{"id":2377,"date":"2021-09-06T22:27:23","date_gmt":"2021-09-06T22:27:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/gmachronicles.com\/?p=2377"},"modified":"2021-09-06T22:27:23","modified_gmt":"2021-09-06T22:27:23","slug":"in-the-mind-of-a-kid","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/gmachronicles.com\/index.php\/in-the-mind-of-a-kid\/","title":{"rendered":"In the Mind of a Kid"},"content":{"rendered":"

In the course of everyday family life involving school-aged children, schedule demands often dictate the shape and form of interaction. Conversation may feel less like an in-depth news interview and more like a quick declaration\u00a0 aimed at a passenger who has just leapt on a departing subway.\u00a0 The chance to say \u201chave a seat and tell me all your news\u201d may return someday, but now is not that season in the flowing river of time.<\/p>\n

So, it was a particular, shiny little delight, unplanned and brief, to get some conversational time alone recently with my grandson Buddy.\u00a0 His sister required his mom\u2019s undivided attention for something important, so Buddy came over to hang out with me for a couple of hours.\u00a0 As dusk began to settle over the neighborhood on the hot summer evening, we took the dog out for a stroll.<\/p>\n

Buddy turned 10 when I was away for a few months in a temporary home, and I am still catching up to the people he and his sister became in my absence.\u00a0 Perhaps it\u2019s the warping of time in our pandemic era that distorts perfectly natural progression, but the changes in both of them have popped my eyes open since I came back to live nearby.<\/p>\n

A young man of deep thoughts, Buddy is still not always the first to launch a sociable conversation.\u00a0As we ambled down the street at the moderate pace natural to summer in the South, I nattered on idly, trying, without pushing, to land on a subject of interest. We approached a patch of woods with thick, spiky green undergrowth crowned with purple and white wildflowers.\u00a0 A white-tailed rabbit sprang out of the bushes and bounded across the street in front of us in a flash, startling the dog away from his close inspection of a redolent street grate.\u00a0 \u201cWe have a lot of bunnies in the neighborhood,\u201d I offered.\u00a0 \u201cThey drive the dog crazy.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cDid you know,\u201d Buddy responded thoughtfully, \u201cthat kangaroos can\u2019t move their back legs separately?\u00a0 They have to move together.\u00a0 That\u2019s one reason why they hop.\u201d\u00a0 Making my own leap forward to track with this hopping theme, I asked him the eternal, adult-to-kid query: Where did you learn that?\u00a0 Pushing his glasses back up his nose, he shrugged his thin shoulders.\u00a0 \u201cI don\u2019t remember; I think I read it somewhere.\u201d<\/p>\n

I nodded appreciatively at this nugget, and we continued downhill, where the road is bordered by an intriguing meadow that opens between two dense clusters of scraggly old trees.\u00a0 You can\u2019t quite view the full expanse of the grass, shrubbery and weeds from the road, and I am curious about what lies beyond the narrow, visible opening. One day you and your sister can bring your boots over and we\u2019ll explore down there, I told him. There might be a little creek we could wade in, but you\u2019ll have to have boots, because there might be snakes.<\/p>\n

\u201cDo you know,\u201d he began again, \u201chow to tell the difference between poisonous and non-poisonous snakes?\u201d\u00a0 I don\u2019t, I admitted, beginning to feel like a batter in the practice cage who wasn\u2019t warned when someone switched on the pitching machines at high speed.<\/p>\n

\u201cPoisonous snakes have slit eyes, and snakes with round eyes aren\u2019t poisonous.\u201d\u00a0 Anticipating the previous query, he added, \u201cWe learned that from a ranger at the park where we went camping.\u00a0 I\u2019ll take him now,\u201d he finished, reaching for the dog leash, the nature lesson concluded. The two of them went running down the hill ahead of me, leaving me to watch this long-legged, decade-old, human encyclopedia of facts sprinting for the joy of it on a summer night, the dog on his six-inch legs trying desperately to keep up.<\/p>\n

