I love all children. Round up a choir of them to sing before the offering at church and you are guaranteed all of the cash in my wallet. I love to hear children play. Even when I have to step in and act like I don’t like it when they get rambunctious- because that’s what parents are supposed to do, and so they won’t tear the house or the church down- I love that too. Children have unbridled energy.
“He just needs a tiller.”
Perry Wells in reference to a hyperactive child.
I especially love when children carry on a conversation with an adult. I think this is something I picked up from Dad. He loved talking to kids. Not in the baby talk way, but in the same way he talked to everybody.
Dad asked my cousin Kyle about his first week of kindergarten.
“Well Uncle Perry, there’s some boys in my class and there’s some girls in my class. And I’m one of the boys.” I am not sure they are still teaching this these days. But it is still a good lesson to learn.
Children have an interesting way of putting their thoughts into words. Or using language. Or “Playing with language” as linguist David Crystal puts it. When you have a limited vocabulary you have to improvise sometimes. I love it when children make up useful words. For a while Miriam called the flyswatter a fly-smacker. If the made up word is good enough then adults will likely adopt it. I have adopted fishing-wand.
Children are also practical. I once asked a child where he liked to eat pizza. “At the table.” He replied. The made up words and innocent logic are just two of the things that make a child’s conversation rich. There is an honesty and directness that children possess in communication that many adults have lost long ago. Speaking with children reminds us of that.
If I may be vulnerable, children who do not “speak when spoken to” get on my nerves. At the same time, I will not reprimand my child if some creepy adult is trying to talk to them. But, I was raised that it was rude to not speak when spoken to, and I will not remove that landmark.
I have noticed that you have to earn the trust of some children. It may take a while before a child isn’t afraid of you. After all, I’m a big loud man and that may be intimidating to a child.
I feel like my brother was born grown. Dad said that Zach always wanted to be with the adults as a child. As an adult he is equally good at talking to people and to children. He is as good as Dad was at talking to the little fellows.
If you want to be a good communicator it really helps if you genuinely love people.
I think that learning how to speak to adults is an important life skill. A lot of business gets handled through conversations. Perhaps young children that can hold a conversation with an adult are more prepared to handle that business when they become adults. I don’t know. But I wonder about these things when I talk to little children. What will this child do when they grow up? What natural propensity is this child already displaying? Does this child know how to have a conversation?
I hope you get to talk with a child soon.
Mostly From Memory 