Yesterday as I watched my kids flit through Land of the Dragons I realized how much has changed. I used to have to guide them on the rope bridges and around the treehouse. Now they are running through there by themselves and checking in with us every now and then. They are making new friends and running into them in other parts of the park. They are learning through play.
It is how children learn up until a point and the boys might already be past that point at school. I have no idea but I know that first grade was when things started to get serious when I was a kid, and they have done some serious learning this year. Second grade was where I started having problems with boredom because the class was too slow for me.
Will their experience mirror mine or will it be completely different? I have no idea at this point. There is only one way to find out and that requires patients and waiting. Time pressure is going to occur and the boys will have to either accelerate or slowdown with their classmates. That is how public and social learning works. The pace is set for the average and while I’d like to think my children are above average I do not and cannot know.
What I do know is that I enjoy watching them at Busch Gardens. I enjoy watching them find and test the boundaries of this world. Of witnessing social experiments in the wild. They are young and still new to this world. They are working hard to reach that next point in life and they are at a point where it feels more and more like I am conversing with a person and no longer a child. They are growing and growing fast and I have a feeling we’re about to enter an exponential acceleration point.
I just hope I can remain a good and worthy guide for them. Their young minds deserve to grow as high and wild as they wish. I do not want to be the constraint on them. I want to watch them flourish in the wild. Much like they did yesterday. It was a great day and now I want to go hug them, but only one of them wants daddy hugs anymore. Even though one of the others has developed a method to get hugs that aren’t hugs (it’s one of the boys btw).
David Huzzard Writes 