Lucouno, unfortunately, my sister married a man who we are convinced does not have formal operations. Not a good thing.
KatelynsM_om, I hadn't thought of it in terms of object permanence, but DD had extreme separation anxiety, too, from day 3. She also quieted to my voice, beginning day 3, that was our first day home. Amazing that your DD is in formal operations, although I'm not totally surprised.
Back when I didn't really see her advancing with noticeable work, such as jumping into multiplication or really reading beyond her starting phase ... I did see the conceptional side advancing quickly. She is very much about imagination and could always play for long periods entertaining herself with whatever scene she had created in the moment, but during this period of no real academic growth her thought process advanced like crazy. She has always had advanced speech but during this period her ability to really communicate and asked relevant questions to the topic of the moment showed her abstract thinking.
Talk to me... we are here. This seems like a argument for play.
DH and I are counselors and DH used play therapy with puppets for part of his graduate work, so we are big into vignettes and role play with supervised play. My gosh, we do it every day.
My current role, however, is glorified referee. Every time I try to have some meaningful time with DD 3.5, DS 14 months - who took his first step at 7 months, has been walking since 8 months and is now climbing up onto the kitchen table, going out the cat door, and running around the house - tries to join the fun. Just call me Mama Mediation. I have read how extremely important sibling relationships are with respect to adult abilities to get along with others, so this is taking the lion's share of my energy these days.
Tex, empathy? Yes, DD is an empathetic being. But I think empathy is different than loss of egocentricity.
