When
my daughter was four, we were watching some children's TV shows on a
commercial channel. All the ads in the breaks were for the usual rubbish
toys oversold by unbearably cute kids and featuring excruciatingly twee
fully-sung jingles. Over the course of, say, 20 minutes there might
have been 3 five minute programmes and four or five of ads between each
one.
Worried that she might want all of - or at least some of - the wares being relentlessly flogged, I asked her "do you think you would like any of the things they are showing?" She turned to me and said "No, I don't think so. They can't be very good things if they need to keep trying so hard to tell people to like them"
Someone asked my 2 year old cousin, "what color is an apple?".
He replied, "inside or outside?"
Mind. Blown.
Driving around with my preschool age son, I would occasionally point out a particularly attractive woman and he would remind me that I was married. One time when I replied that just because I had ordered didn't mean I couldn't still look at the menu, he took time to consider that logic and after a while pointed out: "Dad... after you order, they take the menu away."
A physicist I met once told me he asked his 6 year old son to imagine standing on top of a big ball in outer space. Then, he told his son, he looks over the edge, and there is a person on the other side of the ball, upside down, with feet on the bottom of the ball. He asked his son: will that upside-down person fall off the ball? His son thought about it, and said "If the other person looks at me, he sees my feet, and I'm upside down to him. I'm not falling off, so he doesn't fall off".
Once when I was trying to plan something for my wife's birthday I asked my 5 year-old daughter what we should do for her.
"I dunno", she said. "Well how do we show someone we love them?" I asked. "You play with them" was her answer.
The clarity of that response floored me. For all the parents that try to buy their child's love; give them expensive gifts. Anything but the one thing that children desire the most, our time. Isn't that the same for all of us? If you want to show your love do something with them. It's so simple and yet how easily we lose this simple clear truth.
I asked my 9 year old son, "what is the opposite of success?" He thought silently for a very long moment and responded, "giving up."
My 4 year old told me the other day, "when I grow up, I want to be a kid"
This happened with one of my cousins who was about 6-7 years old. He was reading a book and started asking me meanings of words. "What is Gap?" , "What is Rap?" etc. Then he asked "What is Gip?". I said that it has no meaning. His question was "Why did they use bigger words when the smaller words have not finished yet?" . I didn't have an answer then and I don't have an answer now.
Years ago, I used to work with a guy who had a very precocious 7-year-old daughter named Maya. He told me this story about her.......
Maya had just come back from spending the weekend at her cousin's house. Her father said, 'So, how was the weekend?' 'Boring,' replied Maya. 'The only thing they wanted to do was watch television'. (Side note - Maya was raised without a TV in the house). After another moment she said, 'I think it's sad, actually.' 'Why is that?' asked her father. She responded, 'Television is for people who sadly do not have imaginations of their own.'
I have never forgotten that.
I asked a 5 year old kid to recite the multiplication table of 8. He recited it like this:
I suggested to him that he didn't know what came after 2 or 3, since he had recited so randomly.
Then he replied "I did this way so that you may not feel that I am adding up, everyone says that I add up"
My daughter at 7, was looking introspectively at the mirror. I asked her what she was thinking and she said, "My brain is so weird - it wants to think about me me me all the time, like I am the center of the Universe or something!. Mummy, Daddy has that ever happened to you?'
A young boy enters a barber shop and the barber whispers to his customer, “This is the dumbest kid in the world. Watch while I prove it to you.” The barber puts a dollar bill in one hand and two quarters in the other, then calls the boy over and asks, “Which do you want, son?” The boy takes the quarters and leaves. “What did I tell you?” said the barber. “That kid never learns!” Later, when the customer leaves, he sees the same young boy coming out of the ice cream store. “Hey, son! May I ask you a question? Why did you take the quarters instead of the dollar bill?” The boy licked his cone and replied, “Because the day I take the dollar, the game is over!”
Clever Boy.!
I dont know about smartest, but this answer sure was beautiful..
When asked the plural of the word 'Leaf', the child replied a 'Tree'!
