"Melissa Wobschall" writes:
> Martin, your two families make a good contrast.
>
> Unfortunately, we have a dysfunctional family living across from us. When
> we first moved into this apartment, our kids wanted to play with them. We
> were pretty uneasy about that fact. Fortunately, our kids have made other
> friends at school and we spend our afternoons there on nice days after
> school is out so the kids can play together and the parents can talk.
While it is most likely disconcerting living that close
to a dysfunctional family, they can provide you with an endless
array of what are sometimes ruefully called "teachable moments."
A huge amount of what we learn when very young is not
systematic but it shapes our idea of what is normal and proper
and that is how we become adults much later.
On a related but very off-topic matter, science has
discovered over the last few decades a lot about how the brains
of children mature. It is not a linear process at all and is
marked by periods of relative constancy interrupted by short
bursts of growth in which new wiring appears, connecting parts
of the brain that didn't used to work together. Even very smart
children may not understand a particular idea one year and then
next year, something clicks and now they can do whatever it is
with no trouble at all.
Some of what happens in a growing brain is the shutting
down of systems we don't use as much. It is known that if a
child learns a foreign language before about the age of ten, he
or she can learn to speak as a native without an accent. After
ten, we can still keep learning languages up until we die, but
it is harder and we will almost certainly have an accent because
biology says we are through learning to speak and that area of
the brain can now be used for something else. Now, I'm
digressing.
Martin
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