He was two.

 

And every time, it was the same fear: a giant bear was going to climb through his bedroom window. Not just any bear. The bear from Teremok: the Russian folk tale I had been reading to him.

 

If you grew up in Eastern Europe or the former Soviet Union, you probably know Teremok. It’s one of those stories your mother told you, and one day, almost without thinking …you tell your own child. 

 

 

So he climbs on top. And crushes the entire house.

 

 

Supposed to be a cute little bedtime story … Except apparently not when you're two.

 

Because somewhere inside Adrian's developing brain, the bear had escaped the pages of Teremok. And now he was coming through his window.

 

Night after night I'd run in, hold him, and say: "Adrian, there's no bear. The bear isn't coming. It's only a story."

 

But it didn't matter … The fear was real.

 

 

 

Years later, when I started studying early childhood development more deeply, I realized something that stopped me.

 

 

Think about what I was asking him to understand.

 

Bears are real. Houses are real. Windows are real. The bear in Mommy's book looks like a bear.

 

 

And although bears exist, this particular bear cannot climb out of the story, find our house, and climb through Adrian's window.

 

Obvious to me … Not necessarily obvious to a 2-year-old.

 

 

 

Jean Piaget called birth to roughly age two the sensorimotor stage.

 

At first, babies understand their world largely through direct experience. See it. Touch it. Taste it. Shake it. Drop it. And naturally, drop it again the instant you pick it up.

 

(If you've spent dinner returning a spoon to a one-year-old who immediately throws it back on the floor, congratulations. You just participated in developmental psychology. 😂)

 

 

Around age one, matching is still beautifully concrete. A child can begin matching an object or picture with something that looks the same: this apple with the same apple, this picture with the identical picture.

 

 

Then, during the second year, something more sophisticated begins to emerge. Show them a photograph of a white horse and hand them a little brown horse figurine. 

 

One is flat, one is three-dimensional. They’re different colors, different sizes, different representations.

 

And yet the child begins to understand: Horse.

Not this looks exactly like that.

 

But: these are different things that represent the same kind of thing.

 

That tiny moment is enormous. The child isn't matching images anymore. They're beginning to understand what different things have in common.

 

 … which brings me straight back to that bear 🐻.

 

 

 

By around three, pretend play becomes wonderfully elaborate. A cardboard box becomes a castle. The couch is a pirate ship.

But here's what I wish I'd understood when Adrian was two:

 

 

That distinction develops gradually, and by around four, children are generally much better at it. Before that? The line is blurry. And fear makes it blurrier still.

 

A young child can know something is pretend in daylight... and still be genuinely terrified by it when the lights go out.

 

 

 

Imagine being two with almost no database to test what's possible.

Mommy says elephants are real. Whales are real. Tiny invisible bugs can make you sick. Airplanes the size of buildings actually fly.

 

Then Mommy opens a book and shows you an enormous bear crushing a house.

 

 

How exactly is a two-year-old supposed to know where reality ends?

This is why Montessori placed such strong emphasis on reality-based experiences in the early years. A toddler doesn't need a flying elephant to find the world magical.

 

 

The better question was never "Is this a children's story?"

It's "What might this story become inside my child's mind?"

 

 

 

If I could go back to Adrian at two, terrified in his bed, I wouldn't keep repeating "it's not real."

 

I'd understand why those words weren't working.

 

His brain was doing exactly what a young brain is supposed to do: building its map of reality.

 

And unfortunately, I'd handed that map one very large bear with excellent climbing skills.

 

 

 

Ten real animals. Their actual coats. Up close, in real photographs …not illustrations, not cartoons.

 

Animal Coats Matching is a Montessori cultural activity I presented to my own children, now shown step by step so you can start today. Ages 12 months and up. No prep. No guesswork.

 

Because a toddler doesn't need a flying elephant.

A leopard's coat is already extraordinary enough.

 

→ Get Animal Coats for $9.70
(Instant download. Lifetime access. 🎁 Includes Ocean Animals Skins Matching + Spanish bonus set + World Continents cards.)

 

With so much love,

Anya 

 

 

P.S. I still cannot believe Teremok is considered a bedtime story. A bunch of woodland animals move into a tiny house until a bear arrives and demolishes the place. Sweet dreams, kids. 😂 ( Hit reply if you've ever closed a book and thought "...why did I read that at bedtime?" I need to know I'm not alone. )

 

P.P.S. Since no one asked: Adrian is now 12. He has not once mentioned the bear. We credit the leopard cards (part of Animal Coats Matching 😉)