The child who's an introvert.....

I sat in the music class with my normally very busy little boy sitting quietly in my lap.

He watched as the teacher pulled out all the different musical instruments.
He watched as she sang and danced.
He watched as the other children shouldered, pushed and crawled their way to the box at the centre of the carpet for each of them to help themselves to an instrument.

He sat and watched. My son, who is normally a walking, talking busy-body, sat and watched.

The class was an hour long, and for a good 45 minutes, he just watched. He watched with interest, but refused to do any of the activities available. I tried to encourage him, but eventually I just sat behind him and rubbed his back, comforting him as we both just watched.

You see, while I want him to learn and grow through experiences, I think this is his way. And that's okay. While I'm an extravert, he doesn't have to be. While I would dive into the activities straight away - he doesn't have to do the same. It's perfectly okay to allow him to be himself. To give him space to figure out what he's comfortable with and what he's not.

And so, he and I watched. We watched the other children move in and around the carpet. We watched the other parents. We watched the teacher. We watched the puppets. We just watched.

And then in the last fifteen minutes, he decided to walk around to the other parents. And at the very end, he toddled straight towards the teacher's box of toys and started helping himself.

"He's a visual learner" the teacher told me at the end of class, "he won't participate until he's comfortable and knows what he's supposed to do."

Whether this is true or not, I don't know. But what I do know, is that I'm always going to be supporting him - either quietly in the background (if he just wants to watch) or at the forefront of the games, but ultimately I'm letting him lead me and define how he wants to learn and what he wants to do. And that's okay. Our children don't have to be like us - there may be similarities, but at the end of the day he's an individual.

So to my child who's an introvert or visual learner - I'm trying to be quietly supportive, encouraging not insistent or forceful, with everything always done with love.