I was saying goodbye to the kids at the middle school I was volunteering at. As a way of remembering them, I bought a bunch of papers and asked them to write down what was the most important thing they've learnt their whole life.
I got stuff like: "I love shopping." "Life isn't fair."
One struck me particularly hard: "The purpose of life is to trade the finite for the infinite."
Indeed, we're all given finite resources like time- it's up to us to convert them into something that stretches on into forever. Her wisdom floored me.
I still keep those slips on paper in my scrapbook.
How brilliant a child's observations are often depends on the views of the adult doing the listening.
When my son Aaron was three, some philosopher friends who consider themselves empiricists came over to the house. One of them had a broken foot in a total cover cast on it. It was hot, so my friend had a sandal on the other foot.
He asked my son how many toes he had on that foot, and the quick response was "Five".
So he then asked "And how many do I have on the other foot ?" After thoughtfully considering the cast covering the foot for a moment, he responded "I can't answer that with what I know".
The philosophers immediately gushed with effusive praise, and said he was an intuitive genius with a great future in science :)
We have a school for the deaf inside the campus of IIT Roorkee. Today I saw a little girl of around 6 years dropped at that school by her father on a scooter. As I am kinda familiar with sign language, I saw one of the most beautiful conversations in this world today. The child's father helped her down the scooter and asked her who is she? She replied 'I am the most beautiful and special child on earth'. Then the father asked her why did God make her like this. The girl signed 'Because I am God's favorite and most special. So he had to make me different so that he can watch me from the sky'. Then father kissed her and she happily ran inside the school to join her friends. I almost had tears in my eyes by then...
"Question everything", I told my young neice.
"Why", she said.
Took me by surprise.
Once I was teaching english spellings to my 7 year old brother. He was unable to spell PLAY, and I promptly made a random logic statement "You can't even spell PLAY, so you can't go for playing". And his immediate reply with a cute smile was "I also can't spell STUDY"
Last summer, I asked my US-born niece whether she considered herself Indian or American.
'Earthling' she replied and scampered away.
My dad was chatting with my sister who was about 4 or 5 at the time. He jokingly said that kids were good for nothing. She thought about it and replied "No they're not. " "What are they good for then?" asked my father. 'Kids are good for loving." she replied.
This was from my niece, Kaashvi almost an year ago. She was just 19 months old then. My Brother-in-Law had went to Boston for doing his MBA in finance.
After he left, my niece asked my sister that night, "Papa kaha hai?" (Where is Papa?)
My sister replied, "Papa Boston gaye".(Papa went to Boston)
Kaashvi asked, "Bottun kaha hai?"(Where is Bottun?)
My sister replied,"Bahut door hai beta",(Its very far my child) and tear rolled down her cheeks as she apparently started missing him.
Seeing her tears, Kaashvi promptly wiped her tears and said, "Mat ro mummy. papa aa jayenge. khiloney layenge."( Don't cry Mummy. Papa will come. Will bring Toys)
My sister couldn't stop smiling after that. Kaashvi wiped her tears exactly like my sister used to wipe her's when she used to cry. The sheer wisdom and smartness she shown as a 19 month old child was unthinkable of.
This ain't her only moment of brilliance. But it certainly is her best.
After his usual bedtime story, my three year old son, Akhil was still awake. I thought I'll use sometime to prep him for his sibling, due in a few months. Wishing and hoping for a baby girl, I asked Akhil...
Me : Akhil dear...what shall we name your baby sister?
AKhil : Why Should my baby sister have a name?
Me : Well...your name is Akhil. Your amma, my name is Archana. Daddy's name is Vijay. Similarly, your baby sister should also have a name.
Akhil was silent for 3 seconds and then asked me back...
Akhil : Amma...Elephant's name is elephant. Balloon's name is balloon. Fan's name is fan. Why can't baby sister's name be baby sister?
Me: #$%^%&*&$$&&*
Trying to see if my daughter, maybe 4 or 5, was a pessimist or an optimist, I poured a half-glass of water and asked her "would you say that was half-full or half-empty?".
