a time when we were fully enjoying the moment and suddenly our creative work was taken out of our hands and put away abruptly before our eyes.

       Next time we see our little ones in their creative flow, let us try to be fully present with them and allow the moment to be theirs. Lets try to allow the creative chaos to be what it is, rather than bring it to an end because guests are arriving soon and we don’t want them to trip on baby doll who is missing pants, or her half eaten toy cupcakes that are now spread along the living room because the dog decided he wanted a treat too. Next time you notice the long train tracks circling around your hallway and making their way into the bathroom, perhaps ask your child what fun adventure the train was on before stating it needs to be put away. Let us engage with the young ones around us, let’s ask them questions, play with them and learn from them. They can test our patience, certainly, however they can also remind us of some wonderful life lessons.

1. Play- Everyday: Children don’t need to be the only ones who get to be a princess or prince every day. Treat yourself. Imagine what you truly want, play around with the idea of having it, go after it. Allow yourself to have joy.
   
2. Laugh-at the best and the worst times: Don't cover it up; don't let anyone else make you feel embarrassed to let it out. Laughing is in our nature, it’s one of the great things we learn to do as babies! (Just type laughing baby into youtube and you'll see the beauty in it.)
   
3. Use your words: This is something that is said over and over again in a preschool. We tell our children and students to communicate the best they can, we just need to remember to try our best as adults to do the same. Expecting another to read our thoughts or know why we are upset is an unfair expectation. Let's try practicing the communication that we teach.
   
4. Forgive, Let go of grudges: So often we hear "Ouch! She hit me!” or “Hey! He took my toy!” and within 3 seconds the children are usually hugging each other and laughing. Children know the secrets to happiness, even if they don't understand it, they practice living in the moment. They practicing letting go. They are practicing just being.
   
5. Love...unconditionally: Think of the child in the grocery store who waves and smiles at everyone walking by. Or if you are an early educator yourself, I’m sure you’ve noticed that when a child falls down, a crowd of others soon huddle by to offer hugs. Children are love. Next time they are testing our patience, or throw a bowl of cheerios on the freshly mopped floor, or scribble on the classroom table after we asked them to clean up, let's try to remember to breathe and respond to them with love.