A Road Less Travelled

Children just think differently. They wonder if invisible people can see each other, and are we invisible to them? They think diapers are funny. They hear “Don’t interrupt unless it’s an emergency.”, but unlike us they know that emergencies consist of such dire events as the need for a glass of water, the need to yell at someone who just sat on an invisible friend, and the need to tell everyone that there’s a bird, yes, a real live bird just outside the window. They think quiet means not yelling at the top of their lungs, and yelling doesn’t count if it was an emergency (see above). They also think interrupting doesn’t count if otherwise they’d forget what they were going to say.

Ok, some of those are only partly true, but children still think differently. Sometimes I just don’t know how to drive home what I’m trying to say in a way that they’ll understand. “Yes, I know I said to stop talking, but that was before I needed to ask you a question.” “Yes, it still counts as grabbing even if you were just holding on really hard instead of pulling.” “Look, it’s my hand, attached to my arm and I was using it. Please don’t just grab my hand and start tying my fingers in knots.”

I would write more but I’d better go see what crazy ideas the children thought up with while I was typing…