In A Faff Over Colours!
I did a very typical ‘mother’ thing this week: I saw a blog post about someone’s daughter who was two months younger than Luke, but knew her colours and shapes and, well everything, a lot better than Luke. So I obviously set out to change that with the feeling of motherhood failure looming over me.
I really felt useless after reading that blog post. I mean, it wasn’t written in a showy offy kind of way, but somehow I felt like I had really failed at teaching my son the basics in life. How could this kid, two months younger than Luke, do all this stuff that he couldn’t? He doesn’t know his colours, he can’t properly count and he still struggles with the shape sorting sometimes.
If you didn’t know, Luke has just turned 19 months old – you can read about me gushing over him talking and being such a grown up kiddo and not my little baby anymore here.
I went into this whole business a bit blind if I am honest. Only about half way through the week did I start to Google games and activities and most importantly, what to expect.
Upon my Googling, I found out that in fact, Luke isn’t slow or anything of the sort – his development is fine. I don’t have anything to worry about – I am not a failure! Huurah!
According to several sources, 18 months and onward is the perfect time to start introducing colour into your toddlers world. I mean, obviously, I would say beforehand, “oh, you’re playing with a blue balloon!” or “your socks are red today!”, but I don’t think I did it enough. But that’s okay, because it seems to be the starting point.
What I have learnt, is that it is important to say an object is [insert colour], and then say, it’s a [colour] object. For example, “the bin is red, it’s a red bin.” This apparently enables Luke to better understand the concept of colour.
Thinking about it, I don’t know what I was expecting to come from this week. Maybe I was expecting Luke to be able to fluently name a few colours and point things out and say they’re red or blue. How silly of me. At Luke’s age, having some form of understanding about what colour is should be what I aim for.
This week I have gone from being an uber stressed mum, drinking wine in the evenings and moping to James about how much of a failure I am, to coming to terms and being content with myself as Luke’s semi-compitent “teacher”.
Over the next week or so, I’ll be posting some fun games and ideas that we have tried out over the course of the week and how Luke has coped with them. At 19 months, they aren’t overly complicated, but I hope that if anyone else finds themselves in a position like me, I am able to help. Just a little.
Don’t forget: children all develop at their own rates!
Lukeosaurus And Me
Rachael is a 31 year old mum to 10 year old Luke and 5 year old Oscar. She lives in England and writes about family life, crafts, recipes, parenting wins(and fails), as well as travel, days out, fashion and living the frugal lifestyle.
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6 Comments
Ross Mountney
That last statement is SO true – and obvious really. But so hard to remember when that awful parental competition strikes!! It’s something I wanted to herald in my Mumsbook – to be the parent of our individual child in our own individual way – that’s the mum each child needs! So you be true to yourself and your child – that’s the best you can do! And enjoy it! 🙂
Rachael Robinson
Ah parental competition – that’s what it is! We should just let kids be kids, but other parents often get in a little dig don’t they, when your child can’t do something theirs can. That’s the perfect advice! Enjoy is all and be the mumma your LO needs. Great advice, thanks for reading. xx
Jenny Eaves
It’s so hard not to compare isn’t it? He sounds like he’s doing great! A is almost 15 months and not saying any proper words, which worries me when other kids his age eay things, but he gets his point across in his own way, like you eay every child develops st their own pace! Xx
Rachael Robinson
I’m not sure Luke was up to much at 15 months really. I don’t think he spoke too much and only sort of jibberish when he did. He started walking in December, so I suppose he would have been 16 months, and at that point he did sort of find a way to express himself when he needed help! Definitely, everyone was always banging at me about Luke not walking – I kept saying he’s getting there, leave him to it, I can’t make it happen any faster – and then one day, he just stood up and started zooming across the carpet! I’m sure you LO is doing just fine, I was always worried about development stages, but it’s silly really. Thank you so much for reading, love. xx
Jess Helicopter
Interesting post….I have a group of NCT friends and we all have kids the same age. Mostly they are girls and i have a boy. I was convinced my boy was completely backward when they were all talking and counting etc. Then he learnt his colours way before them and I finally started to relax and realise they are REALLY different in development rates! Now I have a 17mth girl and as i started to read this i felt a little stressed about the fact that she’s nowhere near ready to know colours! and there i was comparing again! Silly isn’t it?! So hard not to compare though. 🙂
Rachael Robinson
It really is so hard to compare. Luckily, I don’t really get hounded by family or friends too much about “he should be doing this/that by now” like I know a lot of mums do, which makes everything ten times harder for them. But it is a little daunting as well in a group of friends when your child is the last to do something. I am not really trying to structure his teaching, I really just want him to be a little boy and let kids be kids, but reading some books, playing some bath games and playing with some megablox – naming the colours, it can’t hurt, right? Luke seemed to not be up for much and the he got to 18 months and everything started happening at once! Thanks for reading xx