The questions is...What discussions should you try to avoid with your three year old?
Death is fairly obvious. What a nebulous subject for an adult mind no less that of a small child. Jackson and I were watching Return of the Jedi this evening (don't show your three year old this movie) and the very brief scene where Yoda (spoiler alert) dies impacted the remainder of our evening. Jackson is now very concerned that he and the rest of his family are going to die. Attempts to console with "that won't happen until we are all very old" were ineffective to a child who is unable to make the temporal interpretation of "after nap time" or "next week." I'll hope it passes. I am very uncomfortable with this discussion as I can't even make up a good answer to satisfy his comprehension. Hopefully we'll all sleep tonight and Ewok induced nightmare will not bring further questions of death.
Friends is another subject matter. I have always been pleased that Jackson's daycare addresses all the children as "friends." It makes me feel warm and fuzzy. I know we all grow up and choose our friends and not-friends (I like to think that I don't really have enemies) and we don't all have to appreciate one another's company. At Jackson's age, however, and with his wonderful temperament, it crushed me to find out that someone wasn't his friend. He was showing me pictures of the children in his class, pointing out "this is my friend (enter name here)...and this is my other friend (enter other name here)," with notable exceptions that didn't bother me too much. We came to a picture, however, where Jackson said "this is Daniel, he says that he is not my friend anymore," and I was devastated. My image of all the little children playing together, without the predjudice of alliances and and exclusionary factions evaporated. Not to mention the personal affront that someone possibly did not like my perfect, wonderful, generous, and loving child. They all grow up sometime, but I don't think it's time yet. I will try to delude myself into thinking this is all in the interpretation of a three year old's mind. But it still hurts a little bit.
Labels: Alaska, children should be neither seen nor heard, daycare, death, friends
