Children often see, hear and intuit more than we grown-ups are aware.

When I was asked by the founding teachers of CCS ( “Children’s Community School”) – a Montessori preschool and kindergarten our two children attended – for a humorous anecdote from our children, I offered the first quote that came to my mind:

“My dentist laughs when I fart, but he doesn’t laugh too much because I don’t fart too much.”

   The quote was published.

In fourth grade, when the teacher asked if anyone knew what a loon sounded like our daughter said “yes!”  The teacher replied: “Oh, really?” Challenged, our child perfectly vocalized the call of the loon, a boisterous loud and long tremolo.

   The loon has outlasted the dinosaurs. …. So far.

Our second child, returning home from 1st grade, pronounced: “Mom, when I grow up I want to be a professional football player, so I can afford to be an artist.”

   Wow, he understood how the world works.

Greta Thunberg, the world leader from Sweden drawing attention to planet earth’s climate crisis – and it is a crisis now – was young when she began her work.

  Now, young women from the United States have joined her.

   Other teens are mobilizing for strict gun control reform.

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Mental illness often starts young. Often, younger than we realize.

My Dear Mother, in her last years, called out to me one day. “Gail Louise, come here and sit on my lap.” She rocked and held me tenderly. My mother said, “I am so sorry we missed your mental illness when you were young.”

ALL of us need to learn from children and change our priorities.

Thank you kindly,
Gail Louise