Why you should let your toddler puzzle it out... even when you’re itching to jump in

Watching your toddler play with a simple puzzle can be its own form of torture – especially if it’s taking them what feels like hours to fit a small cut out of a cat into a clearly very cat-shaped hole on the board! But, although our instinct is so often to help them ‘finish’, this might not be what your toddler needs. There are many, many skills being practised which might be more important to your toddler than finishing the puzzle.  

Your toddler is exploring the puzzle piece, and board, every time they play with it. Their fine motor skills, which allow them to move and control the tiny muscles in their fingers, are now more sophisticated and your toddler can move the puzzle piece, turn it and flip it over. They might spend a long time doing this, and perhaps trying and failing to fit it into its space.  

Let them keep trying at their own pace and watch them explore the feel of the puzzle.  

It is really tempting to help them get the puzzle piece into place and celebrate completing it, but if you look under the surface there is probably a lot more happening for your toddler than simply a desire to finish the puzzle. 

Toddlers, and children of all ages, explore the world in large part through experiencing things. This includes experiencing how objects feel, move and fit together. As they explore the puzzle piece, they are processing information about it from all their senses, in order to learn more about it and the world around it.  

Children, like scientists, will make assumptions about an object when they first encounter it and then change and rethink their ideas as they experiment with the item.  

Research shows that having time and space to explore objects fully is an important way for them to develop this way of thinking.[1] 

When your toddler is playing with their puzzle piece, they might be trying to fit it into the hole and get that rush of achievement which comes with completing a puzzle. But they might also be testing the material to see if it bends or folds, or checking to see if the piece works upside down or only the right way up.  

Just because they’ve done the puzzle before, doesn’t mean they won’t learn something new.  

Even if they have played with this puzzle before, your toddler’s scientific curiosity may be focused on checking if the things they discovered last time are still true, or perhaps testing a new way of holding shapes that their fingers have become strong enough to manage.  

So next time the urge to reach over and rotate the puzzle piece correctly for your toddler overcomes you, try to hold back.  

Letting your toddler experiment with holding and moving the puzzle in different ways, and trying again if it doesn’t work the way they expected the first time, is not only a fantastic way for them to strengthen their fine motor skills but it also helps them to build on their understanding of the world around them.  

Reference: 

[1] Lynneth Solis, S, Curtis, K.N, and Hayes-Messinger, A. (2017) ‘Children’s Exploration of Physical Phenomena During Object Play.’ Journal Of Research In Childhood Education, 31:1, 122–140.