“Language is the blood of the soul into which thoughts run and out of which they grow.”
~Oliver Wendell Holmes
What makes my six year old daughter Mia so amazing to speak with is that she is, and always has been completely unafraid to ask questions. I get the gift of gab from my mother, and passed it to my children. Daisy and I have added plenty of food and water to this quickly flowering seed.
We both believe that it is important to speak with our children as though they understand, with unforgiving vocabulary, well ahead of any expectation of a reasonable response. Eventually they will reciprocate, and those defining moments leading to that inevitable verbal eruption are each and every one majestic.
The fact that Mia is so undaunted when it comes to asking questions, means I’m able to lower my filter when I open my mouth. I’m confident that if something flies over her head, there’s a near certainty that she’ll throw her arms to the sky and try to catch it. Of course I keep the grown-up talk in the cupboard with a white, plastic child safety lock latched across the top, but I’ve never hedged on the vocabulary. This strategy has paid in dividends far more handsome than any mutual fund I’ve ever contributed to.
Mia’s language was good when she was two, great when she was three, and amazing now at six. I understand that comparing my daughter’s articulation to compound interest might seem a little off, but really it’s quite apt. At first, contributions are high while the returns remain low. Sooner or later, the interest earned starts to exceed the initial investment.
As is true with most successful ventures, we must start early to finish strong.
I am in awe of the connections that Mia is constantly making, and the verbal balls we are now bouncing back and forth. Even more amazing is that she’s able to weave new experience into the countless little details that she has absorbed over the long years of her short life. Mia will often reference things from her distant past, tying tidbits from long gone lessons to newly discovered details.
Knowing that Mia is storing everything inside that amazing little brain makes me far more mindful when it comes to our four year old Max. Our first born is the child who teaches us to parent, the second is equalized by all the lessons we learned by paying attention.
With Max, I have learned that everything matters.
We only get one life, and in that life a single childhood made from a million moments, most of which fall neatly under our jurisdiction. If there was one thing I could say to each and every parent, it is this:
Our children get it, and we should never do them, or ourselves, the disservice of underestimation. There are no do overs.
Writer Dad
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