The Work Of Creating A Community

We didn't have a huge set of big wooden blocks, which was okay because we didn't really have enough space for more and besides, if the kids are going to play with them, they generally needed to find a way to play with them together, which is what our school was all about.

The kids in our 4-5's class had been playing a lot of "super heroes." It was mostly boys, but they hadn't been particularly exclusionary, with several of the girls regularly joining them, often making up their own hero names like "Super Cat" due to the lack of female characters of the type in our popular culture. This in turn inspired some of the boys to make up their own hero names like "Super Dog" and "Falcon," along with their own super powers. And although there had been a few instances of someone declaring, "We already have enough super heroes," in an attempt to close the door behind them, most of the time, the prerequisite for joining the play was to simply declare yourself a super hero, pick a super hero name, and then hang around with them boasting about your great might, creating hideouts, and bickering over nuance.

At one point, however, a break-away group began playing, alternatively, Paw Patrol and Pokemon, which looked to me like essentially the same game with new characters. One day, some boys playing Paw Patrol used all of the big wooden blocks to create their "house," complete with beds and blankets. A girl who was often right in the middle of the super hero play wanted to join them, but when they asked, "Who are you?" she objected to being a Paw Patrol character at all. Indeed, she wanted to play with them and with the blocks they were using, but the rub was that she didn't want to play their game.

After some back and forth during which the Paw Patrol kids tried to find a way for her to be included, they offered her a few of their blocks to play with on her own, then went back to the game.

She arranged her blocks, then sat on them, glaring at the boys. They ignored her. I was sitting nearby watching as her face slowly dissolved from one of anger to tears. An adult tried to console her, but was more or less told to back off. I waited a few minutes, then sat on the floor beside her, saying, "You're crying."

She answered, "I need more blocks." I nodded. She added, "They have all the blocks."

I replied, "They are using most of the blocks and you have a few of the blocks."

"They won't give me any more blocks."

I asked, "Have you asked them for more blocks?"

Wiping at her tears she shook her head, "No."

"They probably don't know you want more blocks."

She called out, "Can I have some more blocks?"

The boys stopped playing briefly, one of them saying, "We're using them!" then another added, "You can have them when we're done," which was our classroom mantra around "sharing."

She went back to crying, looking at me as if to say, See?

I said, "They said you can use them when they're done . . . Earlier I heard them say you could play Paw Patrol with them."

"I don't want to play Paw Patrol. I just want to build."

I sat with her as the boys leapt and laughed and lurched. I pointed out that there was a small building set that wasn't being used in another part of the room, but she rejected that, saying, "I want to build with these blocks."

I nodded, saying, "I guess we'll just have to wait until they're done." That made her cry some more.

This is hard stuff we working on in preschool. And, for the most part, that's pretty much all we do: figure out how to get along with the other people. Most days aren't so hard, but there are moments in every day when things don't go the way we want or expect them to and then, on top of getting along with the other people, there are our own emotions with which we must deal. Academic types call it something like "social-emotional functioning," but I think of it as the work of creating a community.

It's a tragedy that policymakers are pushing more and more "academics" into the early years because it's getting in the way of this very real, very important work the children need to do if they are going to lead satisfying, successful lives. In our ignorant fearfulness about Johnny "falling behind" we are increasingly neglecting what the research tells us about early learning. From a CNN.com story about a study conducted by researchers from Penn State and Duke Universities:

Teachers evaluated the kids based on factors such as whether they listened to others, shared materials, resolved problems with their peers and were helpful. Each student was then given an overall score to rate their positive skills and behavior, with zero representing the lowest level and four for students who demonstrated the highest level of social skill and behavior . . . Researchers then analyzed what happened to the children in young adulthood, taking a look at whether they completed high school and college and held a full-time job, and whether they had any criminal justice, substance abuse or mental problems . . . For every one-point increase in a child's social competency score in kindergarten, they were twice as likely to obtain a college degree and 46% more likely to have a full-time job by age 25 . . . For every one-point decrease in a child's social skill score in kindergarten, he or she had a 67% higher chance of having been arrested in early adulthood, a 52% higher rate of binge drinking and an 82% higher chance of being in or on a waiting list for public housing.

Here is a link to the actual study. And this is far from the only research that has produced these and similar results, just the most recent one.

