Читать книгу Steve Biddulph’s Raising Girls - Steve Biddulph, Steve Biddulph - Страница 45

Though your little girl is no longer a baby, that doesn’t mean she is over the ‘Am I loved and safe?’ stuff. In fact this still applies just as much. The reason is that secure toddlers explore the most. The very first experiments in child development, carried out by people like John Bowlby and the amazing explorer/researcher Mary Ainsworth, found that babies who are ‘securely attached’ (i.e. love and trust their mum or dad to be there) are the ones who go further and are more adventurous.8 Toddlers who are not trusting of their parent or carer to be there for them will cling more and be less willing to go and play with a new toy or a new playmate. (Don’t feel bad if your toddler is still clingy, though, as there is also a fair bit of temperament in this, some toddlers just are more cautious than others.)

What makes them most secure is knowing that you are always around for them.

So they can take that as a given, and spend their emotional energies on new excitements. If they are already anxious about life, new things are just too much to handle.

Think for a minute about your attitude to insects, bugs or nature in the raw. If you say ‘Ick, horrible ants, aargh, get away!’ then of course your daughter will be scared of them too. But if you say ‘wow, have a look at this …’ she will catch your attitude. It doesn’t mean she should poke into spider’s nests or pick up death adders, but you can teach her a sensible interest and she will be fascinated for the rest of her life.

It’s the same with machines, the insides of cars and computers, garden sheds, tools and making stuff, craft work, music making, art and sculpture, cooking, dancing, loving being in the forest or at the beach, these are all ‘caught’ from grown-ups around you.