I observed a 3-year old boy, who stood near a swing made of rope with a wooden seat. The boy saw an older girl jump up and hold on a rope to make her sit on the seat and swing back and forth. When the girl left, he stretched his arm upward to hold the rope and shrank his leg to swing, that’s just a little move compare to the girls way of swing.
Every time the older and taller children came, the boy always let them use this rope swing and stood by to watch them jump and sit on the seat. Sometimes the three year old boy even gave the older children a push to make them swing higher and make more joy. He stayed there while others come and went. He liked this play so much that he never went to other places.
Before the PARS course, I would have thought to myself, “He must need some adults to help him to sit on the seat to swing. I will go help him to sit on the seat and help him to have a nice experience”. I would have thought that it would have felt nice for me to provide assistance and assumed that both of us would be happy about that. But I remembered the method of reflective practice, so I asked myself did I know if the child wanted me to help him? Why did he not ask anyone to help?