We've had a few boxes of jigsaw puzzles in the house for more than a year now, but T never seemed really interested in working on them alone. I noticed that she got impatient very quickly and gave up easily on this task. I let her be, thinking her time will come. Admittedly, when I started reading that other children her age are working well with puzzles, peer pressure got me thinking that that I should 'encourage' her to work harder at this.
We took out these boxes of puzzles again and I sat down with her to start off with the 4 piece puzzles, slowly up to 6 piece. In the beginning stages, she would understandly get upset when she cannot fit a puzzle and throw a small temptrum when I refuse to do it for her. We will have to patiently give her hints and tips on how to go about finding the correct pieces and surprising, after a few sessions over the last 6 weeks, she managed to finish a 12 piece puzzle by herself last night and complete a 16 piece puzzle with a few verbal hints from me.
Once again, this experience just re-enforces the message that it is ever so important to stay observant to your child's needs and provide the neccessary stimuli to help them. It is not about pressuring them into the standard of the societly, but more about just gently introducing and exposing them to areas of interest and be able to adapt teaching method to their individual requirement and make the whole learning experience enjoyable.
On this jig saw puzzle experience, T has changed from one who will just throw puzzle pieces on the floor 6 weeks ago, to the child who asks to do more puzzles last night. In fact, when she asked to do the 16 piece puzzle, I explained to her that it be too difficult, but she retorted : "No, Mummy, I can do it". So we tried and she did it.
The next page on the puzzle book was a 20 piece puzzle. When she looked at it she told me "Mummy, I think this one is too difficult for me". I am very pleased that she is willing to push her own limits and knows when to stop when she had enough.