If our goal is well-adjusted, "successful" citizens, we know what we need to do. In the early years, it isn't about reading or math. It's not about learning to sit in desks or filling out work sheets or queuing up for this or that. If we are really committed to our children, we will recognize that their futures are not dependent upon any of that stuff, but rather this really hard, messy, emotional work we do every day as we play with our fellow citizens.

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Intelligence Has Nothing To Do With It

A couple days ago, I took an online IQ test on a lark. It appears that my IQ is between 133 and 149, "or it may even be higher!" which means it may be over 160, so you might very well, right now, be reading the words of a bona fide genius.

Art: Karntakuringu Jukurrpa

Naturally, I'm joking. No intelligent person puts any stock in the validity of tests that purport to measure intelligence. I sure don't, especially a self-administered online test that only took a few minutes, but there was a part of me that was nevertheless disappointed to learn that I'm pretty much average. We all know about the cultural biases that go into these tests, so of course, being a middle-aged, middle-class, white male, one might expect a person like me to score between 133 and 149. And that's the most reliable thing about most standardized tests: they tend to be very good at predicting the demographics of the test takers, but little else.

"Intelligence" is a cultural construct, something that is dictated by the dominant culture. If history is written by the victors, then intelligence is defined by the victors, but that doesn't mean that there aren't other ways of being smart, they just might not get you into your college of choice. A Google search will tell you that there is not just one type of intelligence, but rather two . . . or three, or seven, or eight, or nine. The dictionary definition is "the ability to acquire and apply knowledge and skills," not identifying what specific knowledge or skills qualify, which suggests that intelligence is not so much about what one knows or does, but rather the capacity for growth.

One of the things that I valued most about my decades as a parent and teacher in cooperative preschools was that the children's parents attended school with them. Every parent absolutely knows that their child is a genius. They've seen it with their own eyes. They've been astounded. They've been inspired as their babies have applied themselves in their sponge-like way to acquisition of knowledge and skills, the connections they've made, the epiphanies, and the apparent ease with which it all happens. And when they get to observe their child in the classroom they get to see that they are right -- their child is a genius! And so is that one, and so is that one, and so is that one . . . Indeed, genius is not the rarity our IQ tests would have it be, but rather the norm, at least during these preschool years.

So what happens? The social construct of intelligence happens. This invention of the dominant culture happens. It sorts the children according to socio-economic status, letting just enough high achieving minorities through to prove the rule of this thing called intelligence. It's as if the concept of intelligence exists primarily as form of social control, as a way for one group to assert its superiority over another in the guise of "objectivity." Or maybe it calls into question, not the concept of intelligence itself as much as the attempt to measure intelligence, because it's only through measurement, through judgement and ranking, that we can sorting winners from losers.

This is the dark heart of academic testing, grading, and assessment. No matter how well-intended, the game is always rigged, at least so long as we presume to measure this non-existent thing called "intelligence." As cooperative preschool parents learn, there are as many types of intelligence as their are children. Education is emphatically not about intelligence, but rather about growth. As educators, we should not be here as referees enforcing the rules that determine who wins and loses, but rather as fellow travelers, supporting each child as they use their unique abilities to become their best selves. Intelligence has nothing to do with it.

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"We Protect People"

There were always kids in Woodland Park's 4-5's classes who spent large portions of their days together playing "super heroes." They might call it something different, like good guys, bad guys, Star Wars, or Ninjas, but the essentials of the game remained the same: they formed a team, negotiated their roles, discussed in detail just how powerful they were, then race about talking tough, making fierce faces, and striking assertive poses.

And just as predictably, there were always some children who came to fear the super heroes.

It's tempting for adults to simply impose restrictions on the super hero play in defense of the children who are afraid, but I think that misses an opportunity for the children to learn about what it means to be members of a community. And it begins with the all-hands-on-deck class meetings that we call circle time.

One year, several children had expressed their fears, both directly to me and through their parents, so when the children assembled for circle time, I wanted to steer the conversation that way. We started off talking about our classroom rules, the agreements the children have made with one another. I was prepared to broach the subject of super heroes myself, but was hoping that it would emerge from the kids. I knew that one girl, H, via her mother, had been attempting to summon up the courage to suggest an outright ban on the super hero play, and this was the day.

I said, "H has something to say," and she replied, "No super hero play."

