Puzzles - Saint Charles,MO

I love puzzles, but my kids were harder to convince. We started with easy kid puzzles, less than 100 pieces. Dump everything out. Pull out all the edge pieces; put the middle pieces back in the box. Prop up the picture on the box, then complete the edge first. Then pick a part of the picture; brown hair, red shoes, green trees, whatever... pick out all the pieces with those colors and complete that part. Then pick another part, etc. Before you know it, it's done! It's SO much easier and less overwhelming for kids to do it this way. Let your SON pick a puzzle he wants to do, that will help keep him interested. My dad taught me how to do puzzles this way... you'll have a master puzzler in no time! HAVE FUN!! :)

Don't beat yourself up over it. Take your son shopping & pick out some puzzles to buy. They list the recommended ages on the puzzle box.

We use the same technique that Rachel D. does when we do puzzles together.

BTW, girls really love doing puzzles too....it's not just a boy thing.

There's LOTS of things we don't do. Eventaully we'll get to them. Don't beat yourself up.

Buy easy puzzles that he can master. My son is finally moving up to the 48 piece puzzles.

I honestly think that's WHY the Dollar Store exsists!

Once he gets going you'll actually have FIVE MINUTES of QUIET. Boys really love doing puzzles! ('Boys' being referenced to K. C.'s son.)

I would not assume the lack of puzzles is a problem. I wonder if Einstein or Gandhi or Madeline Albright were given puzzles in early childhood. I have worked with a good number of children over the years. Other than children with an obvious handicap, there are two general groups of children that seem to get frustrated most easily.

Some are highly intuitive and are int the habit of intuiting answers rather than having to learn to think things through in a problem solving process. These children need to be encouraged to recognize their intuitions as hypothesis that need to be tested out. Intuitive children can become some of our most brilliant problem solvers. But, they must learn patience. They are used to 'guessing' the right answer so often that when they don't 'guess' correctly, they feel something is wrong with them. They need a good deal of light encouragement to develop the patience to think things through. Puzzles might be helpful for this, but there are so many other projects that can be used. Which leads me to the second general group of easily frustrated children.

When kids have parents that solve all their problems for them, they feel inadequate to try and are very easily frustrated. Life presents enough problems without us making puzzles to solve. But, as adults, we usually do whatever seems expedient at the time rather than recognizing a teachable moment. If our 4 year old brings us a broken toy, do we ask the child if he has any ideas about how it might be fixed? Often we put it up and tell the child that we will fix it or have Dad fix it or just buy a new one. We often look into how it got broken and try to teach the child to not break toys. This may help them learn to prevent problems, but not to solve a problem that already exists.

So, you may want to look at the situation differently and ask yourself if you have done too little or too much for your child. I have never been a proponent of letting infants cry-it-out and feel abandoned. But, I am a big proponent of letting a baby, a toddler, a child of any age struggle a bit for something they are trying to achieve and giving them just enough encouragement and help so that they are able to reach their own goals, use their own hands and own minds to work it out.

All good teachers know that the best thing you can give a student is not a good answer but a good question.

1. Don't beat yourself up. We all forget SOMETHING. (I just realized the other day that I don't have any child boardgames. MEMORY is all I have for my 3 yr old, and we rarely play it). I would doubt that just b/c you forgot about puzzles, that's the sole reason he gets frustrated easily.
2. Be glad that you have such a great pre-school. What an awesome teacher who can figure out something like that. Very intuitive and/or a great teacher who cares about your son.
3. I second the 'dollar store' idea. They have plenty to choose from.
4. Does your husband like puzzles? I'd suggest someone who LIKES puzzles and has a knack for them should teach/help your son. If you are frustrated with them, maybe he'll pick up on that and get frustrated himself while you two are working on them together.

Puzzles are just a tool to help with problem solving and frustration. You can use many things in life to accomplish the same thing. I think at age 4 they are still figuring it out, so with help from you he will get it.

My daughter would be come extermly frustrated at age 3, we do have tons of puzzles (the simpler wooden ones) that she could do. Then we would talk her through it, encouraging her to keep going, or if getting really frustrated to take a step back, take a few breaths to regroup and calm down then come back and try again. We did this with every task/activity she would become frustrated with. A little after she turned 4 she started doing the above with out us coaching her.

I keep puzzles around in the hope that my son will do them. I love them, and so does my whole family. We have the ones with the big wooden pieces, cardboard ones with less than 100 pieces, and homemade ones(glue a picture to cardboard and then cut it up). Unfortunately, my 9-year-old son has never been interested in or good at putting together puzzles. But he loves watching his 4-year-old cousin do them.
Puzzles are great for practicing the ability to picture where things are in space and for recognizing patterns. Can you imagine whether a piece is going to fit without picking it up and turning it around? Can you match the patterns on 2 different pieces?

Stop feeling bad, just go get some puzzles.

And he's only 4, so give it time. Also, you can only change a kid's personality so much.

But the right puzzle - not too hard and with a fun picture, can be really fun to do. Find a picture you like, and you might be surprised at how fun puzzles can be.

don't worry:) my oldest (6 yo) loves puzzles and has been doing them since he was 2, but he is still easily frustrated with many things. my 4 yo never liked puzzles as much and rarely gets frustrated with things. your son is 4 and he is just learning how to do so many things it is easy to see how our little ones can be frustrated when a new skill doesn't come easily. and we as parents can never provide every learning tool. spend time with your son playing whatever he enjoys whether that be games or puzzles or stickers. and work on how he deals with his frustration it will get better as he gets older. good luck!