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This story “literally” made me stop in my tracks.
Many years ago, a little 4 year old girl named Chloe* was in my
class. One day, Chloe’s mom had a schedule conflict and since the family lived in my neighborhood, I offered to drive her daughter home after school.

Times were different then. I didn’t need to worry about liability as a teacher driving a student. I didn’t need to bother with car seats; seat belts were enough. But that’s beside the point. Back to my story about a four-year-old and her very literal language…

The school day was done. The children had been dismissed. It was just me and Chloe. “Okay, Chloe, let’s go!” I said as we got in my mini van. With Chloe buckled in the back seat, I set my school bag on the front passenger seat and my water bottle in the cup holder. Off we went.

As kids often do in the car, Chloe chatted about the day. It was exciting for her to ride in her teacher’s car! As we conversed, I reached for my water bottle and took a sip. Suddenly, coming from the back seat was a very animated little voice. “Miss Theresa, are you DRINKING & DRIVING?!”

I froze, water bottle in hand. My mind raced. You see, I know 4 year olds. They are very literal in their language. I was in fact “drinking and driving”- literally!

In that split second, I debated with myself. Do I split hairs with Chloe and explain the difference of water and alcohol? That water isn’t dangerous but drinking alcohol and then driving is? Do I get this deep with a preschooler in our 10 minute car ride?

No, in this briefest of moments I decided that this “drinking and driving” conversation was better left to Chloe’s mom. Surely Chloe had heard somewhere “Don’t drink and drive.” She took the phrase literally as four year old children do. She saw her teacher take a sip (of water!) as she drove. In her mind, I was indeed “drinking and driving!”

I set my water bottle in the cup holder and calmly said, “You are right, Chloe. I shouldn’t drink and drive.” Chloe smiled. I’m sure she was happy to know we were all safe again!

Inside, I was cracking up at the whole thing. Of course I made a mental note to tell mother her mom about our exchange so that in case Chloe mentioned that “Miss Theresa was drinking and driving” she’d know precisely what had happened! Phew!


*name changed

The way a four year old child communicates fascinates me. They are learning sentence formation and grammatical skills. They may not get the words ordered correctly, but they do get their point across.

A cute story about this concept happened in our first week of school.

Thomas* was having trouble with his shoelaces. At the end of circle time, he asked me to please tie his shoe. Some time later in the morning he approached me again; the other shoe had become untied. And then as the morning drew to a close, Thomas came to me for the third time with the same dilemma.

Our quick conversation was a little grammatically off, but he did get the point across. Here is our verbal exchange:

Thomas: “Miss Theresa, can you tie my shoe?”

Me: “Wow. Again?”

Thomas: “I don’t know how they’re un-keeping tied.”

“Un-keeping tied.” I love that!

*child’s name changed

This blog is written by Theresa Young, teacher of 4-year-olds and owner/director of Lenape Kiddie Kollege in Medford, NJ. 28 years with this age group and they still crack me up!

My almost 3 year old grandson was hanging in the kitchen with his dad, my son-in-law, who was busy prepping a meal. My grandson was demanding attention as toddlers do. “Daddy! Daddy! Daddy!” he kept saying. “Hold on a minute!” said Dad.

Again from my grandson: “Daddy! Daddy! Daddy!”
From his dad: “Just hold on! Hold your horses!”

My grandson went silent and stood there for a few seconds with an odd look on his face. Then he quietly said “okay” and walked away.

A few minutes later he returned. Each hand was holding a My Little Pony he had gotten from the playroom.
“Daddy,” he said, “I hold my horses.”

Now that is literally listening to Daddy!

A few months ago, my husband and I downsized. After 33 years, we moved from the house where we had raised our children to a condo.

On move-in day, my daughters came over with their children, our 7 grandkids. The kids were delighted to check out our new place. As you can imagine, they ran from room to room, giggling, chasing each other, opening and closing doors, looking in closets, etc. A new place to explore!

The next day, my daughter told me of a conversation she had with her 6-year-old. It went something like this:

“What did you think of Grammy and Grandpop’s new home?”
“I didn’t really like it.”
“What?! Why not?”
“There wasn’t really magic.”

It took my daughter awhile to figure out his “no magic” comment. That is until my granddaughter said, “I thought they were moving to a condo.”
My daughter, like me, understands they way children speak literally. Something in the way she said “I thought they were moving to a condo” made my daughter realize- she thought we were moving to ENCANTO!

If you’ve seen the movie, you understand that the house (or casita) in Encanto is truly magical. It moves items for family members and helps out when it can. The bedrooms are magical; one is a garden and another is a jungle filled with animals. Doors, windows and drawers can open by themselves. The floor tiles can move and flip. The house is practically a character itself.

