I have found Strategy of Conflict remarkably applicable to dealing with a toddler. And humans in general.
Also, small children are ruthless manipulators, for fairly obvious evolutionary reasons. You’ll have plenty of material to sharpen your own rationality.
I’m currently trying to interest my daughter (just turned four) in reading. “You’ll get all the stories!” It’s easier and provides better entertainment value to get me or Mum to do the reading, though. But the Peter and Jane books are proving useful in getting her to read. Alphablocks and Sesame Street also actually work to teach kids the letters of the alphabet.
I don’t remember how or why I learned to read (I sort of remember being able to read at least a little at the age of two, and my mom says I learned how by watching the TV show “The Electric Company”) but I have more information about my younger brother, who was determined to learn to read because he wanted to play the same video games I did.
Yes, incentive! She’s taken to dolly dress-up Flash games of late. She can reliably identify the words “Play”, “Start” and “Click here” because she has strong personal incentive to :-D So if I can give her a good personal incentive, she’ll do the work and do it well. (Evidently, “all the stories!” isn’t enough ;-)
I’m not entirely joking here: James Paul Gee once called it “perhaps the best literacy curriculum ever conceived”, although I’m not really sure how serious he was being.
I have found Strategy of Conflict remarkably applicable to dealing with a toddler. And humans in general.
Also, small children are ruthless manipulators, for fairly obvious evolutionary reasons. You’ll have plenty of material to sharpen your own rationality.
I’m currently trying to interest my daughter (just turned four) in reading. “You’ll get all the stories!” It’s easier and provides better entertainment value to get me or Mum to do the reading, though. But the Peter and Jane books are proving useful in getting her to read. Alphablocks and Sesame Street also actually work to teach kids the letters of the alphabet.
I don’t remember how or why I learned to read (I sort of remember being able to read at least a little at the age of two, and my mom says I learned how by watching the TV show “The Electric Company”) but I have more information about my younger brother, who was determined to learn to read because he wanted to play the same video games I did.
Yes, incentive! She’s taken to dolly dress-up Flash games of late. She can reliably identify the words “Play”, “Start” and “Click here” because she has strong personal incentive to :-D So if I can give her a good personal incentive, she’ll do the work and do it well. (Evidently, “all the stories!” isn’t enough ;-)
See if you can get her interested in Pokemon. :)
I’m not entirely joking here: James Paul Gee once called it “perhaps the best literacy curriculum ever conceived”, although I’m not really sure how serious he was being.