Child B. stood at the table and stared at the red paper. It wasn’t in her hands. It was in her friend’s.
There had been red, yellow and blue. Now there was only yellow and blue, and I had just told her so. I asked her what she would like to do, and then I waited.
She didn’t cry. She didn’t grab. She just looked at that red paper for a long time, the way two-year-olds look at something they have lost. Then she turned, picked up the blue one and said, “I’ll have this one!” And off she went.
It took maybe twenty seconds. I have been thinking about those twenty seconds ever since.
A magazine on my desk
A few weeks later, I opened the latest Every Child magazine and found an article by Dr Lisa Sonter and Sue Southey on children as flexible thinkers (Sonter & Southey, 2026).
They describe executive function as the brain’s control centre. It is made of three skills that work together: working memory, inhibitory control and flexible thinking. Flexible thinking is the one that lets children think creatively and adjust when something changes. The article then shares play stories from Queensland kindergartens: a bowling game on a slope, an obstacle course with new rules, and a castle game that grew over many weeks.
I loved it. I nodded the whole way through. But I also noticed something. Every child in those stories was four.
My room is full of two- and three-year-olds. They don’t draw castle plans yet. So I asked myself: what does flexible thinking look like before it looks like that?
Two kinds of flexible
The more I thought about it, the more I saw two kinds of flexible thinking.
The first is making new ideas. Rolling a wheel instead of a hoop. Adding a rule to a game. This is what the four-year-olds in the article were doing.
The second is adjusting when things change. My plan doesn’t work, so I try another one. The red paper is gone, so I choose the blue. The article’s own definition includes this part, but its stories mostly show the first kind.
In a room of two-year-olds, I see the second kind first. It’s smaller and quieter, and it is often wrapped up in big feelings. That made me curious. Could I give my children small, safe chances to practise it on purpose?
Story 1: Any colour and go
The red paper was not an accident. I had planned moments like it into our group times. Small changes, low stakes, with me right there.
Then I tried something bigger. Our room uses coloured grab ropes for evacuation, and B. has favourite colours. So one day we talked about emergencies. I explained that in an emergency, there might not be time to choose. I asked her if she could hold any colour and leave quickly. She said, “Yes!”
Saying yes is easy, of course. Doing it is another thing.
Later, we had a fire drill. I said, “B., let’s grab any colour and go!” She took the rope right in front of her. No searching, no choosing. She walked out with the group.
That was when I realised what I had been doing. Practise it small. Talk about it before it matters. Then watch it show up when it really counts.
Story 2: One cloud, many shapes
This term we were learning the letter C, so we went on a Cloud Hunt. We looked up at the sky, talked about different kinds of clouds, and made fluffy sponge-paint clouds on our hunt boards.
But the part I remember most came from one photo. I showed every child the same cloud. “I can see a bunny!” said one. “I can see a dinosaur!” said another. Same cloud, same moment, completely different eyes.
We talked about that. The same thing doesn’t look the same to everyone, and that’s okay.
At first I wondered if this was really flexible thinking. Each child had one answer and held on to it. I think that’s the starting point, not the finish line. The flexible moment is when a child changes their mind, or looks again because a friend saw something else.
That day, nobody turned a bunny into a dinosaur. Each child kept their own cloud. And for two-year-olds, I think that’s fine. Hearing that a friend sees something different is the first step. Changing your own mind can come later.
Story 3: The floor is lava
We have big square blocks in our room, about 50 centimetres on each side. The children love to fit them together.
One day, a group decided the floor had turned to lava. The rule was simple: stay on the blocks or you’re done for. Nobody taught them that. They invented it, they agreed on it, and they followed it. This was the first kind of flexible thinking, the kind from the magazine, happening in my room of little ones.
So I joined in, and I changed the rule. “Now the blocks aren’t safe anymore. You have to find somewhere higher to climb!”
That one small change asks a lot. The children have to let go of the old rule, even though it was theirs. They have to hold the new rule in their heads. Then they have to find a new plan. All three parts of executive function, working together in one game of lava.
The children didn’t stop for a second. “Where’s higher?” they asked each other. Then someone called out, “Come here! Amy can’t catch you!” Suddenly they were showing each other the high spots and helping friends get there.
I had changed one rule. They answered with a whole new story, escaping from me, and they worked it out together. Collaborating, solving problems, coming up with ideas. The same things the magazine saw in its four-year-olds, happening with my two-year-olds.
Even the toilet
Here’s one the magazine would never include, but every Pre-Kindy teacher will understand.
A two-year-old is deep in play. Then they feel something in their body. They have to notice it, stop the game they love, and walk to the toilet. Then they have to come back and find their way into the play again.
That’s not only toilet training. It’s noticing, stopping and switching, all at once. It might be the hardest flexible thinking task in a toddler’s whole day. And they do it again and again.
Is this too intentional?
The magazine ends with a point I keep coming back to. Our responses can open up children’s thinking or quietly close it down. In the end, it is the children’s own actions that build their confidence.
So I had to ask myself honestly. I took away the red paper. I changed the lava rule. Was I taking the play away from them?
I don’t think so, and here is why. I set up the change, but the adjusting was always theirs. B. chose the blue paper herself. The children decided where “higher” was. The EYLF calls this intentional teaching: deliberate, purposeful and thoughtful decisions about how we support learning (Australian Government Department of Education [AGDE], 2022).
The plan was never for me to keep changing the rules forever. The plan is for my support to get smaller and smaller, until one day a child says, “Now the lava is rising! Climb on the chair!” When that happens, I’ll know the flexible thinking belongs to them.
Twenty seconds
I used to think flexible thinking was a big-kid skill. Castle plans, new game rules, clever ideas.
Now I think it starts in twenty quiet seconds, with a little girl staring at a red paper she can’t have. It starts when she turns around anyway.
But I’m not fully sure I got this right. Is it fair to make life a little harder on purpose for children this young? I’m still thinking about that one, and I’d love to hear what you think.
You might also like:
- Wee First, Poo Later (more on the toilet as a learning moment)
- ABC, how: C for Cloud (the Cloud Hunt activity)
- The Song That Turned Into Background Music (another story about intentional teaching at group time)
References
Australian Government Department of Education. (2022). Belonging, being and becoming: The Early Years Learning Framework for Australia (V2.0). Australian Government Department of Education for the Ministerial Council.
Sonter, L., & Southey, S. (2026). Children as flexible thinkers. Every Child, 32(3), 28–29. Early Childhood Australia.