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July 18, 2007

Change the World: Listen to the Wisdom of Children

ME Liz Strauss wrote this at 8:59 am

Children Are

Change the World!

I often say that Children were put on Earth to humble their parents.

Truth is that children have a way of humbling us all and teaching us too — if we let them. They’re authentic. Rare is the child before the age of 8 who has a hidden agenda or who has learned to be truly mean or arrogant. They know about love and showing their feelings. They know about taking joy from their accomplishments.

When we meet a grownup who can do all of that we call it wisdom.

It’s something to pay attention to in children.

Once when I taught first-grade, my class got out of hand while they were with their gym teacher. She was a new teacher, frustrated, and so she said without thinking, “You won’t have gym class for the rest of the year.”

When they returned to me, it was obvious they had a problem. We sat in a circle on the floor and had a conversation.

I said, “You know I won’t always be here to help you when things go wrong. You need to figure out how to fix this on your own.” They were six years old.

I left the room and listened at the door.

I heard a young man — yeah that’s what he was –say, “We need to find a way to get Ms. A to believe in us again.”

The wisdom of children. We could learn a lot if we listen.

We can change the world — just like that.
–ME “Liz” Strauss

______________
If you’re ready to change the world, send me your thoughts in a guest post. Feel free to take the gorgeous Change the World image up there that Sandy designed back to your blog. Or help yourself to this one.

Change the World!.

Email me about what you’re doing or what we might do. Let’s change the world one bit at a time together. Together it can’t take forever.

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16 Comments to “Change the World: Listen to the Wisdom of Children”

  1. July 18th, 2007 at 9:52 am
    Juggling Frogs said

    Wow! I want to meet the big man that little gentleman became!

    Here’s a link to the funniest collection of humbling moments of parenthood. It’s HUGE but worth it. She has follow-up posts that summarize and announce winners (contest is over), but the raw input is worth reading:

    Humiliating Moments in Parenthood at One Good Thing Blog

    (She says “humiliating”, but I like your “humbling” better…)

  2. July 18th, 2007 at 11:41 am
    zakman said

    Liz

    Isn’t it amazing watching kids/babies grow up.

    I’ve been watching my 14-year-old niece and my 12-year-old nephew grow up ever since they were born…. they’re both brought up in precisely the same atmosphere and given the same kind of attention and love, yet their pursuits are so different.

    That’s probably due to the freedom in making choices (controlled, of course) that their parents gave them.

    Matter of fact, I’ve learned quite a few things from them… how to make a stranger feel comfortable, for one thing.

    You write “the wisdom of children.” I’d say it’s “the innocence of children” that could change the world - just like that. :)

  3. July 18th, 2007 at 1:58 pm
    ME Strauss said

    Hi Juggling Frogs!
    Thank you so much for that link to the collection!!! There are so many good ones there!

    Children have outdistanced me so many more times than adults. There are so many 6 year olds I came to truly respect. Yes I’d like to meet the man he became as well. :)

  4. July 18th, 2007 at 2:01 pm
    ME Strauss said

    Hi Zakman!
    I’m not going to worry over the words I chose. I know that children of an age have something that we lose and have to get back . . . when we do get it back as adults we often call it by words like authenticity, genuinenss and wisdom.

    Whatever it is, we sure could use more of it.

    You have a lot of whatever it is, by the way. :)

  5. July 18th, 2007 at 2:33 pm
    zakman said

    Hi Liz!

    That’s it… just Hi Liz!

    G’nite :)

  6. July 18th, 2007 at 2:42 pm
    Shana said

    Thank you for sharing that with us. It gave me the chills when I read that. You see, I have 5 children and I also am a Webmaster out of my home. Lately I have been feeling so overwhelmed…. it’s probably because all of the kids are out of school for the summer and I am having trouble with time management. I’m sure many of the Mommy’s that come to your Blog know what I’m talking about. It seems that I am constantly breaking up arguments throughout the day and it takes me forever to get back into the “work mode” again. I like what you said, “You know I won’t always be here to help you when things go wrong. You need to figure out how to fix this on your own.” Why can’t I do this? I am a problem solver and land up constantly fixing things throughout the day. My children range in age from 16 down to 4…. I’m sure they have the ability to fix the issues themselves, but I don’t give them this chance. Your post reminded me that I need to make this a priority… for the sake of the children learning how to solve their own problems and for the sake of my own sanity I need to learn how to let the kids work the issues out themselves.

    I know that the point of your post was about children humbling their parents…. and my children humble me often, but your story was helpful for me in the specifics of the story itself.

    Thank you for that.

    Shana Albert
    http://www.abchomepreschool.com/
    http://www.abchomepreschool.com/PreschoolEducationBlog/

  7. July 18th, 2007 at 2:49 pm
    ME Strauss said

    Hi Zakman!
    It’s goos to see you.

  8. July 18th, 2007 at 4:47 pm
    Carma Dutra said

    Hi Liz,
    No doubt that young children are wise because they have not learned to mistrust people.

    It’s hard to understand why we lose what we are naturally born with and why we have to fight the rest of our lives to get it back.

    Maybe we lose it so that we can learn how important it is and then we can teach and pass on to others.

    The infinite circle.

  9. July 18th, 2007 at 7:12 pm
    ME Strauss said

    Hi Carma!
    Yeah, it’s hard to understand why we are willing to teach our children to give up what we find valuable. Too bad we can fix what it is we are protecting them from :)

  10. July 19th, 2007 at 3:31 am
    Kristian Hahndel said

    hey great blog.
    it is very interesting the perspective of a child.I been involved in personal development for many years and one of the great keys to learn is to observe life from a child’s perspective. to be curious and believe that anything you want to achieve or attain is possible. Its amazing when we are children we believe and seriously believe that anything we want to be or do is possible. That is generally why we are the happiest during childhood. i love to share my own personal experiences with you in my blog over here if you are interested. Thank you.

  11. July 19th, 2007 at 5:16 am
    ME Strauss said

    Hi Kristain!
    Having perspective at all is someething we sometimes forget. Have the perspective of children is something we need to work toward. Living with a sense of wonder and imagination can not only make more things possible, but make our lives richer and deeper — more filled with meaning.

    Children understanding living intuitively. :)

  12. July 19th, 2007 at 8:19 am
    Alex Shalman said

    Haha yea they say kids say the wackiest things sometimes don’t they?

  13. July 19th, 2007 at 8:23 am
    ME Strauss said

    Not wacky, Alex.
    Truly wise. :)

  14. August 4th, 2008 at 8:51 am
    A Recap of my 1st Wonderful Year using StumbleUpon | Social Desire said

    […] We could learn a lot if we listen to the wisdom of children. […]

  15. August 9th, 2008 at 9:43 pm
    Writer Dad said

    Absolutely beautiful.

  16. August 9th, 2008 at 10:28 pm
    ME Liz Strauss said

    Thanks, Writer Dad. :)

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