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About once or twice a week I get some long DMs, usually from a younger person, whoâs all stressed out and wound tight about how theyâre going about their lives. Itâs really heartening and kinda sad how appreciative they are when all I do is say a few kind, supportive things
My sense is... lots of kids are really anxious and overwhelmed. And I donât think itâs theyâre fault; they inherit it from the world around them. Kids are more perceptive than you think. But they donât yet have a lot of executive function. Also... puberty is serious drugs, man
What Iâm getting out of this, really, is that people arenât listening to kids. Thatâs why they DM a stranger halfway around the world. To find someone who will listen to them, who will ask them loving questions from a place of kindness and sincere curiosity
A few mins of attention from an adult who sincerely cares can be life-changing for a kid who feels invisible and worthless The bigger question: why do so many kids feel so worthless?? The BS about participation trophies is BS. Kids know the truth even if they canât articulate it
I also find that adults often dramatically underestimate the degree to which kids pretend to be kids, for adults. Kids will often pretend, when mom asks, that they didnât hear mommy and daddy fighting. This is a sort of stress-minimization strategy https://t.co/v2JMsFzRuM
This is less âyour father is secretly a government spyâ and more âmost of what you think you know about your father is likely coloured by the father-child relationship + most people who tell you things about him mostly filter their thoughts with your relationship in mindâ https://t.co/zCPq4LytG8
(Not all kids, of course... but this is a recurring pattern I see a lot. Kids have inner lives that are much richer and much more complex than adults tend to remember. Their motivations and concerns are multi-variate, convoluted, conflicting, and their fears are outsized)
I think itâs v important for kids to have relationships with nourishing adults of all kinds- particularly adults who have nothing to do with them. (Parents and teachers are constrained by their obligations.) School programs kids to be with same-aged peers. This is unhealthy IMO
I think for a lot of kids, the first time they encounter âsomeone who cares, when they donât have toâ, is via art. That was the case for me. Libraries are full of evidence that there are people who care about me even though they donât know me. https://t.co/63xK6PUR6W
Reflecting this morning on how my starting conditions were a lot more hostile, cold, abrasive and distant than I choose to remember. I think itâs actually quite remarkable that Iâm not much more of an asshole; all credit for that goes to the libraries & storytellers who raised me https://t.co/evTjkNiupW
Itâs always surprising to me that people think itâs hard to get kids to read. Sure it is, if you make it a burden and a tedious obligation. I read books because it was intoxicating to walk through the mind-palace of somebody who cared about me. Kids are starving for this feeling https://t.co/ZvAgZmibAA
This desire, by the way, is how kids end up with bad company. Charming manipulators know how to appeal to a childâs desire for independence, desire to be seen. This is why kids date bad boys and get hideous tattoos. To exercise their *sovereignty*. https://t.co/2Hj2NkjA3R
In every child is the seed of a sovereign individual, with their own hopes and dreams and desires and identities. If you really appreciate this, you can have wonderful relationships with them, even learn a lot from them. If you donât, youâre both gonna have a bad time https://t.co/fGPcxV9hZu
Imagine your baby coming out and asking you âhey who the hell are youâ đđ https://t.co/6kEbq7YxfT
Paraphrasing Sadhguru: you enjoy your children because they are so helplessly dependent on you. My baby, my booboo. Imagine if your baby came out and said âWho the hell are you?â You wouldnât like that baby. But she *does* ask that question, it just takes her 14-15 years to do it
@visakanv i think it can be a _little_ hard. when my parents first tried to teach me to read I would cry and throw a tantrum and say "i will never learn to read!!!", then something flipped and I spent every single moment I had reading whatever I could get my hands on