fighting the invisible bad guys
Okay, I cannot believe how long it's been. I have all these great ideas for posts, but what finally got me back in the swing of things, is just one of those great conversations you have with your kids, where you kind of want to smile or laugh at what they're saying, but they're being completely serious so you have to play it straight.
Anyway, I finally introduced the concept of global warming to Roel, and I can't believe I waited so long. It was close to bedtime, so we went into his room and he turned on the ceiling light (he's tall enough to reach the wall switch now -- time flies), and then went to his bedside table to turn on a lamp. When he switched it on, I turned off the ceiling light, which at first made him upset. I explained to him that we didn't need both lights on, of course he asked why, and I told him it wastes energy, which is not good. No sooner had those words exited my mouth when the next "why" came flying out of Roel's (it feels like swimming upstream sometimes). I started talking about conserving the earth's resources, and eventually came to global warming. Interspersed within a whole series of why's from Roel, I talked about energy use (if I had mentioned fossil fuels, we would have totally gone off on a tangent, I'm sure), greenhouse gases, polar caps melting, and sea level rising, etc. And of course, I had to be careful not to scare him, especially before bed. Roel took this all in, and at one point asked, "So, is global warming (he first said "Robo Warming", actually) like a bunch of bad guys that are invisible." I paused for a moment, and you know, from his perspective, I actually thought that it wasn't a bad way to look at it.
Roel then said he wanted to be a scientist when he grows up. At first, I wasn't sure if he was basically finished with the global warming conversation and just wanted to move on to more interesting pre-bedtime-story topics. But then he said as a scientist, he would go to the moon and takes notes about the planet and how it got warm and send them to people. In his role as scientist, he also wanted to "help free the whales that get trapped in sand bars." I couldn't figure out exactly which branch of science would cover both tasks, but I figured a 4 year old needn't worry about specializing quite yet. So, this is where I really wanted to smile and give him a hug (a manly man-hug, of course). I guess I feel like Roel is really developing a greater sense of global awareness and social justice. That's my hope, anyway, and though his comments may not come completely from that place, I think it's a start, and is something I hope I can foster in him. It got me thinking about if/how a parent's value system gets transferred to their children. There's the part about whether it comes from your words or actions -- either way, I really hope I can both say and do the right things in front of my children so that they inherit certain values that I hold dear (and hopefully not the many flaws I surely exhibit as well).
Anyway, the other thing he wanted to do as a scientist is dig up dinosaur bones. Again, he's covering a lot of ground in terms of scientific pursuits, but this one, I think, is purely from the wanting to have fun perspective, which I also think is very important for him to develop. So yeah, I was completely on board for all of those things. My son, the global-warming-note-taking, whale-freeing, dinosaur-bone-digging scientist -- it has a nice ring to it, doesn't it?
Anyway, I finally introduced the concept of global warming to Roel, and I can't believe I waited so long. It was close to bedtime, so we went into his room and he turned on the ceiling light (he's tall enough to reach the wall switch now -- time flies), and then went to his bedside table to turn on a lamp. When he switched it on, I turned off the ceiling light, which at first made him upset. I explained to him that we didn't need both lights on, of course he asked why, and I told him it wastes energy, which is not good. No sooner had those words exited my mouth when the next "why" came flying out of Roel's (it feels like swimming upstream sometimes). I started talking about conserving the earth's resources, and eventually came to global warming. Interspersed within a whole series of why's from Roel, I talked about energy use (if I had mentioned fossil fuels, we would have totally gone off on a tangent, I'm sure), greenhouse gases, polar caps melting, and sea level rising, etc. And of course, I had to be careful not to scare him, especially before bed. Roel took this all in, and at one point asked, "So, is global warming (he first said "Robo Warming", actually) like a bunch of bad guys that are invisible." I paused for a moment, and you know, from his perspective, I actually thought that it wasn't a bad way to look at it.
Roel then said he wanted to be a scientist when he grows up. At first, I wasn't sure if he was basically finished with the global warming conversation and just wanted to move on to more interesting pre-bedtime-story topics. But then he said as a scientist, he would go to the moon and takes notes about the planet and how it got warm and send them to people. In his role as scientist, he also wanted to "help free the whales that get trapped in sand bars." I couldn't figure out exactly which branch of science would cover both tasks, but I figured a 4 year old needn't worry about specializing quite yet. So, this is where I really wanted to smile and give him a hug (a manly man-hug, of course). I guess I feel like Roel is really developing a greater sense of global awareness and social justice. That's my hope, anyway, and though his comments may not come completely from that place, I think it's a start, and is something I hope I can foster in him. It got me thinking about if/how a parent's value system gets transferred to their children. There's the part about whether it comes from your words or actions -- either way, I really hope I can both say and do the right things in front of my children so that they inherit certain values that I hold dear (and hopefully not the many flaws I surely exhibit as well).
Anyway, the other thing he wanted to do as a scientist is dig up dinosaur bones. Again, he's covering a lot of ground in terms of scientific pursuits, but this one, I think, is purely from the wanting to have fun perspective, which I also think is very important for him to develop. So yeah, I was completely on board for all of those things. My son, the global-warming-note-taking, whale-freeing, dinosaur-bone-digging scientist -- it has a nice ring to it, doesn't it?
posted by Papa Fro at
11:40 PM
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