Posted by Raphael on Aug 14, 2012 in Inspiration, Personal | 0 comments

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I’ve been on this Neil deGrasse Tyson kick lately. Instead of music running on the background at work, I’ve had youtube vids of NDT playing as I work. I don’t know, I just find him to be an awesome source of inspiration lately. I think he may have changed one small element about how I raise Kingston…when asked “What should be done about the fact our kids in the US lag woefully behind other countries in the fields of physics and mathematics?” his response was simply

Get out of their way

That’s it! That simple. I found that fantastic advice, and one that makes perfect sense too. Now most of you reading this might think that to be a small deal. But if you knew my family a little better you’ll realize that this advice goes against how we’ve been raising our little guy. You see, Kingston is a really clean boy. Correction, he’s as clean as a 3 year old can be with constant supervision. Mom cleans his hands, wipes his face, and showers him religiously. You know those photos where the kids have paint or a bowl of spagetti smeared all over their faces?  Nope, never happened even once with Kingston. I shouldn’t place blame on mom either. I think even grandma does the same whenever she watches the little guy…which leads me to believe it might be a Chinese cultural issue?  Thinking back I don’t think I was ever raised to just be a big mess around the house & encouraged to explore. I didn’t turn out to be all that bad really. But then again, I didn’t turn out to be an astrophysicist either. Is it just my cultural heritage that makes it so impossible to just let loose and explore inside our house?

Well chalk this up as another parental learning experience, I’m going to try stepping in once in a while to let King just explore things whenever he can. It makes perfect sense to me that his imagination and curiosity cannot be taught to him by way of academics and instruction, but must simply come from letting him be a natural, curious, creative little boy. If you hear mommy screams coming from my general vicinity, please call the police. (image Kolcraft)