Lenses

A friend of mine said once upon receiving a compliment on a particularly stunning photograph her husband had taken of her, “It helps when the person behind the camera loves you.” Does it?  The skeptic in me sneers and says the camera’s a machine, and does its own thing.  That someone else in that same [...]

How good they have it (part 3)

Continued from yesterday and the day before… Habit and perspective The other thing to remember about the context of kids’ resistance is what has gone before.  When children are young, we do everything for them.  For a while we do everything for them because they can’t do it for themselves.  Then, even after they become [...]

How good they have it (part 2)

(Continued from yesterday) Context What if when kids resist, it’s less about whether or not they think they should be expected to perform a given task and more about the context in which they’re asked to perform it? Paying attention to the context of resistance not only acknowledges where kids are coming from, it reveals [...]

How good they have it (part 1)

(I’m including here for the first time a summary of the post so it’s possible to get a glimpse of the content before… opting in… to the full text.  Also this time I’m posting the text in parts, over a few days, due to its unusual length.) Summary: When kids resist chores, learning, and other [...]

Projection

I found the following sentence at the beginning of a recent New Yorker article.  I’ve been thinking about it ever since and thought I’d pass it on as food for thought: “Cities, like children, bear such a heavy load of projection that their real character can be hard to see.” The piece is actually about [...]

Insistence and resistance

When we can’t get kids to do something we want them to do, we often resort to repetitive insisting:  ”It’s important to do your best.”  (Three days pass.)  ”It doesn’t seem like you’re doing your best.  It’s really important to do your best.” (Three more days.) “I know you can do better!  Do the best [...]

Thinking like

I came across this quotation from Douglas Wheeler, a lawyer and advocate for the preservation and protection of natural resources: “To halt the decline of an ecosystem, it is necessary to think like an ecosystem.” The quotation reminded me of a conversation I once had with the mom about her 12 year-old son.  The two [...]