Crying often sounds like a demand:
“I’m upset! And I want you to do something about it!”

Or blame:
“I’m upset–and it’s your fault!”

The summer after I graduated from college I volunteered for the local Department of Social Services. A boy was brought in who had been severely neglected. He was three years old but was kept in a crib. The most disturbing thing was that he always had a blank look on his face. He did not respond to people smiling, making faces, or talking with him. He also did not cry.

This helped me realize what a healthy sign of communication crying can be.

Earlier this week, from the little park outside my window I could hear a child crying to his mother.

In my head, I translated his sobs to mean:
“I care! I care! I care!”
(It made the sound much less annoying–I don’t think it’s a coincidence that many ambulance sirens sound like babies crying, a noise that is hard to ignore. )

Would people be less likely to tell children “Stop crying!” if this translation were more widely recognized? If “Stop crying” were interpreted as “Stop caring”?

To stay at a healthy weight you need to avoid most of the food offerings surrounding you, and seek out alternative healthy choices.

To become a motivated learner you need to be supported in pursuing your ideas and interests–and find a school or other learning environment that isn’t simply focused on teaching to standardized tests. (I am thinking of this after reading the recent Newsweek article “The New First Grade.”)

I picture Pinocchio heading out to school and being approached by the Fox and the Cat, and he doesn’t know to question what they’re telling him.

There’s a lot of talk about the influence of culture on learning and education, but I haven’t read or heard so much about the importance of counter culture to support positive youth development.

I am feeling some of that as I try to approach writing down the ideas bouncing around from my first few weeks of grad school. (Mixing metaphors, but these ideas do seem more like bouncing balls in an model of an excited gas, rather than typewriter keys.)

One of the main things to learn about writing is how to eventually focus on one idea at a time, in each paper and in each paragraph.

A page with some ideas about writing from Peter Elbow

Ordinarily I never read anything before I write in the morning to try to bite on the old nail with no help and no influence and no one giving you a wonderful example or sitting looking over your shoulder.

- from Ernest Hemingway on Writing

I was surprised to learned that Hemingway who had such a distinctive and strong voice felt he needed to avoid other voices in order to record his own.

I hope he and others continue to value his unique perspective.

I recently read this writing by the poet Rilke, which seems relevant:

Every historical period is filled with a burning desire for the great individuals who are different: for they have always brought with them the future. Yet when individuality surfaces in a child it is treated disdainfully or disparagingly or possibly–which is most painful for the child–with derision. They are treated as if they had nothing that was unique to them, and the deep riches out of which they live are devalued to offer them commonplaces instead.

from The Poet’s Guide to Life: The Wisdom of Rilke, p. 71

Kristin and Chi are doing wonderful work building homes and hiring staff to create a family structure for some of the children. It was so encouraging to see what they have accomplished, transforming some of the children’s lives. At the same time, it was incredibly depressing to realize the magnitude of the problem, and to hear the estimation that the number of street children is expected to increase to 250 million in the near future, with increasing urbanization and with current street children having more children.

I remember the first time I saw children living on the streets, I was in 4th grade, and our family was visiting Mexico City. At the time I felt how deeply unfair it was that they were begging and I was going to a fancy restaurant with my family, but I felt helpless to do anything about it.

Bolivian Street Children Project The website for their project (the info is a little out-of-date, but the project is very active).

An article where Dr. Chi Huang describes their work.

For example, research psychologist G. William Domhoff states: “The dream reports of children between 3 and 5 consist primarily of static images portraying animals or physiological states like sleeping” (Domhoff, 2000).

This reminds me of the time when Charley was almost 2 years old and woke up yelling from a nightmare. When he woke up Carl and Wendy (his parents) asked what happened. He kept saying, “Scary. Bunny. Up in the tree.”

Several times during the day he got a far-away and scared look, and he said again: “Scary. Bunny. Up in the tree.” Asking him more questions we realized he meant the bunny itself was scared.

The night before, right before he went to bed, Charley had climbed up wooden stairs in his socks. As he was climbing he suddenly slipped, and severely banged his head on each stair on the way down. Wendy and all of us were worried he might have a concussion. He cried and got a big bump but was okay.

I wondered if in the dream he imagined himself as the vulnerable bunny, and the wooden stairs leading up to the wooden second floor was like going up into a tree.

I remember when I was 3 years old the first nightmare I had was of bears who were about to cook me over a campfire. I yelled in the dream, “Mom! Mom!” and she came. I was so surprised that she was actually there (and so relieved I wasn’t really about to be eaten by bears).

Why do young children dream of animals? Is it somehow rooted in biological memory, or something they incorporate from the animals they learn about.

The psychologist Domhoff also reports:
- About 45% of the characters in young children’s dreams are animals
- Only about 5% are animals in adults’ dreams in the United States
- The percentage of animal dreams is higher in preliterate societies for adults than in industralized nations (Domhoff, 2000).

A followup to Charley’s dream. Recently, Charley (now age 4) recalled a story I’d told him several months ago about chickens. He accurately remembered that in the story a chicken got scared and ran out of the chicken coop. However, the way he told it was, “The chicken got scared and ran up into a tree.”

So I have been wondering: Does he still associate getting scared with going up into a tree? Is it all possible it’s a primate/primitive idea, that a tree is a safe place to hide? Or is he simply thinking, “A chicken is a bird, and birds fly up into trees when they’re scared.”?

I picked wood, and — after many hours of sanding — did end up with a nice shiny piece of wood by the end of the week.

I wonder who thought of that activity. Were they thinking this would keep kids busy during unoccupied times? Or was it a way to connect directly to nature? A symbol of transformation? Or did the camp staff simply remember having done something similar when they were a kid?

I just tried to do a web search to see if I could find out if kids in San Diego still go to 6th grade camp, and, if so, if they are given that choice and that piece of sandpaper.

I tried searching for: “sixth grade” camp stone wood sand “san diego”
but didn’t find it…

Oh my goodness, I just found it– I can’t believe, almost 30 years later, and they still do!

In fact, these sixth graders mention it as one of their favorite activities. (I’d forgotten it was manzanita wood.)

From Sixth Grade Camp web documentary: “Only one craft per person - Take a long time and its hard work - Wood, scraper, medium fine sandpaper, waxing - Rock, sand paper and buffing”

It does look like other things about sixth grade camp have changed–they seem to offer many additional types of activities, including a focus on cultural diversity.