So Much To Learn

It's lovely for your children if you, as a home educating parent, can endeavour to be like a wise and knowledgeable friend - patient and kind, welcoming enquiry and humbly acknowledging when you don't know something ... yes, you're still the parent - and you MUST parent, but how lovely for a child to feel they can come to you with questions and discussions on life.

Today one of my children asked me 'What's quarter-life chaos?" 

Rather puzzled I said "Quarter as in half a half?"

"Yes"

"Life as in the opposite of death?"

"Yes"

"Chaos as in the opposite of order?"

"Yes"

"Quarter-life chaos?  Where have you heard this?"

"You said it."

"Me?  When?"

"Some time ago.  People having a quarter-life-chaos."

My light bulb finally went on. 

"Oh!  Mid-life crisis!"

Indeed we had been speaking of the old sterotypical male mid-life crisis involving a new wardrobe of tight jeans, unbuttoned shirts, a new red sports car, girlfriend in her 20's or 30's, parties etc etc etc.

And then I thought of how our children can be taking in SO MUCH information sometimes that often bits get forgotten, or stored into their memory banks incorrectly.

I imagined myself at a conference where I needed to take in hours and hours of new information, listen, absorb, remember ... sometimes our children's lives are like a conference every day.  More and more information, loaded into the memory banks.  When I was younger, at school, I was continually wondering if the information would start to spill out my ears at some point.

So much to learn.

And it's always a comfort for a child to know if something has been half-remembered they can always come back to ask for more information.