\"\"\"\"<\/p>\n

When you get to observe a burgeoning young intellect up close, you learn that its beam roams widely, illuminating the joyful, the troubling, and things in between.\u00a0 Not long before our walk, I stood by quietly as Buddy engaged his mother in a spirited discussion.\u00a0 She\u2019d been after him to learn a particular skill, and his resistance grew in equal measure to her pleas. This skill had been around for centuries, she reasoned on this particular go-round, and it wouldn\u2019t have survived that long if it wasn\u2019t worth doing.\u00a0 He dispatched this logic with startling alacrity.\u00a0 \u201cLots of things stayed around for a long time that shouldn\u2019t have,\u201d he riposted. \u201cRacism. Sexism.\u201d I could offer nothing here, stunned into silence by this precocious application of logic.<\/p>\n

We all think our grandkids are brilliant, right? Hang on, before the chest puffs out too much.\u00a0 If you delude yourself into thinking one demonstration of intellect forecasts another, a trap awaits.\u00a0 A child psychologist probably has a clinical term for this, but mine is Office Hallway Brain:\u00a0 If the noggin contains a complex series of passages, flipping the light switch in one clearly does not illuminate the others. Buddy may argue effectively against discrimination or spot a poisonous snake, but he often can\u2019t find his way, literally, from Point A to B.<\/p>\n

Reporting on the first day of school, his mother mentioned that pandemic restrictions prevented parents from accompanying the students to their homerooms that crucial first time.\u00a0 As she ushered him out of the car, she encouraged, \u201cOkay, remember, Buddy, room 245.\u00a0 2-4-5.\u201d\u00a0 Clambering up the steps to the main entrance, he looked back at her, and she raised a hand to wave and signal a final reminder:\u00a0 Two fingers, four fingers, then all fingers.\u00a0 Still, he forgot his room number the second the huge metal door slammed behind him, a clash of cymbals proclaiming his official arrival at Middle School. He was on his own to navigate he knew not where.<\/p>\n

Back at my house that recent summer evening, the dog\u2019s walk concluded, he cast around for something else to do.\u00a0 \u201cEvie,\u201d he inquired politely, \u201cdo you play chess?\u201d\u00a0 I don\u2019t, I answered, instantly thrown back in memory to a day, a half-century before, when my father tried to teach me.\u00a0 Maybe impatient about the complex analysis and slow pace of the game, or maybe cowed by Dad\u2019s commanding skill level, I couldn\u2019t stick with it.\u00a0 With a brief swell of embarrassment that turned quickly to curiosity, I turned my next comment a different direction:\u00a0 It\u2019s so cool that you play, I continued.\u00a0 Who do you play with?\u00a0 Do you have your own set at home?\u00a0 Tell me more.<\/p>\n

I used to think the window would be open longer, the period of time when I had the privilege of sharing what I know with these children, where my own life skills, even the smallest, practical things, like how to slice a juicy summer peach, might help them along the way.\u00a0 How quickly it is changing, in just a flash, to where I may learn (if I keep my mouth shut and listen) more than I can teach.\u00a0 Maybe there will be other lessons to share later, fewer of the kind you teach with your hands and more of the ones you teach with your heart, and the ones you show with your behavior.\u00a0 I guess we\u2019ll see.\u00a0 Meanwhile, it appears my job is changing from instruction and guidance to witnessing, to appreciation and encouragement, and to listening as I walk alongside.<\/p>\n

I hope I have the sense to listen.\u00a0 Because I sure wouldn\u2019t know one snake from another, without a kid to teach me.<\/p>\n

\"\"\"\"<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In the course of everyday family life involving school-aged children, schedule demands often dictate the shape and form of interaction. Conversation may feel less like an in-depth news interview and more like a quick declaration\u00a0 aimed at a passenger who has just leapt on a departing subway.\u00a0 The chance to say \u201chave a seat and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":2379,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2,1],"tags":[206,209,207,208],"class_list":["post-2377","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-grandkids","category-uncategorized","tag-cognitive-development-in-boys","tag-growing-boys","tag-kangaroos","tag-poisonous-snakes"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/gmachronicles.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2377","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/gmachronicles.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/gmachronicles.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gmachronicles.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gmachronicles.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2377"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/gmachronicles.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2377\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gmachronicles.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2379"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/gmachronicles.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2377"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gmachronicles.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2377"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gmachronicles.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2377"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}