Hacker News new | ask | show | jobs
by unkoman 1233 days ago
Children start with yourself. You will not ever be a perfect parent, so be kind to yourself and your partner. I know I've failed multiple times, but I at least try to live by the Reggio Emilia [1] approach:

The most important thing is to listen to your children and understand their needs, interests and ideas, and use them as the basis for learning and exploration. It is so much easier to foster them when you focus on their interests.

Recognize real accomplishments, document them and reflect on them with the children. Sometimes we just look at their first steps together.

We also have tried to create an environment where they can fail until they learn. As we say in the business "Fail fast" and encourage their independence by providing opportunities for them to make choices, solve problems, and take initiative. Even if the choice is "Do you want to eat carrots or broccoli with your dinner today?".

One thing that I need to improve on is to create opportunities our kids to interact with others (mostly due to Covid/the pandemic). Now that they are in preschool we see that they learn so much faster from others in their own age.

[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reggio_Emilia_approach