There was a moment of dead silence as her words sank in. Then the super heroes, their expressions full of shock and outrage, raised a chorus of, "Nooooo," which was followed by a more scattered chorus of, "Yesssss." It was obvious that we were not going to reach consensus on this rule, but that wasn't the point: the point was to have the discussion. Once we'd settled down we took turns making our cases, starting with those who were feeling afraid. Several classmates joined H. As they spoke up I watched the superheroes who were paying attention the way one does when the topic is of utmost importance. As they listened to their classmates say that the super heroes frightened them, their expressions turned from outrage to what I can only describe as dismay.

When it was the super heroes' turn to talk, one of them said, emotion rising in his throat, "But we're good guys." Another said, "We protect people." They were simply astonished that they had been so misunderstood. They were genuinely shocked that anyone to be afraid of them.

The discussion that followed was long and rambling. We knew we couldn't all agree to H's suggested rule, but we talked about things we could do like being more aware of one another's feelings, being more direct with one another about how we were feeling, and figuring out better ways to share the space and resources. We learned in that discussion that most of the children were neutral about the super heroes, sometimes joining them, but not every day. They had concrete suggestions, but perhaps their most important contribution was to let their friends know that they weren't afraid, which I think helped some of the more fearful children see that there was an alternative to either-or. I didn't check the clock, but it was a long, productive discussion in which the kids learned something about one another: about who we were as a community.

This wouldn't be the last time we needed to talk about this, but it was a good starting point and the parents of the anti-super heroes reported that their children came away feeling much better, empowered even. As for the super heroes, they had been sincere in their desire to not frighten their classmates going forward, even if they sometimes forgot as they immerse themselves in their dramatic play. And we adults now had a concrete reference point for supporting the children as they worked this through.

A few days after our classroom discussion, one of super heroes was running full speed near the swings. A boy standing nearby flinched as he passed, which caught our caped crusader's eye. He slowed briefly and said, "I'm sorry I scared you," and his friend replied, "That's okay. I was only scared for a second." Like I said, we're going to be working on this for the rest of the school year, but man that was awesome.

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A Knocking Down Building

The ethic around Woodland Park is that only those who build it have the right to knock it down. It's a particularly hard thing for two and three-year-olds to understand given that many, if not most, of them come from households in which the adults gamely build block towers specifically so their kids can knock them down. They've grown up in a world in which all block constructions are theirs to topple and those worlds collide at preschool, with those doing the building rarely sanguine about their work being knocked asunder before its time.

Most of the older kids have a handle on it, understanding the inherent fairness, although those coming in with less prior experience with living in groups sometimes still struggle. And while all children know that the ultimate destiny of everything we build with blocks is to, satisfyingly, come crashing down, some are better at waiting for it than others. Like the urge to help karma out when we feel it's taking too long to re-balance the universe, there is often an impatient tension surrounding any major construction project, with buzzards of destruction circling the still living carcass of a work in progress.

This is particularly true when we play with our collection of large plastic Lego-ish blocks that were formerly containers for a now-defunct brand of diaper wipes. Whenever these blocks are available to the older kids, teams of them assemble to build towers "to the ceiling." Recently, such a team was working together, constantly reminding their classmates that this is "not a knocking down building." The taller it got, the more it attracted the attention of children who loitered in a manner that looked suspiciously like they were on the verge of giving in to the impulse to launch themselves into it. "This is not a knocking down building," the builders cautioned whenever one of them came near. "We're building it. We get to knock it down."

It was a busy building team, one that was standing on boxes to help reach the top of the ever-growing tower. Each new block threatened to cause it to fall. Every movement, in fact, was causing it to teeter. One girl approached them with an offer of help, "I want to help you build it," but the habit of waving the other children away was by now too well established. "No, you can't help us. We're building it and we get to knock it down."

Somewhat crestfallen, the girl turned to building on her own, but rather than stacking upward, she began to construct a long, low wall.

Finally, the tower builders knocked down their initial tower with much noise and fanfare. They then agreed they wanted to do it again. Meanwhile the girl continued building her long, low wall.

The tower team built it up and knocked it down several more times. Each time they did it, the girl working solo quietly took some of their scattered blocks as her own, adding a second level to her wall. Before long, the tower builders tired of their game and moved along. Those who had been disappointed in their the hopes of being offered the chance to participate in a tower knock down without toil of help to build it up, moved along as well. This left our the wall-builder alone with all the blocks. She worked slowly and steadily, finishing her second level and adding a third, until she had used all the blocks. She then began arranging a row of small plastic rainbow colored human figurines along the top of the wall, carefully balancing each one on its feet.