So all those weeks when my granddaughter heard we were moving to a condo, she thought we were saying we were moving to Encanto and she was envisioning this colorful, magical place. It’s no wonder that when she entered and saw no jungles and gardens- no “magic,” she was so disappointed!

Well, my husband and I are comfortable and loving our simpler life in our condo on the lake. We will just have to make sure that when the grandkids visit we create some special magic for them!

When my daughters were little, they often went through “fashion” phases in which they insisted on wearing a certain accessory constantly.

For example, when Elizabeth was three years old, she wore a sparkly tiara for months. Everywhere we went, that tiara adorned her head. There were often comments in the grocery store- “Are you a princess today?” to which she would smile broadly in response.

I’ve witnessed this out in public and in my own preschool classroom… the super hero cape, the western boots, the glittery necklace, the temporary tattoos. The child feels beautiful… or powerful… or just downright fashionable.

About ten years ago, I had a student in my class named Katie.*
Katie wore a headband with cat ears EVERY DAY. This was not a short phase; Katie literally wore those cat ears all year long. I would hardly recognize Katie if she happened to show up without the cat ears. It was as if something was missing.

As the year was drawing to a close, I commented to Mom about how much Katie loved her cat ears. Her mom’s reply knocked me off my feet and cracked me up…

Katie had been wearing her cat ears to our school, Lenape Kiddie Kollege, because she goes to “KITTY” KOLLEGE! It just had not occurred to me to take the cat ears literally as would a four year old!

So a couple of months ago, I was reminded again of Katie when one of our little summer campers innocently asked me, “Why is this place called Kitty Kollege? There are no cats here!”

And then again this week, the cat theme came up. The children were conversing about the names of the classes in our school- the Dinosaur class, the Teddy class, the Bunny class. One of the children who did not want to be left out of the conversation piped up, “I do not go to Teddy College. I go to Kitty Kollege.”

You just have to love the mind of a four year old!

*name changed to protect child’s privacy

The author, Theresa Young, is the director of Lenape Kiddie Kollege in Medford, NJ. She has taught 4-year-olds for over 25 years. She is a Mom of 4 and a Grammy of 7.

My sister, Jeanne, enjoys my blog and recently shared with me her own experience with how a four year old takes language literally. This is her story in her own words:

Years ago, I worked at the Vallejo Home in Sonoma State Historic Park in California. One of my favorite groups to visit was a preschool group. I looked forward to their annual visit. The children would walk the 1/4 mile from the town square. I could see them coming, two-by-two, on the paved path across the field in front of Vallejo Home. I would be wearing the big hoop-skirted blue dress waiting to greet them to give them a tour of General Mariano Guadalupe Vallejo’s home.

In the courtyard before going inside, I loved to say we would be going through a time tunnel when we stepped through the front door. We would finish the tour going out and up to the reservoir built just above the home to capture the spring water as the water source. The General named his home in Latin “Lachyrma Montis,” meaning “tears of the mountain.”

As we ended the tour coming down the stone stairs, I saw a teacher trying to comfort a child who had started crying. The teacher came over to me with the child. I got down to the child’s height and asked, “What’s happened?”

The child’s teacher said the child missed going through “the tunnel!” That day I learned that every word said to the preschool children was taken literally!

How did we stop the child’s crying? Thinking quickly, I gathered up the children and said we were going back up the stairs to the reservoir to see the tunnel in case they missed it. Fortunately, the old vining roses growing along the walkway made an arch over it. The teachers and I made sure all the children looked up as they walked through this “tunnel!” No more tears. And a very humble tour guide who learned a valuable lesson about communicating with four year olds!

Theresa’s note: I love how Jeanne thought on her feet and made her mind think literally like a four year old does! Her quick thinking changed the abstract “time tunnel” into a literal physical “tunnel” for the children to observe and remember.
So often in my preschool class, I find myself changing my language to speak literally with images that children can clearly understand.

Theresa Young, Lenape KIddie Kollege, Medford, NJ

We recently had “Photo Day” at my nursery school, and this reminded me of my all- time favorite preschool story. This happened many years ago during one of my first years teaching four year olds. It’s about a boy’s casual observations of his dad.

It was photo day at my school. The kids had arrived in their cutest splendor. Their clothes were pressed, their hair was gelled; in general, they looked quite spiffy.

As each child was next up to be photographed by Miss Maggie, I’d kneel on the floor running a comb through their hair fixing stray strands, adjusting collars, etc.

So here I was face to face with Mitchell.* As I combed his hair out of his eyes, Mitchell was chattering on and on as he often did.

At one point he said, “My Dad takes his hair off and goes over to Knuckleheads and gets his real hair cut. Then he comes home and puts his hair back on.”

