As my eight-year-old kiddo and I were waiting for “morning drop-off” at school a while back, he excitedly told me that the school had recently fixed their playground by removing the rocks and replacing them with corn chips. I realized he meant wood chips, but “corn chips” made for a more interesting conversation at that point so I just ran with it.
I asked him if any of the kids were eating any of the corn chips at recess and what would happen if someone stepped on them first. I asked him if he thought the “five second rule” would apply. And I told him I thought it would be convenient to just scoop up a few, if you forgot your sack lunch. At this point he realized they were wood chips, but he laughed and said, “too bad we don’t have a can of chili to go with them.”
Kids have a fresh way of looking at things and I try to “look through the eyes of a child” whenever I can. Most of the time, they truly see the positive in a situation that we, as adults, sometimes fail to do. We see a snowstorm and equate it with shoveling and bad roads, whereas children see a snowstorm as an opportunity to go sledding, ice skating or build snowman. I don’t know how many times, growing up that my parents would say, “stay out of the puddle” when I felt compelled to walk through it. I try not to do the same things with my own children, because I realize there’s just something about that puddle that’s irresistible.
This same child of mine was participating in his choir concert the other night. We were leaving the school and it was dark outside. I overhead the child behind us asked his parent, “can we go play at our new park?” His parent immediately said “no, it’s dark out, it’s cold and it’s late.” That’s what mattered to the mom, but all the child cared about was playing at a park. It didn’t matter to him whether it was dark, cold or late.
As an educator I have taught children from age five through college age. I tried an experiment one time with some 10 year olds and some college students. Separately, I asked each group to list for me as many ways as they could think of where I could jump off a 150-foot tower and land safely into a wet sponge.
Within five seconds the 10 year olds said blurting out possible solutions to my theoretical situation. On the other hand, when I asked the same of the college students, every single one of them sat and stared at me as if I had just spoken to them in a foreign language. One even said, “I don’t get it.”
The 10 year olds hollered out suggestions like “use a parachute,” “make the sponge super big,” “you didn’t say we had to jump from the top so just jump from the first step of the tower.” Their ideas kept coming. The college students couldn’t come up with one suggestion in a two-minute time period. Instead, they started questioning my initial question with statements like “that would be impossible” and “why would anyone do that anyways?”
The other day, I was grocery shopping and a couple of high school kids started playing “Marco Polo” right there in the store. One would yell “Marco” and from a few rows away his buddy would yell “Polo.”
I thought it was funny. They weren’t being overbearing in my opinion, but several adults around me seemed very annoyed. Therefore, at one point, I yelled “Polo.”
As adults we are much more comfortable sitting in the same seats each week in an office meeting. We are very structured and routined and while there is nothing wrong with that, I think we have also lost some of our creative juices and spontaneity at times. I believe it’s important that we not lose the ability to see things through the eyes of a child sometimes. Corn chips in a playground—that would be awesome.
Think about it!
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