understanding how your kids think

Children and their behavior are like a puzzle to me. I LOVE puzzles. If you watch your children closely, you can see how their actions, behavior, thoughts and personalities are so tightly woven together.

I shared in an earlier post of how I watched my children play croquet and got a window into their behavior.

Sunday, I got another glimpse!! I told the boys that they needed to take notes on the Sunday night sermon. Sunday night is more relaxed and they project and outline of the sermon on a screen. I told the boys that they could either write one word, a sentence or thoughts as they listened to the preacher. I told them to write whatever they needed to write in order to remember the important things the preacher said. I wish my camera was working so you could see their notes.

Here is an example of the outline given by the preacher:

1. Read Bible Daily
    A. make it a habit
         1.  same time
         2.  same place
         3.  same routine
The outline went on and on. I think there were 3 or 4 points and 3 or 4 points under those points!!

I have learned that my oldest, who is incredibly smart, can only do one thing at a time and only follow one step directions. He will obey. He will do it perfectly. He will only do one thing at a time!

Here is an example of his notes from Sunday night.

1. Read your bible

That is all he wrote for the entire night in his notebook.

I have learned that my youngest son, who is incredibly smart, will do more than one thing but not finish or do it differently than was asked.

Here is an example of his notes from Sunday night.

develop a personel plan study bible pray consider the facts include basics get started serve the lord Acts 16:29-34 God worsipped everywhere spirit truth familys worship God develop plan regular same time place format keep short sand of time the week realistic collaborative include the basics word one paragraph at a time sing prayer get it started......

I actually copied the first few lines he wrote. He took an entire page of notes AND drew a doodle at the bottom of the page. Notice he wrote almost every word the preacher said (and did pretty good on the spelling.....worsipped). Notice that there is no organization,  spacing, neatness, etc.

My oldest hears the first thing you say (nothing else) and does it perfectly.
My youngest hears EVERY thing you say but it is jumbled in his brain. It might not make sense to him or it may be too overwhelming to try. He will attempt to follow through. He will either give up because of too much information or he doesn't complete the task because he is moving on to the next task.

Both of these actions/behaviors/thought processes/personalities are exactly how ADD individuals live each and every moment of their life!!

What am I STILL learning??
Be patient
Be loving
Be calm
Be thoughtful
Be understanding (even when I don't)!!