Her response - "that depends if you're drinking it or filling it".
She is now grown up, teaching primary school and utterly adored by the kids she teaches.
Worried that she might want all of - or at least some of - the wares being relentlessly flogged, I asked her "do you think you would like any of the things they are showing?" She turned to me and said "No, I don't think so. They can't be very good things if they need to keep trying so hard to tell people to like them"
Someone asked my 2 year old cousin, "what color is an apple?".
He replied, "inside or outside?"
Mind. Blown.
Driving around with my preschool age son, I would occasionally point out a particularly attractive woman and he would remind me that I was married. One time when I replied that just because I had ordered didn't mean I couldn't still look at the menu, he took time to consider that logic and after a while pointed out: "Dad... after you order, they take the menu away."
A physicist I met once told me he asked his 6 year old son to imagine standing on top of a big ball in outer space. Then, he told his son, he looks over the edge, and there is a person on the other side of the ball, upside down, with feet on the bottom of the ball. He asked his son: will that upside-down person fall off the ball? His son thought about it, and said "If the other person looks at me, he sees my feet, and I'm upside down to him. I'm not falling off, so he doesn't fall off".
Once when I was trying to plan something for my wife's birthday I asked my 5 year-old daughter what we should do for her.
"I dunno", she said. "Well how do we show someone we love them?" I asked. "You play with them" was her answer.
The clarity of that response floored me. For all the parents that try to buy their child's love; give them expensive gifts. Anything but the one thing that children desire the most, our time. Isn't that the same for all of us? If you want to show your love do something with them. It's so simple and yet how easily we lose this simple clear truth.
I asked my 9 year old son, "what is the opposite of success?" He thought silently for a very long moment and responded, "giving up."
My 4 year old told me the other day, "when I grow up, I want to be a kid"
This happened with one of my cousins who was about 6-7 years old. He was reading a book and started asking me meanings of words. "What is Gap?" , "What is Rap?" etc. Then he asked "What is Gip?". I said that it has no meaning. His question was "Why did they use bigger words when the smaller words have not finished yet?" . I didn't have an answer then and I don't have an answer now.
Years ago, I used to work with a guy who had a very precocious 7-year-old daughter named Maya. He told me this story about her.......
Maya had just come back from spending the weekend at her cousin's house. Her father said, 'So, how was the weekend?' 'Boring,' replied Maya. 'The only thing they wanted to do was watch television'. (Side note - Maya was raised without a TV in the house). After another moment she said, 'I think it's sad, actually.' 'Why is that?' asked her father. She responded, 'Television is for people who sadly do not have imaginations of their own.'
I have never forgotten that.
I asked a 5 year old kid to recite the multiplication table of 8. He recited it like this:
8 1's are 8
8 2's are 16
8 4's are 32
8 9's are 72
8 7's are 56
...
I suggested to him that he didn't know what came after 2 or 3, since he had recited so randomly.
Then he replied "I did this way so that you may not feel that I am adding up, everyone says that I add up"
My daughter at 7, was looking introspectively at the mirror. I asked her what she was thinking and she said, "My brain is so weird - it wants to think about me me me all the time, like I am the center of the Universe or something!. Mummy, Daddy has that ever happened to you?'
A young boy enters a barber shop and the barber whispers to his customer, “This is the dumbest kid in the world. Watch while I prove it to you.” The barber puts a dollar bill in one hand and two quarters in the other, then calls the boy over and asks, “Which do you want, son?” The boy takes the quarters and leaves. “What did I tell you?” said the barber. “That kid never learns!” Later, when the customer leaves, he sees the same young boy coming out of the ice cream store. “Hey, son! May I ask you a question? Why did you take the quarters instead of the dollar bill?” The boy licked his cone and replied, “Because the day I take the dollar, the game is over!”
Clever Boy.!
I dont know about smartest, but this answer sure was beautiful..
When asked the plural of the word 'Leaf', the child replied a 'Tree'!
I was saying goodbye to the kids at the middle school I was volunteering at. As a way of remembering them, I bought a bunch of papers and asked them to write down what was the most important thing they've learnt their whole life.
