Secret Smarty

They say you aren't supposed to push your kids into learning- it can cause emotional stress and give them all sorts of issues.  I didn't want to force reading on Sawyer early because I heard that is pretty stressful to learn, and even kindergarten is before their brains are ready according to my early childhood education class (though now you have to read entering kindergarten or you are behind they say.)

I think they have something going though.  We don't really try to teach Sawyer things, we just sing him the alphabet song and count along with the TV shows, but we don't sit him down or anything and force him to try to learn stuff.  There are 2 instances within the past 3 days that I can vouch for this though.

First was at Andy's aunt's house on Saturday.  They have a big fish tank and I counted the fish and said the colors to Sawyer as he watched them swim.  I asked if he could count the fish and he went "1, 2, 3...x...y..." and we laughed.  Andy and I started talking and doing other things while Sawyer watched the fish.  We suddenly realized Sawyer was counting...he counted all the way to 10!  When we let him alone, he does what he wants and doesn't feel stressed.

The second thing was Sunday.  I brought up the books we got at the yard sale and the puzzle to show Andy who was sick in bed.  I showed Sawyer the puzzle and gave it to him.  I took the pieces out to see if he could do it (not expecting anything) and said "can you do a puzzle?"  He started shoving the letters in all the wrong spots.  I put them all away myself and Sawyer took the puzzle and tried to walk it to the stairs.  He spilled out ALL the letters.  I left him with the puzzle for a minute while I talked to Andy.  I came back out and he had put about 1/3 of the letters in their right spot already and was working on the rest.  I did a little experiment and tried to get him to do the puzzle later and he put them in the wrong spot again, but when I stop telling him to do it and he plays with the puzzle on his own, he puts all the letters straight in the right spots.  It is so weird!

I am hoping this is just proving the point that you shouldn't pressure kids into learning before they are ready, and not proving that he will have test anxiety in the future lol.

P.S. Sawyer has had the runniest nose and even a fever today, but he has been in high spirits and jumping all over the place.  Andy actually made it in to work today which is good, but he is still sick with something else.