I fell back laughing. Mitchell stared at me. I realized that with his stare, he was communicating to me “why are you laughing and exactly what was so funny about that?”

I pulled myself together. I was thinking that in Mitchell’s world, this behavior of his dad was completely normal. Surely everyone’s dad does this! He probably thinks that all dads take off their hair, go and get a haircut and come home to “put their hair back on.”

So, I composed myself and nonchalantly asked Mitchell, “Does it ever make you laugh when Daddy takes his hair off?”

Mitchell thought for a moment. “No,” he said. He paused; then he continued, “But you want to know what he does that makes me laugh?”

“What makes you laugh, MItchell?”

“When Daddy takes his teeth out.”

True story!
I never shared Mitchell’s remarks with his mom; she would have been mortified. Nor could I look his dad in the eye when he’d come to pick up his son. I just knew too much- thanks to Mitchell and his hilarious comments!

This true story is shared by Theresa Young, director of Lenape Kiddie Kollege in Medford, NJ. *Only the name of “Mitchell” has been changed to protect his (and his dad’s!) identity.

Do you wish our world would get back to some normalcy? Do you wish there was no coronavirus? No illness, no closure of sports, theaters, parks? No loss of income, no unemployment, no… death?   As adults, our wishes can be very heavy.

A while back when school was open and the world was “normal” I asked the
children “If you could have one wish, what would it be?” Here’s what some of them said:

“For my brother to win the baseball game.”
“To be in the North Pole and get to see Santa.”
“To know how to ride a skateboard.”
“That a robot did everything for us ‘cuz then everyone would just get to relax.”
“For my dad to have a nerf war with me for 100 days.”
“That I could play the guitar.”
“That I could fly.”

And the sweetest, my most favorite answer of all…
“That my good dreams came to life.”

Thank you to my lovely four year old children for bringing sunshine to our troubled world with these simple innocent wishes!

The author, Theresa Young, is director of Lenape Kiddie Kollege in Medford, NJ. (www.lenapekiddiekollege.com) She has enjoyed teaching the 4 year old class for 25 years. She is also known as Mom to 4 daughters and Grammy to 4 grandkids.

This story goes back… WAY back to when my daughter, Elizabeth, was five years old.
Elizabeth was getting dressed for her day in kindergarten. She asked me, “Mom, do you think I should tuck my shirt in my pants or wear it out?”
I looked at her and replied, “you can wear it either way. Which way would you like it today?”
“Hmmm,” she mused. “I think I’ll wear it tucked in because then everyone can admire my sparkly belt.”
I smiled at her sweetness while marveling at her use of a great vocabulary word- “admire.” I said, “Good choice, Elizabeth. Everyone will certainly admire your sparkly belt.”
She tucked her shirt in and asked me, “Mom?”
“Yes?”
“What does admire mean anyway?”

So very funny! We talked about the meaning of the word, and she went on her way. I was impressed that she had picked up the word somewhere and had used it correctly in context.

Weeks later, we were reading Jan Brett’s The Mitten, and we came upon the sentence “He stopped for a moment to admire his winter coat.”
Ah ha! I realized that this is where she had learned the word admire- in a book read over and over.

You know that teachers always say that the number one thing you can do as a parent to improve your child’s school success is to read, read, read to your child.
So very true! Your child will have countless language-filled moments like Elizabeth’s innocent comment that “everyone will admire my sparkly belt.”

During the 25 plus years I’ve been hanging out with 4 year olds, I’ve jotted down tidbits here and there of the hilarious things they say. Four year old children are quite wise. If you truly listen to them, you’ll understand their literal thought process. I hope you appreciate their expertise as much as I do.

On housing:
“We have ghosts in our house. I know because I saw ghost tracks.”
“We are moving to a new house. Our old house is going to be shut down.”
Child making plans with his pal: “Want to come to my house to play? Just go past 7-11 and then go past Bob’s house and you’ll see my house.”
“I thought I heard a mouse in my house last night, but it was just my brother snoring.”

On the genders:
“I don’t have my ears pierced because I’m a boy, and boys don’t have their ears pierced. (PAUSE). Unless they’re pirates”
Me: “I see Daddy brought you to school today.”
Child: “Well, if he had long hair, it would be Mommy.”
Child’s casual comment about her grandmother: “My grandma can’t eat barbecue chips because she says they make her blow up.”
Another child remarks on Dad: “My dad has to lay off the beer.”

On the birds & the bees:
Child: “Bees pollinate the flowers. My mom taught me that.”
Me: “How does that work?”
Child: “Well, the bee sucks out all the pollinating stuff and gargles it and then spits out honey.”

The experts have spoken- hope you’ve listened and learned!