I’m leaving this open for discussion.  What do you think?

(Click the post title to read the submission.)

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My family made a trip to the “Star of India” - a merchant ship anchored in Mission Bay as a museum.  I refused to go on it because I did not want to go to India.  They tried to explain, but I threw a fit and so my dad, just like yours, agreed to humor me, if that’s what we can call it.  While the rest of my family went, as far as I could tell, to India, my dad stayed behind with me.  I don’t think he figured out why I was still crying.  I didn’t want everyone else going to India either!  My older brother and sister got some neat stuff in the museum and I was a little upset when we got home and I realized what happened.  I think I was about three.

That is very funny. Maybe you could write your own story about that, could be good…

He he that’s awesome. I think we, as adults, are too quick to forget how logical kids can be about stuff in their own intelligent, naive way.

When I was a kid my family and I went to a hot air balloon festival, and my parents asked us if we wanted to go for a ride in one of them. I was super excited at the idea, couldn’t stop talking about it all day, until I realized that once the balloons were ready to go, people were actually untying them from the ground and letting them go up in the air…until I couldn’t see them anymore. I started freaking out, crying, literally terrified at the idea of leaving Earth and ending up somewhere between the Moon and god knew what. And I freaked out so much about the rest of the family never coming back that my folks called it a day and canceled the hot air balloon ride.

My sister didn’t talk to me for a week, even though I tried to explain that I didn’t want her to go because I would have missed her too much. I must have been 4 or 5 and to this day, even though I remember how upset I was, I wish I could say I’d been in a hot air balloon. Maybe I’ll rectify that some day.

It kills me because I can’t imagine these things happening to my kids.  Something in me screams all these possibilities when they… chicken out about something.  So I start digging, by asking them questions and reasoning with them.  Often, they have a legitimate concern (a roller coaster could break, conceivably), but sometimes it is as we’ve described - a misunderstanding - and when I find that and we clear it up, the kids are ready to go.  But maybe someday they’ll remember some stuff like this and… put me in my place.

Dave Scotese - 18 January 2011 11:56 PM

Something in me screams all these possibilities when they… chicken out about something.  So I start digging, by asking them questions and reasoning with them.

I agree that questioning, reasoning and explaining is the way to go in educating kids and teaching them to question themselves about their (fears, concerns, ideas, beliefs, insert any intelligent word that fits here…) but somehow I can’t forget how logical and normal all these thoughts seemed when I didn’t necessarily have all the tools or all the worries that I’ve accumulated since those days.

I mean, go back to whatever you want, Kids Say the Darnedest Things, or the truth comes from the mouth of children, or, as an old French song claims, “..and the kids, it’s not really their fault, they can be bad or hurt us from time to time, they can spit, they can lie, they can steal, after all they can do what they are taught”, I am inspired and delighted every single day by what kids come up with, and the way they think, and the way they have of surprising me for coming up with stuff that makes my mind wonder and explore ideas that I thought were buried way back when I still believed that in the back of my sister’s closet there was a door that led to a magical room full of toys and animals and magic.

I still dream about that from time to time, and I wake up wanting to go back there like I did a thousand times as a kid and look for that door. The disappointment I felt when I didn’t find it was hard to bear, but my child’s mind kept insisting that I didn’t look well enough, or it only appeared at certain times and, well, I guess I just liked believing in it being there, and that was enough to make me smile.

Am I rambling? I guess I am. I want to be a good teacher for kids, I want to give them the help my years of experience can offer. I want them to grow up to question, understand, be equipped with the tools we need to survive and thrive in this crazy world, and I certainly don’t want them to be stuck in a world of dreams that doesn’t allow for the sometimes harsh truth of reality. But I somehow also want them to hold on to these moments. After all, I do, and they often serve me well. I guess I just wish kids can grow up accepting reality and still being able to appreciate what dreaming and intuition can do for them. And maybe on a more selfish note, I want to keep benefiting from what their child’s minds can do for me.

- Star