Unlike adults, who often dwell on the past and worry about the future, kids live in the present. They don’t care about the future and rarely think about the past. The concept of past and future is difficult to understand during the first years of life. Young kids have limited experience and their long term memory still doesn’t work properly.
Children play and enjoy every moment for what it is. This is why, when they beg us to come and play, they mean “right now”, and cannot accept easily this “I’ll play with you a bit later” reply. For a young kid, an answer like “in 10 minutes” has no sense and is thereby disturbing. Moreover, even if multitasking is a necessary parenting skill, it is the reverse of living in the moment, in a child’s world.
Winnie-the-Pooh and Piglet summarized this concept very well:
“What day is it?” asked Pooh.
“It’s today,” squeaked Piglet.
“My favorite day,” said Pooh.”
— A.A. Milne
Picture: A teddy bear and a piglet sitting on a bench (ChildUp & DALL-E - 2022)
