There is an art to learning to read poop like they are tea leaves Your cuticles are under constant attack (or maybe it's just mine?) Water is the ultimate toy They don't care if something is brand new, as long as it's new for them, it's awesome Their tastes can change wildly (Sora loved avocado when she was younger, now she won't touch them)
Two lessons that I've learned as a non-parent: Separate your private life from your work life: For you they are the most adorable things ever, for everybody else your children are loud annoying brats. It's socially not acceptable to tell a parent that their kids are the spawn of Satan who nobody wants around. Which is why all you hear is "Ohh, aren't they cute?" - They aren't. Really. In our day and age privacy is a nice thing to have. With people who are too young to decide for themselves if they want all their life to be on facebook or not you are the parent should be smart enough to keep them off the net. In most cases nothing happens. In that unlikely one case where somebody decides to use their image altering skills to replace that water bottle with a phallic object so they have to do less mental mind bending while masturbating to the image of your kids things stop being funny rather quickly.
I think for the first point you are projecting a bit. I think it really depends on the people. Personally, I love children (and know lots of other people who are the same way), and we genuinely enjoy most kids (of course there are ACTUAL brats). In many outings that allow kids I am usually the one who ends up hanging out and playing with the kids I actually worked in a daycare and loved it. On a more personal level, I work from home so it's much less of an issue That said, I can see how someone constantly bringing their kid to work or talking about their kid ONLY etc. could get annoying. As for privacy, that's an interesting discussion right now that's evolving and I am not sure where I fall on that. I am not sure it's even viable to really have no digital footprint these days. On a general level, I think that it's better to teach your children how to deal with something when it happens, rather than do everything in your power to shelter them from every harm, and the scenario you describe isn't exactly something that should keep anyone up at night. But the general point of "too young to decide for themselves" is valid (though of course as parents you are constantly deciding for them for so many things that they have to live with anyway). Do you have a specific example that caused you personally to "learn" the lesson for the second one as a non-parent? (EDIT: I have removed the photos based on your feedback.)
More stuff: ROUTINES are everything. Makes life so much easier when they know what to expect. Young children are very excited when they understand how things are supposed to go - it's crazy. They understand a lot more than they communicate. They will constantly push the boundaries to see what they can get away with. In many cases, things will just suddenly "click" for them and they go from not being able to do a thing (such as a particular puzzle) to suddenly able to do it They are always watching you
wow hiyashi turned it dark on a dime. "hey guys I have a kid" "internet perv will mollest them with their mind" "ummm.....ok"
It cannot be overstated how much they are watching you. It's amazing how quickly they pick up on something when it clicks. My daughter went from not getting past the first goomba in Mario Brothers to beating the first two levels in no time. It felt like it took her months to get past the first goomba regularly.
I would love a visualization of the "something clicks" process. And also, is it a concept that clicks and then it's applicable all over the place? Or is the specific thing that clicks? Maybe it depends on the situation. For example, with Sora, her shapes puzzles - when she started being able to do one type, she could all of them, so clearly something more abstract/conceptual was achieved.
From what I've seen, it's usually a concept too. With learning to read, she went from sounding out every word in the book to reading 75% of the words smoothly in a matter of months. It seems like once she's exposed to a word in a few books that it quickly becomes recognizable.
