Smashing pellets and self regulation

Here are three videos that are a narrative on smashing pellets and self regulation

In the first video, a child used a long dowel to smash the pellets.  For him this was a full body enterprise; he coordinated his jumps with pounding the dowel down into the pellets.  About three seconds into the video, the child directly to his right looked into the tub to see exactly what he was doing.  By the look on her face, her curiosity was a little on the disapproving side.  About six seconds in, she lifted her head to look at his face, again in a more or less disapproving way.  As the video ends, the child with the dowel jabbed his stick into the corner of the tub closest to the child pouring the pellets.

Smashing pellets 1 from Thomas Bedard on Vimeo.

Was it an accident when he jabbed his stick into the corner of the tub closest to the girl?  Or was it an overture to the girl asking her to look at what he was doing?  Or could it have been an accident that led to an overture?

In the second video, the child continued to use the dowel to smash the pellets. About one second into the video, his jump wandered a bit so he ended up very close to the girl who was pouring pellets in her pail.  In fact, it looked like his hand almost bumped her pail. He stopped pounding and jumping for a second and looked at the girl to see if she noticed that he almost bumped her. She did not seem to notice so he started smashing and jumping again. However his smashing and jumping seemed a little more animated and less controlled.  His dowel was no longer going straight up and down, but seemed to hit most areas of the tub. As he got more animated, he smiled with the freedom to smash anywhere in the tub.  Then the girl poured pellets into the middle of the tub. Though he was not watching where the girl poured her pellets, before long he directed his smashing to the middle of the tub where she just deposited her pellets. By the end of the video there was a striking contrast between the jumping and smashing by the boy and the measured pouring of the girl.
 

Smashing pellets 2 from Thomas Bedard on Vimeo.

At one point in this video, the boy jumping up and down came really close to the girl pouring pellets into her pail.  She knew he was there, but did not seem to be phased with being so close to all his physical exuberance.  Did she trust him that he would not bump into her?  Was she simply holding her ground?  Did he read her non reaction as a license to jab the stick anywhere and everywhere?

In the third and last video, the girl has leaned over the tub to scoop some pellets in her container.  She pretty much covered the whole tub with her scooping action.  The boy was still jumping up and down smashing the pellets but he adjusted his actions to the one free corner of the tub so he would not bump the girl.  As soon as the girl stood up to pour pellets into her pail, he moved his smashing to the area she just vacated.  As she leans over the tub to scoop some more pellets, he stopped pounding and jumping as he watched her scoop the pellets. He did not move his dowel, but kept it planted in the area where she had scooped the first time. The girl avoided the dowel as she scooped her pellets. As she did that, the boy took his dowel and jabbed it into the pellets just over her scooping action. As she stood up to pour pellets into her pail, the boy started jumping and smashing again. As he did that, he jabbed the dowel closer and closer to the girl. That did not seem to phase the girl because again she leaned over the tub to scoop some more pellets. Interestingly, the boy moved the dowel with each subsequent jab back away from the girl. As the girl finished her scoop, the boy made an accidental jab outside the tub. He lost his balance slightly and caught himself on the tub. At this point he was almost directly over the girl who was still leaning over the tub. As the girl stood up, she asks him if he is ever going to stop. The video ends with him poking the pellets in the sensory table.

Smashing pellets 3 from Thomas Bedard on Vimeo.

In the book Lois Malaguzzi and the Schools of Reggio Emilia; a selection of his writings and speeches, 1945-1993,  Malaguzzi in a speech from 1989 stated: "No act of the child after birth can be perceived as devoid of meaning in any way.  That is absolutely not possible. ...there is no action, no act, no act in which a child is a protagonist or of which a child is a recipient, which does not contain meaning in it above all for the child" (p. 352). Granted, these three videos that make up the narrative are short, but what meaning do their actions have individually and as a dyad?

The focal point for most people watching the video has to be the physicality of the boy and how close he comes to bumping or hitting the girl.  However with a closer look, a new focal point emerges: how they negotiate space while both go about their business at the sensory tub.  That negotiation of space becomes an intricate dance between the two children.   It is a intricate dance in which the boundaries keep shifting, in which the boundaries are constantly crossed and exchanged. 

For sure, children are learning to self regulate.  How else could they pull off their close encounters without getting into some conflict?  But it turns out to be much more than self regulation.  To regulate themselves, they necessary have to recognize ---at least tacitly---how the other regulates his or her own actions.   As it turns out, self regulation is not exclusively about the self.  Necessarily, self regulation is also about the dynamic interplay between others.  In other words, self regulation turns out to be about mutual regulation, too.