We Can Learn From A Five Year Old

My niece posted this to her facebook feed this morning. Being a former kindergarten teacher, I couldn’t agree more. Children are certainly missing out on the creative, the imaginative, the social interaction and the play side of kindergarten these days. It’s turned into an academic curriculum, which in my opinion, many are not developmentally ready to handle. We are rushing them way too fast. That’s why so many fall behind from the start. It makes me sad for those children to miss out on such an important part of childhood.

But reading over this, I also became sad for many of us as adults. I think we could learn from this list. So many of us are afraid to take risks or to get messy. We forget to take time out of our day to play and enjoy life. Children are not made to sit in desks all day but neither are we. Being an adult, or “adulting” as it’s called now, is not easy. There is a lot more responsibility that goes with the label. That doesn’t mean it can’t be fun and enjoyable.  We can’t stop the bills from coming in or stop the car from breaking down as ours did this week, but we can stop and enjoy the sunshine or even the rainfall. We can get messy and take certain risks. We can get up from our desk or our chair and think about our blessings for a few minutes. Research shows that just our posture can change our mood. Yesterday is over. We can learn from any mistakes we have made in the past. Tomorrow is yet to be. We cannot predict what will happen or if we will even be around to see it. We must live in the now. That’s all we are guaranteed.

Five year olds will come home from school today and want to make the most of their day that’s left.  Let’s learn from them and make the most of our day as well.

 

In a world where there is so much hate, let us all choose to be KIND.