Tools of the Mind: The Vygotskian Approach to Early Childhood Education

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   Between three and six the stake is not letters but self-control, and it is trained through long make-believe play, real household chores and predictable limits, not through worksheets.

   Tools of the Mind: The Vygotskian Approach to Early Childhood Education · 2007

   Long make-believe play is the gym of self-control.

   What changes in the child: the capacity to hold a plan in mind and postpone an impulse appears, but it appears weak and needs training. What you do concretely. One, protect blocks of make-believe play of at least forty-five minutes, with no interruptions and no adult directing; short play never gets as far as developing the role and its rule. Two, give them a real daily household chore with a real consequence — set the table, water the plants, take the laundry out. It is not discipline, it is planning practice. Three, announce transitions five minutes ahead, always the same way: most meltdowns at this age are transition meltdowns, not disobedience. Four, teach them to name the emotion before solving it — "you are angry that it ended" — because you cannot regulate what you have not named. Five, keep reading to them daily and ask questions about what comes next, not about what happened. Six, one hour of screen a day at most, and not in the hour before sleep. What you do not do: you do not prepare them for school with letter-writing worksheets at four, you do not enrol them in three after-school activities, and you do not settle their conflict with another child for them unless someone is in danger.

   “In make-believe play a child obeys a rule they chose for themselves. That is where self-control is trained, not in the lesson where they are told to sit still.”

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