I got stuff like: "I love shopping." "Life isn't fair."
One struck me particularly hard: "The purpose of life is to trade the finite for the infinite."
Indeed, we're all given finite resources like time- it's up to us to convert them into something that stretches on into forever. Her wisdom floored me.
I still keep those slips on paper in my scrapbook.
How brilliant a child's observations are often depends on the views of the adult doing the listening.
When my son Aaron was three, some philosopher friends who consider themselves empiricists came over to the house. One of them had a broken foot in a total cover cast on it. It was hot, so my friend had a sandal on the other foot.
He asked my son how many toes he had on that foot, and the quick response was "Five".
So he then asked "And how many do I have on the other foot ?" After thoughtfully considering the cast covering the foot for a moment, he responded "I can't answer that with what I know".
The philosophers immediately gushed with effusive praise, and said he was an intuitive genius with a great future in science :)
We have a school for the deaf inside the campus of IIT Roorkee. Today I saw a little girl of around 6 years dropped at that school by her father on a scooter. As I am kinda familiar with sign language, I saw one of the most beautiful conversations in this world today. The child's father helped her down the scooter and asked her who is she? She replied 'I am the most beautiful and special child on earth'. Then the father asked her why did God make her like this. The girl signed 'Because I am God's favorite and most special. So he had to make me different so that he can watch me from the sky'. Then father kissed her and she happily ran inside the school to join her friends. I almost had tears in my eyes by then...
"Question everything", I told my young neice.
"Why", she said.
Took me by surprise.
Once I was teaching english spellings to my 7 year old brother. He was unable to spell PLAY, and I promptly made a random logic statement "You can't even spell PLAY, so you can't go for playing". And his immediate reply with a cute smile was "I also can't spell STUDY"
Last summer, I asked my US-born niece whether she considered herself Indian or American.
'Earthling' she replied and scampered away.
My dad was chatting with my sister who was about 4 or 5 at the time. He jokingly said that kids were good for nothing. She thought about it and replied "No they're not. " "What are they good for then?" asked my father. 'Kids are good for loving." she replied.
This was from my niece, Kaashvi almost an year ago. She was just 19 months old then. My Brother-in-Law had went to Boston for doing his MBA in finance.
After he left, my niece asked my sister that night, "Papa kaha hai?" (Where is Papa?)
My sister replied, "Papa Boston gaye".(Papa went to Boston)
Kaashvi asked, "Bottun kaha hai?"(Where is Bottun?)
My sister replied,"Bahut door hai beta",(Its very far my child) and tear rolled down her cheeks as she apparently started missing him.
Seeing her tears, Kaashvi promptly wiped her tears and said, "Mat ro mummy. papa aa jayenge. khiloney layenge."( Don't cry Mummy. Papa will come. Will bring Toys)
My sister couldn't stop smiling after that. Kaashvi wiped her tears exactly like my sister used to wipe her's when she used to cry. The sheer wisdom and smartness she shown as a 19 month old child was unthinkable of.
This ain't her only moment of brilliance. But it certainly is her best.
After his usual bedtime story, my three year old son, Akhil was still awake. I thought I'll use sometime to prep him for his sibling, due in a few months. Wishing and hoping for a baby girl, I asked Akhil...
Me : Akhil dear...what shall we name your baby sister?
AKhil : Why Should my baby sister have a name?
Me : Well...your name is Akhil. Your amma, my name is Archana. Daddy's name is Vijay. Similarly, your baby sister should also have a name.
Akhil was silent for 3 seconds and then asked me back...
Akhil : Amma...Elephant's name is elephant. Balloon's name is balloon. Fan's name is fan. Why can't baby sister's name be baby sister?
Me: #$%^%&*&$$&&*
Trying to see if my daughter, maybe 4 or 5, was a pessimist or an optimist, I poured a half-glass of water and asked her "would you say that was half-full or half-empty?".
Her response - "that depends if you're drinking it or filling it".
She is now grown up, teaching primary school and utterly adored by the kids she teaches.
