- Examples of activities
- Maximum effort
- How can we help and support the development of maximum effort?
Soon after the first birthday (more or less) your child made the first steps. How exciting! This is the moment every part waits for impatiently! But have you wondered what comes next?
Walking marks a huge transition for the child. They are no longer using their hands for moving. It’s a huge step into independence. It is also a difficult time for parents as the child not only can move everywhere in the house but also may start taking and moving things, opening drawers, and more!
Examples of activities
Let me give you a few examples of activities they start to do:
- going up and down stairs many times (adult thinking: going up is tiring, why would you go up just to get down?!)
- pushing the chair around the house (adult thinking: not only noisy, but most importantly chair is for sitting!)
- carrying a big bag of clothes, almost bigger than the child itself (Adult thinking: poor child, let me help him, this bag is too big for him, why is he even bothering?!)
- lifting up a heavy toy to the upper shelf (Adult thinking: oh, I will do it for her, she’s struggling!)
- climbing a ladder on the playground (Adult screaming: be careful!!!!!!!)
I can go on and on. So what we have here is the child doing some weird things and an adult who is trying to help the child but… is it really? Let’s see what happens behind those actions of our young toddler!
As soon as the child has acquired this form of independence [walking] he begins to carry heavy things and difficult things. We call it maximum effort. He climbs on chairs, he goes upstairs, he does all kinds of things which require great effort.
Maximum effort
The children are doing all sorts of things that may seem not important for the adults, but they are important for them. It is the natural development happening, they are acquiring the knowledge through experiences in the environment.
Maximum Effort is manifested in children in many ways:
- they need to work and develop their muscles - that’s why they repeat and repeat
- they are testing their abilities using maximum effort - choosing heavy, big things, pushing huge (as for them) furniture
- they are mastering their skills - it’s not the effect that is important, it is the process
- they are working on their concentration
How can we help and support the development of maximum effort?
Try some of the following:
- let them carry, lift, push heavy things
- allow them to repeat as long as they want
- do not interrupt them when they are focused
- stop them only whey they may hurt someone or themselves, destroy something or be disruptive to others e.g. screaming