The Little Blue Ball
We’ve heard it all a million times, “Our children have so much to teach us.” And it’s true.
Recently I was showing my 20-month old son, Carter, a short video on my mobile phone. The video contained a close up of him sitting on his grandfathers lap in their backyard. In this particular clip, Carter was slapping his grandfather in the face and then laughing hysterically. In previous showings of this clip, he would laugh just like in the video. But this time he didn’t, something in the video caught his eye.
As I watched his face analyze the video, I realized he was hyper-focusing on something, and it wasn’t the action in the foreground. He suddenly points to the small screen and shouts, “Ball!”
Ball? There is no ball in the video…oh, their is. A little blue ball way in the background.
I started thinking, what do children see that adults don’t. What am I missing out on? Children have new experiences all of the time whether it’s watching a video, looking out a window, or playing a game. They actually look for new things.
The video was a startling anecdote. Adults look in the foreground, we look at the action in front of us on a single flat plane. Children look at all planes, all dimensions and they see the fine details.
Perhaps we should start thinking more like children and welcome new experiences, new views, and new ideas.
Wow Rocky, this is realy interesting and well put. I agree a childs point of view is very different from an adult’s. I also want to take in all the little details and enjoy them, guess I’ll have to retrain my brain!