Pounders and Turners

There are two types of people in the world. There are pounders and then there are the turners. If you have kids you know exactly what I am talking about.
Take puzzles for instance. I have a few kids who, when assembling a puzzle, will carefully turn the pieces every direction to find the way they fit best. Matthew(4) is a turner. Then there are the pounders who, no matter how mismatched the puzzle pieces are, will just pound the pieces together determined to make them fit where they so obviously don’t go. Ben(3) is a pounder in every sense of the word.

The other night Matthew and Ben decided to dump out this can of blocks to build with. The blocks are a game similar to Jenga and I didn’t want all the blocks lost so I told them to put them back in the can. They have like 200 blocks of their own and don’t need my Jenga blocks to create a masterpiece.
Ryan and I watched as the two little guys tossed the blocks back into the container. When they got to the top and realized that they had only managed to fit a little more than half the blocks in Matthew stopped to inspect while Ben automatically started to pound on the top blocks to squish them into the can. Matthew, being the turner he is dumped the blocks back out to try to find a different way to make them fit. Ben, the pounder, was sure he could have made it work and sighed deeply before beginning again.

Two little people, both on a mission to accomplish the same job, both having different ideas on how to get it done, neither making any progress.

After we watched them try, dump, then try again a few more times Ryan got down on the floor and showed them how to make them fit by stacking them up by threes. Matthew was curious and paid attention. Ben sat and carefully watched for an opportunity to knock them all down.

Two boys, close in age, same parents, same diet, same influences, yet completely different.

Filed under: Uncategorized

Like this post? Subscribe to my RSS feed and get loads more!