What I’ve learned by observing my four-year-old daughter making puzzles

My daughter loves puzzles. She loves them since she was very young, and I only recently started to carefully observe her attraction to them. I remember the first time we played with a puzzle. We opened it together, and I showed her to first make the borders and then the insides. She seemed to like that approach, and that’s how she would begin the puzzle making, until she found her own way. Today, as a four-year-old, she does a 54 pieces puzzle in 7 minutes. Every day, before going to bed, she takes a puzzle and completes it two or three times in a row; this may relax her, or maybe it is something that she likes to achieve before sleeping. At her school, the teacher told me that she loves the feeling of self-accomplishment, and perhaps a puzzle is the perfect task to feel: “I know what I just did is perfect”.

There are several things that sparked my attention:

1. The proactiveness she shows to always choose a puzzle vs. other activities
2. The amount of times she would rehearse the same puzzle
3. The fact that she seems to have developed her own method: she spreads all the pieces and stares at them for few minutes, and she then chooses 8-12 pieces with similar colours and starts assembling them. Once these first pieces are assembled, instead of trying to finish the 54 in one go; she would undo and redo the first 12 a few times before continuing. And interestingly, that’s not the way she was taught to do puzzles at the beginning (i.e., starting with the borders)
4. She smiles every time she finishes one
5. When she arrives to the last piece, she often pretends to place it the wrong way around, and nudges an adult around her if there is one. She wants us to ask “are you sure?” She wants us to engage with her achievement once she knows she accomplished it

She does not do puzzles to get a sticker or a candy. She does puzzles because she loves doing them, she feels rewarded, and she enjoys the process. I often wonder: What would happen if I gave her a sticker or candy once she is done with her puzzle? Would this motivate her even more, or would the treat kill that motivation? Without knowing it and without any external incentive, she is creating the perfect feedback loop¹ for learning: 1. Rehearse, rehearse, and rehearse (lengthy consistent training), 2. Repeated prediction – feedback – error correction cycle (feedback and error correction are key components of motor learning), 3. Multi-sensory exercise, the co-activation of circuits from multiple senses (vision and touch), and 4. Learning reward value of what is achieved (if a puzzle is done correctly you know it).

What is my role on all this? Is it to clap my hands when she finishes a puzzle? Is it to discourage her from doing puzzles as it may distract her from learning other things that I believe are more important, like maths or piano?

Or is it to observe and understand when she is ready for a more complex one and provide her the new puzzle at the right time? Is it to accompany her in this passion she has today, that she may not have anymore soon, and help her reach a potential in something she is interested in and loves doing? Can I use her puzzle methodology or approach and help her to expand it to accomplish other things? May I use puzzle pieces to invent new games to reach other skills I think are important for her in the future? Shall we build a robot together that can help her finish her puzzles quicker?

I learned to observe, and this commitment to observing provides me with incredible tools to guide the girls through life. Okmaya, AMI certified Montessori guide with a long and broad experience as a school guide, a home-schooling expert, and a family consultant, once told me: “as adults, observing the interests and abilities of our children and connecting them with elements in their environment that feed this interest and abilities is key to awakening the child’s genuine interest and motivation to action. This connection is the gateway to development and knowledge, simultaneously strengthening self-esteem and the feeling of ‘I am capable’.”

This ability to learn about our children’s genuine interest and motivation hinges on our willingness and dedication to devote time and energy into the art of observation. Dr. Maria Carmen Fons; paediatric neurologist, and the head of the Neurology Department at SJD Barcelona Children’s Hospital, and a mother of two, has mentioned to me: “the biggest difficulty to forming these connections between parents and children may be the fact that parents are constantly overwhelmed, distracted, and bombarded by stimuli.”

In her opinion, and I agree, a critical task for parents and caregivers, is to carve out chunks of time within our everyday life, where the only focus is the children; without interruptions from work, friends, or digital notifications of any kind. The question of how adults can implement and routinise such a sustained attention is something we will come back to again and again on this blog.

¹ Zatorre, R. J., & Penhune, V. B. (2020). Music: Prediction, Production, Perception, Plasticity, and Pleasure.