Now here's something that I'm curious about.
In looking for new and challenging things to do with NG - in addition to reading her dozens of books a day (some of them several times in a row like the one with photographs of babies signing words) - I've been trying out new things like matching shapes, building block towers and the latest - putting together 4 piece puzzles.
She's getting pretty good at the shape thing - especially squares, circles and triangles - but she seems to prefer knocking down block towers than building them and taking apart puzzles instead of putting them together. Is this strange or normal? I honestly don't know.
If I ask her to put one block on top of another, she does, but then immediately knocks it off. If I manage to build a tower of several blocks, she won't bother adding one more to the top but instead goes straight for the knock down. We can actually spend a long time with me trying to build block towers faster than she can knock them down but she's pretty darn fast.
Thought we'd try a jigsaw puzzle so I got one with 4 different zoo animals, each made up of 4 large pieces. When I went to show her how to put them together - and how they made up animals that she knew like a lion and giraffe - she immediately began pulling them apart.
"Don't you want to make the puzzle?" I asked.
She shook her head and said something like "Neh."
"Oh come on," I cajoled. "Look at this beautiful giraffe and a baby giraffe! Let's put this one together."
"Neh," she said as she took it apart again.
Maybe at 15 months some babies just knock over block towers and pull apart jigsaw puzzles. I'd love to hear from other moms of knock downers & take aparters!
Of course that's totally normal. :) Destruction is way fun.
Posted by: Eva | October 05, 2007 at 06:18 AM
When my kids were young, I kept hearing Walter Benjamin's famous words in my head:
"The destructive character is young and cheerful."
Seemed to fit the bill perfectly. Young and cheerful and oh destructive!
The rest of the article is here
http://tinyurl.com/yrdpo7
I think it's perfectly normal and enjoyable.
Posted by: Lila | October 05, 2007 at 07:03 AM
My daughter is 15 months old too, and she actually gets mad if I try to build a tower of builds. She starts flapping her arms and yelling at me. So, we don't build towers anymore.
Posted by: christy | October 05, 2007 at 09:58 AM
My son does this too. He doesn't build, he destroys! I figured it was a boy thing. But we both find it hilarious for me to build the huge tower, as I try to keep him away, only for him to shoot out his foot once to knock it down.
Posted by: Jennifer W | October 05, 2007 at 04:36 PM
My son was exactly the same way at that age. Right around his second birthday, he started actually building with blocks and putting puzzles together.
Posted by: Ami | October 08, 2007 at 08:29 AM