A while back I wrote in asking for advice on how to help my kindergarten daughter who was very interested on writing a book about children who worked in fabric mills at the turn of the century.
How to Facilitate Research for Young Children I received great advice. It was the first time she'd ever shown such a consuming interest in a subject, and she's strong going strong. At this point, we've read for weeks about mill workers and she's now moved on to bootblacks and flower makers and kids that worked on the Empire State Building, oyster shuckers...She'll find an idea in one book and then want to explore it further. Now she wants her book to be about children under the age of 13 that work in a number of different industries. I think it is completely cool, and it's been really fun to explore this with her.
I am terrified about pushing her. At this point, I get her books and have have given her notecards. I tell her that if she wants me to read the books to her to let me know and that I'm happy to write anything down for her--she just has to tell me what to write. So while I am there for her, there is no pressure from me for her to study this stuff.
So she has no desire (and limited ability) to write or draw, tons of things written on notecards, a humongous amount of material with no organizational strategies. The other day she was telling me about her book, and I mentioned that putting information into chapters was a way of sorting: you've got blue and red, stars and hearts. Do you sort by shape or color? She seems to know what she wants, but she doesn't seem to be ready to stop researching any time soon--and honestly, I don't know if she has the ability achieve the rest of this by herself. How much help should I give her?
I don't want to push anything on her, but if I just leave her completely to her own devices and if she can't reach her goals because she doesn't have other skills am I doing a bad thing? A good thing? Any resources on how to handle this?
For what it is worth, I think I'm extra afraid of pushing because she is really struggling in school and I push there. She's way ahead in reading and struggling with writing and drawing, so she has official homework in those areas. Plus we've got her in OT and yoga and karate to help her develop her motor skills. She's totally game because she's a laid back people pleaser, but all of if just leaves a really bad taste in my mouth.
Trying to balance her interest in these strong areas with my guilt about trying to "fix her" in the weak motor areas (that I see starting to cause her harm) is leaving me really confused and hesitant.
Oh yeah, and does anyone know if kids did anything with catching lobster in Maine and how much money they would have made doing that? If so, let me know. :-)
