All children experience periods of intense absorption and focus in certain areas of their development. This is their zing. If we, the parents, can learn how to follow the zing, to feed the zing, we will have happier, more confident, self-assured, and independent children. It’s a win-win.

What’s Zing?

What is “zing”, you ask? According to Miriam-Webster it is an enjoyably exciting or stimulating quality. A perfect definition to label these wonderful phases that all children pass through periodically, where they are intensely absorbed in certain areas of their development, such as language zing or walking zing or art zing, etc.

Kids are in their zing when their attention is fixed in a specific task or activity, such as developing a sense of order (ages 0-6 yrs), coordinating hand movement and activity (beginning with an intentional grasp after 2 mos), learning to read (age varies), etc. Parents often find these stages frustrating because we don’t always understand the actions of the child and are therefore struggling against their innate needs, rather than feeding their needs.

Dr. Maria Montessori recognized the importance of this as she stated in The Absorbent Mind, “The child has his own laws of development and if we want him to grow, it is a question of following these, not of imposing ourselves upon him.” This does gets easier with practice. . . and a lot of observation.

If your one-year-old is tearing apart your kitchen cabinets (because she is developing her sorting skills and fine motor control), create a kitchen cabinet or drawer that is appropriate for exploration. Or, if an extra cabinet is not just sitting idle for these purposes, then create an activity that might mimic this process, such as transferring objects (spoons, for example) from one container to another.

Converting one of our drawers for the children’s use has spared us and them from unending redirection and cleaning of dishes.
Converting one of our drawers for the children’s use has spared us and them from unending redirection and cleaning of dishes.

Is your child in a language zing and asking about letters and sounds constantly? Play games with sounds and letters everywhere and all of the time! For example, play “I spy something that starts with the sound “s”, rhyming, letter identification, etc. Play these in the car, in the grocery store, at home, waiting in line, waiting at a stop light. Is your child always talking about numbers and wanting to count? Wonderful!! It’s a number zing. Count everything. Count the stairs as you climb, count the green cars on the road, count the grapes for snack.

You have to shift your thinking to always be on the lookout for the current zing. Your child’s zing may be indicated in an obvious or subtle way.  Often times, a child’s energy level and complete dedication to the particular task is extraordinary, but ends just as quickly as it began.  Developing new skills is most effective when in the zing, not after the fact when teaching takes much more work, backtracking, and sometimes even force. These zing moments are temporary and if missed require remedial teaching. Like other areas of child development, the child is often there and ready (in their zing) before the parent is aware or ready.

The more I understand my child and follow her zing, the more context I have through which to view the larger picture and trust my child’s ability to flourish. “Knowledge is power. Information is liberating,” said Kofi Annan. Commit and liberate yourself  to macro-manage and watch your children flourish independently of you. When you feed the focus, your child feels understood and respected, which results in less resistance and greater harmony. Don’t worry that you can’t maintain this level of commitment. Each zing passes very quickly and they are on to a new focus.

Learn to identify and feed your child’s zing and you will experience less resistance!

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