Letting her fold her own paper
We went to art class with the children this morning, something they both enjoy. Daniel gets very excited and leaps around calling for Teacher Jill to admire his work and announcing that he has named this piece Meteriods and Crater or Butterfly. Helena doesn’t say much but calmly gets on with her painting or sculpture.
My work there is more subtle. It’s about holding myself back, not commenting, not helping, even when it would be so very easy when Helena is struggling to make something stick to just put my finger right there and smooth it out for her, to help Daniel balance his toothpick creation. But their struggle is the point. Of course I can do it easily and of course they find it hard. But who cares if I can make the paper fold exactly in half and they do it lopsided?
Helena gets this much more than Daniel. He still wants help when he gets frustrated. She wants to do it herself. Today in class the children were doing paintings by squeezing paint onto the paper and then folding it in half and smoothing it out. My hands reached out to help Helena before my brain could edit their movement. It should be symmetrical, sang my adult mind, match the corners, make the crease, smooth the paint. Helena pushed my hands away. “I’m doing it,” she said fiercely. And she was. It wasn’t smooth, creased or symmetrical. But it was all hers, and it was beautiful.
I actually like this bit of parenting, but it takes so much remembering: although small, they are their own people, and their thoughts and bodies and hearts are entirely separate from me. I cannot fold their paper for them. I can only love how they fold it for themselves.
