It is easy to ask adults to sit still for a period of time and even expect obedience to that instruction; however, pre-school children should not be expected to sit still! Adults and older children can be expected to sit still when the situation requires that they do this but expecting pre-school children to sit still and be quiet is really a stretch.
If you can go down the memory lane to the point of your life when you were in pre-school, you will recall that you mostly engaged in activities that had you moving your body. You were running around on the playground, indulging in games that featured other people, you were literally taught with movements. Pre-school phase of your life was an active and fun moment of your life.
Most pre-schools still engage toddlers and pre-schoolers in fun and movement-based activities, but there is the need always to want to pass a message to these children. This message is one that is out of the nature of the children; it is not the way they are built in that particular phase. It is an unrealistic message for not just pre-schoolers but all school-aged children and sometimes even adults as well.
This underlying message is for them to sit still.
You are doing the child a great disservice by overpowering them into sitting still while they are fed with loads of information. Pre-schoolers learn better when they are moving their bodies and engaging their senses. Effective learning for children in this age group is to encourage them not even to sit still as they are more likely to retain information that way.
Teaching pre-schoolers so much about sitting still as a social skill alone is limiting. It is far more rewarding to engage their eight different bits of intelligence which include; verbal, visual, musical, logical, kinesthetic, naturalistic, interpersonal and intrapersonal intelligence. The idea that intelligence revolves around the orthodox intelligence quotient testing is a keyhole perspective.
Sitting and listening is definitely essential as social skills which are necessary for children to learn early on, but they must be passed on to these pre-schoolers in the right context. Worrying about a preschooler that cannot sit still whenever you want them to is not the way to go. A survey carried out by questioning most pre-school teachers revealed that they are bothered that their pre-schoolers cannot sit still and be silent. We all must understand that children will generally struggle with doing this at their age.
Forcing young preschoolers who are in the most active phase of their developmental cycle to sit and be still is mostly unrealistic. These children cannot possibly spend a large chunk of their school day sitting quietly. It just won’t happen. You can teach them to be quiet in certain situations like when they are in the library or when others are sleeping. However, pre-schoolers cannot be forced to sit for long periods of time with their mouths shut without moving their body.
If you want to get an idea of how difficult it is for these children, then observe a meeting that comprises of adults. You will find out that it is challenging for these adults to sit still for about twenty to thirty minutes. It is hard for adults. They want to move around and mingle with their colleagues. Adults can find the discipline to focus on work or study for elongated periods of time, but children do not have this discipline.
What works for adults is allowing them to move, interact and converse with each other, especially during meetings and lectures. This works for secondary school students too. Now imagine how much time an active pre-schooler needs to move around and interact. Humans are generally very social beings if you come to think of it. We are this way by our very nature. When you have this at the back of your mind, you can easily understand pre-schoolers need to move around.
Pre-schoolers are not little adults, and even if they were, they would still need to socialise and move around through their day. So you should not get worked up about a pre-schooler that won’t just sit and be still. You have to give them more time and be more patient with them.
SO WHAT’S THE DEAL WITH PRE-SCHOOLERS?
Pre-school is another thing for a child to do. A child within that age range is either at home spending most of their time with their family and loved ones or in pre-school spending a large part of their day with teachers and other kids. It is just a different activity to these preschoolers to spend day to day in a classroom.
Pre-school is more or less a preparatory school for children. It is at pre-school that you try to make children get used to the classroom environment. A child learns what is expected of him in schools generally from the pre-school. Pre-school also affords a child the chance to socialise with their peers. They need to start developing social skills and be comfortable around people. Impacting the child early on should prove to be useful in their later life.
As expected, the child does not always get it right all the time. There are days when they get the orientation and some other days, what you see is what you get.
Why is it important to obsess about your child sitting still? Is it possible for you to learn not to expect your child to sit still in a class all through most of their day?
Most parents, teachers and instructors to preschoolers care so much about having their child sit still. They care so much that they think something is very wrong with their child if they always want to move around. The teachers are always complaining to the parents about how they cannot get the child to sit through circle time. The parents and teachers are both exhausted and frustrated from all futile attempt to overpower the child, especially if some other children can make it through circle time or quiet time while sitting still. There becomes this extra attempt to find out if there is something wrong with the child. Why is the child always fidgeting and moving?
It is obvious that both the parents and teachers are missing out on keynote, which is that THE CHILD IS IN PRE-SCHOOL.
This is exactly what you expect from a child that is full of life. Children have so much energy, and they want to use it up most of the time. They are restless, and this comes with their age. They can get easily distracted, as well. It is something that comes with their age.
There are very few children that can sit down for a long time while taking instructions on what they should do and not do. Pre-schoolers do not want to do just that. The need to move or fidget is like something that they must satiate. The problem with not allowing them to move as they want is that they would keep thinking about it. It is something that they must do, or they won’t stop thinking about it. So instead of forcing the child to sit still, how about considering new ways to allow the move and fidget while learning.
Having a creative imagination allows you to see and accept that there are lots of ways to support a child’s needs to move and fidget while learning. There are so many gadgets and equipment that are dedicated to the child’s need to fidget. The reason why this development exists in the first place is that it has been proving through a study that children pay most attention and perform better cognitively when they move and fidget. Some of the things that have been developed to support a child’s need to move and fidget include; yoga balls which can substitute chairs. Newly designed chairs that can give sensory feedbacks and rubber bands that allow the children to bounce their feet while they learn are taking the fore alongside standing desks too, which even adults are beginning to use.
Children hate sitting still, and when forced to, they can occupy their minds with how they hate sitting still. How about introducing these children to the things that help them take their minds away from that?
Don’t get it wrong, though. Some children are definitely very good at sitting still and learning through the day. It is not a bother or problem to them. Children are different in the ways that adults are different. So you might have to try different things with different children. Do not relegate a child’s need by overpowering them with what you want.
Do not mistake allowing a child to move within their own personal space as teaching him to encroach in others need for privacy, far from that. Children want to bounce, wiggle and move around. In fact, they know better than to bother others if they have been taught well. They would still obey instructions and authority. Aside all of these, a child’s needs to move and fidget are simple. There is nothing inherently wrong with them or that.
