April 18, 2008

THINKING CHAIR

Have you ever been sitting in a ‘thinking chair’? Puzzled..? Don’t be…I know this special term from my kid, Ian. Let me tell you the whole story….

One day upon returned from school (K 1) he told me that his friend, Ashley, had to sit on the thinking chair for a couple of minutes because Ashley didn’t want to finish his job – writing letters – for a second time and shouted at the class while doing his job, although he chose the activity by his own. That’s why his teacher gave him order to sit on the thinking chair! He sat in the same room with his friend, but didn’t feel comfortable because he could only look to what his friends doing. It’s like being isolated.
From Ian’s story I know that after a while his teacher would come to Ashley and “discuss’” with him why he was doing like that, what the effects to his friends and himself if he was doing like that over and over again and finally they would make a deal, “child version deal” of course….

That’s an interesting idea, isn’t it? We could try this at home. As a parent we usually punished our little kids with usual way that we adopted from our parents. With this “thinking chair” idea, I see a more positive lesson for kids. They would learn to thinking before doing something, would that be good or bad for him and other people around him...

Let’s have a thinking chair at home!

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