Your Child Knows More Than You Think

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My 3 year old surprised me the other night. It didn’t surprise me that he snuck out of bed and was listening/watching undetected from the top of the stairs as my husband and I chatted with my parents and enjoyed a piece of ice cream cake. It didn’t surprise me that we heard the pitter-patter of his little feet running back to bed as he heard us come up the stairs, or that he jumped in bed and pretended to be asleep as we walked in the room. Once we started talking to him, it didn’t surprise me that he brought up the ice cream cake.
What surprised me is that he had pieced together everything that had happened for us to have the ice cream cake. He told me that it was the same ice cream cake they have at Carvel and asked if Daddy had gone to Carvel, opened the freezer, taken out the cake, put it on the counter, paid for it, taken it to the car, drove it home and put it in our freezer. “Is that what happened, Mommy?” he asked. Yes, son. That’s what happened.
This isn’t the only time I’ve been surprised by how much my kids understand.
I bring this up because lots of times, as a parent, I avoid explaining things to my kids because I assume they’re not going to be able to understand what I’m saying, or that they don’t really understand what they’re seeing. But that’s not the case.
When kids start asking a lot of questions, it usually indicates that they will start understanding a lot more answers too. This makes life more complicated for parents. To be honest, I’m sometimes more focused on appeasing my child with my explanations in order to have a little peace and quiet than I am on  how much he’s understanding and whether my explanation is understandable, but challenging to his current level of development.
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