I was sitting near her. She was talking softly to herself. At one point she looked up to tell me, "This is a castle. This is the living room. This is the . . ." and there she faded out as her focus returned to her project. Then she stood up, surveying her work as if with pride. She called to the room in a loud, clear voice, "I'm finished with my building. If you want to knock down come on over!"

She stood back as a surge of children descended upon the ramparts, noisily scattering its parts. The girl watched them with a smile, like a parent who had built something for her child to knock down. When it was done, she turned to me to say, "Now I'm going to have a snack." And that's what she did.

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"I Was Always Kidding You, Teacher Tom"

A few years back I inherited a box of costume jewelry, mostly earrings and broaches. A group of our older kids were working on their costumes for an end-of-year play, so I thought I'd give them first crack at them. I thought they would be excited, but instead  they were mostly interested in declaring various pieces "too dangerous." I understood the pins on the backs of the broaches -- no one likes to be pricked -- but earring posts? 

"These are dangerous?" I asked, trying to sound incredulous.

"Yeah," answered Jody, "Somebody could poke it through their skin." The others nodded.

"Really?" I was genuinely irritated by this development. This wasn't supposed to take up much time. I just wanted to let the kids take what they wanted, then we would add the rest to the outdoor classroom. I thought they'd make cool loose parts, but the kids were finding danger in my plan. I made a show of poking my finger with an earring post. "It doesn't even hurt. See?"

Several of the kids offered up their own fingers. "Did it poke through anyone's skin?" No, it hadn't. I figured we were now ready to move on. I'd leave the broaches at the workbench with a pair of pliers with which the kids could break off the pins, but at least we wouldn't have to do anything with the earrings.

Jody said, "They didn't poke through our skin because we're big kids. But the little kids might poke themselves . . . because they're little." His friends agreed and since we didn't have any little kids around on which to test Jody's thoughtful theory. I was thwarted.

So we divided everything into two piles: a very small "safe" pile and a very large "dangerous" pile. We believe at Woodland Park in involving children in their own risk assessments, but just as they sometimes create draconian rules when left to make their own rules, they sometimes find danger behind every tree when left to assess their own risks. It's part of the pendulum process of figuring out how to be responsible for oneself, I know, so I took a deep breath and went along with them, knowing full well that it wouldn't be long before one of them careened from being hyper-cautious into trying something that caused my heart to leap into my throat.

As it turns out, the children were either not capable or not interested in removing the dangerous bits on their own, and so it was that I found myself the following morning sitting in the outdoor classroom, using a pair of pliers to render the costume jewelry "safe." We were later going to visit our neighborhood fire station, but in the meantime we were waiting, and Jody was one of the first kids there.

"What're you doing, Teacher Tom?"

"Breaking off the dangerous parts."

"Those are sooooo dangerous."

"Not any more," I said, tossing a post-less earring into the sand pit. I was long over my irritation. I babbled, "Oh, I shouldn't have done that. It's already so messy out here. Maybe we should make a rule: no making things messy."

Jody thought about it for a moment. "No, that's not a good rule. Making things messy is how kids have fun."

"Really? Then I guess that would be a bad rule."

"Yeah, it would be a bad rule."

I tossed a pin-less broach into the sand pit. "What happens when everything is just totally messy?"

"Then we'll have to build it all back up, then mess it up again."

"And that's how to have fun?"

"Yeah."

"Do you want to help me mess this jewelry around the playground?"

"That's not fun."

"Okay, I'll do it myself."

"It's soooo dangerous."

"Are you kidding me?"

"I was always kidding you, Teacher Tom."

Kids don't always know what they're saying, but as I painstakingly broke yet another tiny post off an earring I kind of suspected that Jody knew exactly what he was saying.

I've published a book! If you are interested in ordering Teacher Tom's First Book, click here. Thank you!

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The Gold Standard For Playing In The World Together

One of the five-year-old boys in this, our final summer session, has sparked the imaginations of several of the younger boys. He is bold and inclusive, and enjoys taking the role as the authoritative (as opposed to authoritarian) leader. Several parents have told me that their kids talk of him at home, insisting that they are going to play with him, even if, in reality they spend their days watching from afar. Most of the games this glamorous boy organizes involve, at some level, rough housing or, if not that, pretend fighting of some sort, which can intimidate some of the younger kids, even as it also attracts them.

