I heard today that google can remotely delete any app on your phone that it wants. It just did it to 2 apps this last week.
Now at first I was pissed, but then not so much. Why the change you might ask. Well, sharing is caring and its s good thing. Imagine kids are sharing a toy, if the toy is dangerous or malicious then the adult would take it away. That’s not because they want to exert control, but rather that the toy is dangerous and the adult is just trying to keep the children from any unnecessary danger.
I like this. See, google lets its “kids” learn by natural consequences. Apple on the other hand wraps there “kids” in bubble wrap, not really allowing them to try anything.
What I’m saying is, thanks google, but next time maybe you could tell us this kind of stuff.
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Sometimes your the super hero and sometimes your not. Sometimes you have to play the roll of the side kick even though
Your not.
This last week I have found myself playing the hero roll. I wouldn’t normally mind it, its just that its exhausting. And this has been one long week. Trying to perform better at work mixed with family is always tough. Then again there are very few times when its not.
So this week I’m going to make it shorty and sweet. If you’ve been the sidekick lately, step up a little more. Trust me your super hero needs it!
“we could make a bug, if we wanted too”. This little thought was presented to me this morning by my oldest son Owen. He is 3 and a dreamer. He brings me this little ideas more often than I can count. Usually its something like, “I’m gunna go start a fire in my room”. I then tell him we don’t play with fire and he reminds me its pretend, dad. This exchange usually ends with me walking in his room with either all his clothes or all his books in one big pile. I then ask him what he was thinking he was doing. He responds with, I built a fire.
What I see as a mess I’m going to have to clean up, he sees as a roaring fire. This got me thinking, does this mean everytime I tell him to stop climbing up his dresser I’m really just interupting his Everest ? Now I know I just don’t want him to fall of his dresser and get hurt, but am I killing his dream to do so ?
I tried thinking back to when popsicles sticks taped to the feet of my gi Joe were no longer skis, when no matter how hard I tried I didn’t feel like I was deep sea diving when I was just in the bathtub. What I came up with made me worried. It was after 3rd grade. More importantly, it was after just a few years in public school. After the third grade I would have to really try to make believe. Using my head wasn’t enough, I needed props now. Before I could shoot laser beams out of my fingers, now I needed nerf toys to just sword fight. Alot of my friends seemed to have this same problem. The only coralation we all seemed to share was school.
When I realized this I jumped online. Searching for anyone else who had brought up this problem, and what they may have found. If I was to make a link for even one out of every five posts I found on this, this blog would be very, very long. If you were to look at just one example, go to YouTube, search for TED. And check out the video at the top by sir ken Robinson.
After I whent through just about most of what I could find on the net, I decided to take the boys to the park. There was a big windstorm the day before and lots of downed tree limbs. So we did the only thing we could, we built the best damn fort in the park. Not that there was anyone else there building forts. But if there was a fort built after ours, it wouldn’t touch it. Just look at the pic above.
So in closing, did we build a bug ? I think we did. It just looked like a fort and smelled like the grass. And felt like good memories do. It’s funny, a 3 yr old told me we could build a bug if we wanted too. He was rite.
The longer I’m a father, the more I seem to re-live my youth. By that I mean I remember how it was to base the time I would do something off of desire.
Children will engage in any activity for any amount of time. Regardless of whether there are time constraints or not. Desire is the one true measurement they use. If one of my boys desires to play in the pool long after there burnt to a crisp, they will keep ongoing. And when I tell them that its time to go inside and dry up, they give me a look that says, “uh… my desire watch doesn’t say so”.
Although I can respect time management off of desire, I unfortunately don’t have that ability anymore. See, the way I see it, responsibility controls our time as an adult. Were responsible for the laundry getting done, cooking dinner/ etc. This ofcoarse is the burden of every parent. One we either accept, or are forced to learn.
But, maybe there is another way. One in which we can combine our responsibility with our desires. maybe, our responsibility is to our desires, and its our job to responsibly have as much fun as possible with our kids.
This would make a lot of sense. To learn how to follow our desires as a kid, but be wise enough to know when to stop as an adult. Possibly even guide the kids on there adventure, instead of telling them when to experience it. But alas, the kids will get tired and cranky. And us, the parents will be left with all the cleanup. Which is sure to be a lot.
Hell, maybe I’ll get lucky and one of the kids will do something bad, possibly need an extra chore to do. Bet I could rangle up some laundry, that’ll teach them some responsibility.
Here’s to a summer full of child like wonder, cheers.
