Growing Garten LLC - Nurture, Love & Watch Them Grow

Children BELONG in our community. They need not act like little adults to be in grocery stores, museums, or in the great outdoors. Children are not only our future but also our present. Be with them, offer grace to them, keep your expectations within the realm of their individual developmental abilities and even then, offer more grace especially as they navigate something new!

I am growing, too.

I used to care if the kids pulled taped paper from the table. Curious, they were. Order, control, neatness, I sought under the guise of “helping” them by keeping their paper still while they created art.

I haven’t done that in a while but today I saw a clip by Listen to the Children who always seems to spark accountability.

Here I am, publicly admitting that I am always learning.

Let them ask for the tape, let them get frustrated and be available to offer assistance or empower them to consider solutions. Let them flip the paper and color the other side. Let them explore JUST THE TAPE. Let them have choice in whether or not they participate in your invitation. Let them use the materials twice, the same way or differently each time.

It’s their art, their childhood. We are merely facilitating it. Play on. ✌🏽

This is art with children 20 months - 30 months. True art, unguided by adult hands. Produced with the freedom to state on their own agenda “I’m done” and “more paper” to continue their masterpieces. The freedom to say “no … play” and to be free to play without engaging in the paint in that moment. Sure, they were all given the same colors. They all had access to the same paint brushes at different points in time. As my son exclaimed, he created an “E-I-E” and a friend created “a little bit of sunshine” as well as “a road”.

Let them paint, let them be little, find balance in the cookie cutter art and the freedom to create.