Yesterday, the game involved shooting one another with weapons devised from sticks and other longish items.

There was a time when I would have felt that it was incumbent upon me, the teacher, to be proactive about gun play, but the longer I've done this job, the more I'm inclined to not see it as a problem until the children themselves see it as a problem. At first, their game was fairly self-contained, with the older boy and his group of admirers mainly shooting at one another, but at one point they trained their sites on a three-year-old boy who had previously been part of their game, but who had, overwhelmed for a moment, opted out without telling them. He had a worried look on his face, so I asked him, "Do you like that they're shooting you?" He shook his head, so I drew attention to that by saying, "He doesn't like to be shot. He has a worried look on his face."

The younger boys kept shooting for a few seconds, my words not immediately registering, but the older boy stopped instantly, commanding, "Stop firing! We have to find some real criminals," which caused the others to imitate him. As they roved around the playground, the older boy orally weaving the story of the game they were playing, both commanding and cajoling, he served, in a way, as the group's pre-frontal cortex. He recalled that during the school year we had, as a class, agreed, that you must ask someone before you could shoot at them, and was enforcing it on his troops. Coming from him, it was far more effective than had I been trailing around after them with reminders.

At one point, their fierceness frightened another younger boy. Their leader, seeing the tears, lowered his weapon, bent down so they were face-to-face, put a hand on his shoulder, and said, "It's okay, we won't shoot at you. You're a good guy," then after a brief pause, added, "We're just pretending." This assurance calmed the boy almost instantly. Later, they frightened another boy, who I began to console. I was thinking the play was now beginning to show up as a problem and would need some intervention on my part, but the glamorous boy, apparently sharing my concern, announced in his best voice-of-god, "No more shooting! Now we have to march!" And that's what they did: march in a well-ordered line around the place in a noisy version of follow-the-leader. Later, one of them offered himself up as "the criminal" and they spent the rest of the morning, weapons abandoned, trying to take him to "jail."

I understand why we are so quick, as adults, to jump on weapon play of this sort. It smacks of violence and other societal problems. It sometimes frightens other children. We have had school years during which it was officially banned (by a consensus of the children), but that never prevented it from happening. It just gave us adults the right to step in and scuttle it, effectively pushing it "underground." I won't pretend to explain why, but I know that this sort of play emerges all over the world wherever children play in groups of any size. I know that there has never been a connection made between this sort of play and future violence: indeed, some research seems to indicate that children who are permitted to play these games are less likely to be violent adults. I know that dramatic play is how children process what they see in the world around them, how they come to understand it from all sides, and how it can become the foundation for empathy. I also know that forbidden fruit is always the sweetest: since I've stopped being so proactive about weapons play, instead treating it like all other sorts of play, I've definitely seen a drop in the amount of time and energy children spend on these games.

Yesterday was an exception in the sense that it rose to the level that it was beginning to frighten some of the other children. They took it to the edge, but they were, with the help of their leader, for the good of everyone, able to reign it back in. For me, that's the gold standard for playing in the world together.

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"Who Wants To Play Tackle Basketball?"

He started by arranging our two basketball stanchions to form a small court amongst the wood chips, then, holding a jack-o-lantern face ball under his arm, called out, "Who wants to play tackle basketball? Who wants to play tackle basketball?"

He was one of the oldest, biggest kids on the playground, a boy who I know likes the occasional rough and tumble game. His calls attracted several younger children, curious about what this exciting older boy had up his sleeve. One of them accepted his offer, "I want to play."

"It's tackle basketball," he warned, "You're gonna get tackled."

The look on the girl's face told me that she had no idea what he was talking about, so I said, "I don't think she knows what tackling means." Then to her, "Do you know what tackling means?"

She shook her head, so I explained, "Tackling means that your going to get grabbed and knocked to the ground."

The older boy confirmed my definition, "Yeah," he nodded vigorously and in a voice that he intended as persuasive, "that's what's gonna happen." 

She thought better of it, so he went back to his call, "Who wants to play tackle basketball? Who wants to play tackle basketball?"

