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Does Help Me Mean Do It For Me?

Writer's picture: Chelsea InmanChelsea Inman

I hear the first sign of distress and glance over. A child is struggling and I know what’s coming next:


“Help teacher!” It may be a request to pull on a shoe, draw a picture, build a tower, put together a puzzle or solve a social problem. We see children through challenges every day and the ways in which we offer help can shape how they see challenges and perceive their abilities to meet them.


Our goal in aiding children in times of distress has many parts: 

First, of course, we want to help the child move through this moment of struggle and find their way to the other side of it. 

Second, we want to support the building of the skills necessary to meet the challenge, whether it be physical skills like climbing, social skills like taking turns or cognitive skills like persisting and thinking of solutions. 

We also have larger goals like shaping how children see challenges and how they perceive their own ability to meet challenges next time as well as their resilience in the face of struggle or failure and confidence in taking healthy risks and trying new things.

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Here are some helpful approaches that we use in the classroom to help children through struggle.


Verbal Acknowledgement (helping children identify the problem, verbalize their attempts, and struggle)

“I hear you need some help, tell me what’s going on?”

“What have you tried so far?”

“Show me what you’re doing and I’ll see what I can do to help.”

“What’s the problem you need help with?”


Verbal Coaching (offering verbal suggestions instead of stepping in and solving the problem)

“Try wiggling your toes into the shoe while pulling the back of the shoe up”

“Try giving your friend a clear message about what you want them to do,

maybe say ‘give me that toy back please’”

“When I put together puzzles, I look for pieces that look similar, these pieces have the same green and yellow on them, maybe they will fit together”


Task Organizing (helping children break down larger struggles into manageable chunks)

“There are triangle and square blocks to clean up, which will you start on first?”

“What are all the parts of drawing a person that you can think of? Ok so you thought of head, eyes, smile and arms. Which will you start with?”


Scaffolding Skills (helping children attach new skills and ideas onto previous skills building from the skillset they already have)

"Remember how you zipped that dragon costume in Dramatic play? Your coat zipper is a lot like that. Start it by lining up and then pulling the zipper!"

"Your pinching fingers will help you gently place the puzzle into the slot, just like when you pinch pieces of play dough"


Through how we offer aid, we can show children that we accept failure, struggle and growth as a part of the human experience. We can build children’s self-confidence; by trusting their efforts and celebrating their

attempts so they feel confident trying again next time. 

Stepping in and solving problems for children, over time, can give unintended messages like “you can’t do this on your own” “I don’t want you to fail” “struggling is too painful.” “You’re right, this was too hard for you”

Through the sometimes uncomfortable process of facing challenges, children can feel true success and achievement. We wouldn’t want to rob the joy of success after struggle by interpreting “help me” as “Do it for me”


-Chelsea



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