"Can I raise down your garage?"

So shouts my eight year old friend and neighbor, Brian.  He, Buster and Bianca have come running across the alley from their rear yard.  They saw me coming.  (They've never been nor are ever likely to visit Disney World but have been to my garage door and don't know the difference!)

"No!  That doesn't make sense.  You can't - until you say it right."

    "Can I please raise down your garage?"

"That's great!  You used the magic word.  I'm proud of you, but the rest of your question doesn't make sense."  Flapping my right arm up and down, I explain, "raise down doesn't make sense.  Raise and down are opposites.  Let's get it right."

So, now we begin our latest alley learning game.  The just evidenced, very first, unprompted "please" proves that our prior 'magic word' games have finally paid off.  These youngsters, after 18 months of intermittent positive and negative interaction:

• have learned to pet and respect, rather than immediately tease, chase or attack my cats and our local wild squirrels;

• no longer think all worms are snakes, all flies are bumble bees (and probably all adults are trees);

• are speaking more distinctly and assertively;

• have learned not to ring my doorbell (usually to get a hug or some other positive interaction or attention);

• are learning to use sidewalks instead of lawns and yards as pathways between two points;

• have learned that "no's" and rules are part of everyday life (other kids lacking this exposure jump into a shell of silence at the first negative reinforcement encountered);

• are learning that group members share the blame, and praise, when any one of them breaks a rule, or evidences praiseworthy behavior (blaming the youngest is an often used cop-out by dysfunctional kids);

• are feeling better about themselves and each other from our hugreetings, even when they're being scolded or punished with banishment from my yard over some rule infraction (kids should receive 10 times as much positive as negative attention and must realize it's their behavior, not themselves, that's not liked);

• are quickly Learning that it's okay to say, "No, what's that?" rather than "yes" when shown a strange tool or implement and asked, "Do you know what this is?"  (acknowledging ignorance is not the same as being ignorant);

• are channeling more of their abundant energy into helping clean our alley, thereby enhancing both their social and physical coordination, rather than destroying in the process of climbing all over neighborhood fences and other infrastructure (any job worth doing, is worth doing well AND no job, no matter how dirty, is beneath anyone's dignity);

• are less of a burden upon and being more attended to and respected by their elders;

• are, generally, developing more toward skilled decency than dysfunctional, wildlike, anti-social lonerism.

Those of us who do care about the progress of society need to remember that most, if not all of our highly dysfunctional criminal miscreants and mass murderers are loners.  More threatening to our survival than economic or military invasion is the rampant anomie creating ever more of these loners.  There are far too many children growing to adulthood learning NOT ONE of the above or any other innumerable societal rules of decency.  And, that's not THEIR fault; it's OUR fault!

But, onward with the latest charade/rhyming game: (Left out between each of these attempts are several minutes of pantomime, rhymes and other hints from me.)

    "Can I please lowering down your garage?"

    "Can I lower down your garage?"  (No sense obfuscating this latest learning opportunity by becoming a stickler over the nascently evidenced but now absent 'please'.)

    "Can I lowering your garage?"

    "Can I lower your garage?"

    * * * * "Can I lower your garage door?" * * * *

Simultaneous attainment of my patience threshold tempers my ecstasy, but I enthusiastically respond:  "Of course you may lower my garage door!"  Whereupon, Brian starts jumping up and down and, clapping his hands, rotates toward Buster and Bianca to exclaim:

    "I did it!  I got it right!  I said it all by myself!"

So, Brian's brain just blocked a dopamine facilitated neural synapse.  Mine did likewise.  Maybe even Buster and Bianca's did, too!  We each attained a non-substance related high; the same as others get from a good book, hobby, observing children or pets at play or other self-actualizing significant achievement.  And, just maybe, if these kids continue doing this as they grow, they'll be able to withstand better the lure of drugs - simply from the ability to already GET HIGH BY THEMSELVES WITHOUT ANY SUBSTANCE!

(Life can be so simple, sometimes!)

 
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Website link/location/URL: http://Ruben.Ciriacks.com/highkids.htm