Now he was attracting a crowd, including many children his own size, but still had no takers until finally one slightly younger, smaller boy said, "I want to play," putting himself forward. I again defined the word "tackle" and he said he understood. The two boys stood facing each other for a second, then the older one wrapped up the younger boy, taking him to the ground, then rising to stuff the ball through one of the hoops. As the younger boy dusted himself off, the older boy declared to the rest of us, a look of pure joy on his face, "That's how you play!"

Several children said, "I don't want to play," but the younger boy re-engaged and the game took on the pattern of the older boy tackling the younger one, then scoring. Meanwhile, the other children began to assemble court side seating or themselves, arranging milk crates and other objects to serve the purpose.

As the game became more intense, I said to all assembled, "If you play rough games you might get hurt," mainly by way of managing expectations because I knew that tears at some point were going to emerge to start marking the limits of just how rough and tumble this rough and tumble play was going to get. And sure enough, moments later, the younger boy was crying. I invited him to sit in my lap, a place he's been before while crying over his bumps and bruises.

During a pause, the older boy said to me, "I can't play this at home. My mom does not like tackling." I imagined that this might have a lot to do with the fact that his two years younger sister was his most likely tackling target.

Eventually, a couple of other children, after having watched for a time, wanted to test their skills, joining in for a round or two before retiring back to the audience. The older boy continued to instruct and encourage the others. At one point he initiated the ritual of high fives all around after he scored (and he was the only one who ever scored). At another point, one of the children brought a long stick to the match, to which he responded, "No weapons in tackle basketball." He told them that he was the referee and began to blow his pretend whistle at intervals, usually for violations of previously undisclosed rules. When one girl said, "I want to play, but not get tackled," he blew his whistle on her, saying, "It's tackle basketball. You have to get tackled." If you cried, everyone decided, you had to go sit on Teacher Tom's lap until you weren't crying.

Then the moment came when everything changed for the older boy. Two kids wanted to play at once. Up to then, it had been one-on-one. Made cocky by all his success, he agreed, saying, "It's you two against me." He still managed to tackle the other two and score, although it looked to me more like a bout of straight up wrestling. It then became three-on-one as another kid joined, and it was at this point the odds were evened. Then it became something of a free-for-all.

After a time, however, the crowd began to thin, then the opponents stopped responding to his challenges, and after a solid half hour, the boy was once more left alone on his tackle basketball court. He was tired and dirty with a look of exhausted joy on his face. "I'm definitely going to play that again tomorrow!" he said as much to himself as to me.

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Because They Are Human

I sometimes tell the children I teach the truth about adulthood. I say, “The best thing about being a grown-up is that you can eat ice cream any time you want.”

Their parents usually laugh, although I sometimes get a glare, but the kids always nod earnestly because I’m simply confirming what they already know. Most children, most of the time, want to grow up. They know that childhood is a raw deal, a time of life when you are under the control of others, when you’re forever being told that you’re too young, that you must wait, that you must be this tall. They know that grown ups get to do all the driving, stay up as late as they want, and eat when and what they want. By the time they’re, say, middle schoolers, they’ve figured out that the grass isn’t necessarily greener, but preschoolers are all about looking forward to the time when they’ll be “big.”

Adults, on the other hand, tend to want to keep the children small, but since we know that’s impossible, we at least seek to extend their “innocence” as long as possible. We talk of preserving their childhood, of protecting them from the harsh realities, of letting them “just be kids,” even as those kids are doing everything they can to break free of what they rightly see as an artificial world, both separate and unequal to the real world in which adults get to eat ice cream whenever they want.

When I try to imagine myself as an impartial judge, I find myself more often than not, siding with the children. Their case is strong: childhood is a kind of confinement for most of them, one from which they are daily striving in every way to escape. It’s a beautiful cage we adults have built for them, full of the best of intentions. We try to tell them (and ourselves) that these are the “best years of their lives,” but what a crappy set up that is. They and we know that they are going to grow up. Are we trying to convince them that it’s all downhill from here? Is that a good thing to be telling them even if we believe it to be true? And what of the children, who are struggling against their gilded cages, still experiencing pain, disappointment, sadness, and fear, nevertheless, all while being kept from the adult freedoms they crave? What kind of message is that?

The children I know are eager to grow up and I don’t think we do them any favors when we hold them back. They know in their hearts it isn’t fair and it’s a kind of gaslighting to tell them otherwise. Children also want the freedom to eat all the ice cream they want, not because they are young, but because they are human.

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