"Children have never been very good at listening to their elders, but they have never failed to imitate them. "James A. Baldwin

"Children have never been very good at listening to their elders, but they have never failed to imitate them." 
-James Baldwin


"If we had a key gun, it would shoot keyholes." 
-Puck, age 4

The only explanation I can find for my boys' fascination with guns is a mix of culture and genetics. They live in a gun-free, pacifist home, never owned a gun or anything resembling one until family brought them in, yet would (and still do) fight with anything resembling a stick, sword or firearm. They also (girls and boys) fight with each other ferociously at times, they brood and they disobey. (And just about every day, they say very funny things, like this quote yesterday from Puck who was carrying around an old-fashioned key to an antique hutch.)

Of course, part of this behavior could be deemed as normal passages in childhood. Children are not miniature adults, they are growing and developing through different phases of their lives. So how do we go about teaching them? How do we help guide them through these years into eventual adulthood?

We return once again to the point that it is not so much what we teach our children as how we are with them, the example we give them in our every day lives. Steiner said that adults must take care of their very gestures as they go about their daily tasks around children. If we are able to be mindful of our attitude, our words and our actions, this, friends, is what our children will carry with them in their hearts forever.