Partner parent

This morning, getting Theo and Rosie changed, Theo spotted a puzzle and brought it to me: "Can we do this?" he asked.

"Oh great," I thought, rolling my eyes. "A three year old doing a puzzle...let's get this over with." I whizzed through the puzzle, assembling it in a flash, barely incorporating Theo's suggestions (all of which were wrong: "I think this goes here!"), so that we could move on to more age-appropriate activities. Besides, we had a plan; we were getting changed, so we could go outside. Move along.

But when Kendra gets asked by one of our kids to do a puzzle, it's an entirely different game.

She can see developmental milestones, a gift from her time spent studying human biology at undergraduate and master's levels, including some paediatrics.

As a parent, she lives into her role as a coach: she identifies tasks the kids need to do, and will attempt to equip and encourage them to do the job.

In the case of a puzzle, she'll let them do the handling, so they can work on dexterity,…