What really matters- Expectations & Models for how things work. It is often the little things of daily life where you notice important changes. Instead of using her hands to pick up her food, whit got increasingly interested in using the fork. Small thing but implied some major things about her thinking skills and forming mental models. She had obviously seen her mom, dad, brother and sister using these interesting tools and now had a memory or mental model. She could visualize herself in the act of using the fork and then wanted to act on that model. It was still much easier for her use her hand but this mental image of “fork usage” provided enough motivation for her to stick through the trials. Watch her persistence (see “Fork Usage Video”)

How to put it into practice-

Tuning In- Behind any behavior is an intentional act by your child. Small changes like moving to using a fork mean a shift in her thinking and intentional goals. It is fun to watch for these shifts in behavior and then to speculate about what is going on inside her head that would cause it.

Bridging- To encourage her independence and scaffold her ability to act on her desire and model for using a fork, it was important to make it possible for her to have success. Cutting up the meat into small bite sized chunks might seem obvious but it is an important part of framing the task. Right sized chunks that are not too small so that she cannot get the fork into it is important. I would try to think of the variables involved in making the task right at the edge of her competence not to hard but not to easy. Our goal is to always try to get in that zone.

Discovering & developing Whit’s story-

One thing I noticed across lots of these small events is Whit’s important disposition of “perseverance”. You will notice in the video how she sticks with trying to get that fork into the meat even when it is not going so well. I always try to support and encourage this foundation of Independence.