Monday 10 February 2014

A child's eye view

I learned two things about children this morning.

The first is, they don't automatically know how to tuck a pair of socks together. I am fed up of finding just one of their socks on the floor, so had given them a big lecture about putting them together, only to have them protest that they didn't know how. I scoffed, and demonstrated. But when they tried to copy me, they didn't get it at all, even after several tries.

 It's strange - I don't even remember being taught this particular skill (unlike tying shoelaces or a bow), but it must be something that we are all at some point shown, and it doesn't come naturally (at least, not to my boys).

The second is: you forget how literally children think. On the drive to school, Littleboy 2 pipes up from the back seat: "What does that sign mean, NEW ZEBRA CROSSING AHEAD?"

As I started to explain, I suddenly realised why he was confused. He clearly had an image in his head of herds of (new) zebra crossing the road at the rather grim junction outside the local railway station, having stumbled there somehow from the African plains.

On a cold, grey, rainy morning in Southeast London, it was a lovely thought.

5 comments:

Expat mum said...

I had that same experience with the sock folding. Yesterday I had to give them a lecture about separating them before throwing them in the laundry basket. I think they rolled their eyes a little bit!

Anonymous said...

My kids also can't do socks despite me showing them a billion times.What is so friggin hard??? Love the idea of zebras in the middle of grey London

Nota Bene said...

'lol'. I always remember being puzzled by the signs saying "Heavy plant crossing"...even now it conjures up images and a little smile

Iota said...

We used to have pelican crossings too, didn't we? Whateve happened to all those pelicans?

Blog tag over at mine, if you're interested.

Iota said...

And I still don't really know what a heavy plant crossing is... Are we talking diggers, road-building heavy machinery, etc?