Bubble Wrap.


Bubble Wrap all children, then put them into a box?

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Look it Up.

Growing up, I had the most wonderful reference library at my disposal.

It was about 120 books and it ranged from a kid's encyclopedia to Funk and Wagnalls to some other dictionaries and odds and ends.

Dewey, and his decimal system would have gone crazy because no set was complete.

If you looked at the shelves on either side of the fireplace you have thought that Funk and Wagnalls knew about A thru F and had lost the rest of the alphabet. The same with all the rest of the 'sets'.

My dad would somehow find these jewels, St thru W, a volume of the Time-Life science set, or some other book of knowledge, bring them home and pop them onto the shelf.

It really didn't matter that they were incomplete, they had photos and words, stories of places I wanted to go, stay away from? Wars and peace, animals and plants, time past and time yet to come.

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It really doesn't matter what you do for a kid or how you treat them growing up.

You have to instill the idea of wonder, the (as hokey as it sounds) thirst for knowledge and information.

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Giving a kid an iPhone or a tablet isn't going to to sh*t for them.

First take them to a Library and show them how to use a book, a reference card, teach them how to THINK ABOUT HOW TO GET THAT ANSWER.

Typing a bing, google or asking that stupid broad on your cell phone is gonna get you the answer that THEY want you to have, It's the answer that everyone else gets, too.

The Paper Trail in the library is fraught with all kinds of pitfalls.

It turns a simple question into a search for an answer with all kinds of detours, u-turns and OTHER questions. You can start at why the sun is hot or what it is made of and end up with quantum mechanics. How's about why plant leaves are green and how that is associated with sunlight? And maybe gets into why a koala only eats eucalyptus leaves, why a panda eats bamboo and you then end up in China at the end of a few hours wandering the aisles of a library?

My 'wireless device' isn't going to allow me to find those answers the way a library will and when you get the bill at the end of the month.......oh, THE LIBRARY WON'T SEND YOU ONE!

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In the evenings we sit down to watch Jeopardy! and at least once during the program Doris and I look at each other and laugh about the inability of a twenty-something to answer a simple - I mean really simple - question.

Sometimes the best players aren't the PhDs, MBA or doctors (We really laugh at them) - it's a bartender, or some nanny, a working stiff from a warehouse? It the people who seek out info and absorb it like a sponge.

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Looking back, I wish I would have had children.

They would bleed from the knees from playing, get into trouble from breaking a window or being out too late.
They would say "Yes Sir" and "No, Ma'am" but would talk too much in the classroom. They'd know what a walk in the park is and learn how to skip rocks in the water.

They would know sports and fixing things, ask me questions that I'd answer, "I don't know, let's go figure this out....."
They'd be rebellious and I'd get compliments about their behavior in public, because like my parents, I go corporal on their arses, then explain why and what they needed to do to prevent that in the future.

Then I would tell them that I loved them.

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The other phenomenon is the "Tiger Mom Syndrome".

Um, you can take my word for it, or you can look it up.