Comments

1
aw, they aren't always boring!
2
I like carrots.
3
Charles doesn't have time for the childishness of children. Wake him when they're robotic students of philosophy, please.
4
well. this should be a fun comment thread to watch today.
5
Louis CK already covered this very topic quite effectively and he made the same point as Charles without sounding like a bastard.
6
Charles had a point other than being a bastard?
7
He's funny!
9
To each his own. But then again, I also find the phenotypic variation of baby fruit trees very interesting even though they have yet to give me fruit.

I would say that you are biologically incurious. Don't you have any reverence for Mendel?
10
The kids that are interesting. Adults that have become arrogant with a restricted way of thinking, like Charles, are not.
11
Most children I know are in Charles's league. The rest are interesting.
12
She's been who she is from the moment of her birth and I've been able to watch this identity blossom and grow. Her natural inquisitiveness and her interest in toy trains has grown more complex as her intellect has become more sophisticated, leading her to (at seven years old!) engineer elaborate miniatures and start exploring the concepts of evolution and simple embryology.

The seeds of adult greatness exist in every child, but they can be stunted. A good gardener knows that ignoring, neglecting and abusing a seedling will lead to an unhealthy, unproductive plant, if it even survives. Yet overly fawning over your seedlings, sheltering them from any harshness in their environment, leaves them as delicate and fragile things that won't long survive when it comes time to leave them to the garden. Children's minds must be nurtured in the same way. Protect and pamper when they're too little to watch out for themselves, but always look towards the future and know that you hold what will one day be an independent adult. Give them opportunities to harden themselves off against the cruelties of the world, but shield them from the storms that could destroy them.

My goal is to someday have a grown child who feels safe and secure; who is brave but wise; who can explore and question the world and understand the answers she finds; who can trust the love of those who care for her and reject the attention of those who would do her harm; who, above all else, is happy.

That any parent could have another goal baffles me.
13
This sounds like a great idea! The world has too many adults with high self-esteem anyway.
14
You need to buy better carrots. Or grow your own; they're not that difficult.
15
Based on that model, I would probably rate my parental home as late 90s era China. Not as bad as it could have been, but I certainly didn't have any rights and I only ever earned about 70 cents an hour.
16
Teaching a child to find the value in their own work/actions without side praise is important in raising an independent person. Teaching a kid that they're not the center of the world gives important perspective.
17
Ack, without OUTside praise.
18
@14 as @12 pointed out, if you want your carrots to grow into nice juicy carrots, you better be observant and take care of them.

Charles is not interested in what his carrots are telling him until they are the big plump carrots he expects.

http://www.inra.fr/hyppz/IMAGES/7031891.…

Charles' carrots are on the left. They have been telling him all season that his soil is too compact. He didn't listen and now it's too late. His carrots are now small bitter runts and he is filled with nothing but embarrassment at his highfalutin dinner party.
19
@12 beautifully phrased.
20
Other people's children are boring; your own are endlessly fascinating. Just like all girls are bitches until you have one of your own.

Not too surprising about the problems with too much praise. I tend to be fairly sparse with mine, when dealing with kids in general - and when I do have something positive to say, it seems to have much greater effect.

This really isn't all that different, I suppose, from sports activities and other contests where all the kids get ribbons just for showing up. For that matter, it's not much different from social promotion.
21
News flash: too much [insert anything here] considered bad
22
But longball, Louis CK isn't obsessed with dragging absolutely everything into a lesson about the supremacy of communism.
23
There's a whole chapter devoted to this subject in the book Nurtureshock. Makes a ton of sense.

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