Comic Commentary Week Deux: 4

Click to enlarge - Copyright 2012 Scott Adams

Elie is at the age where she confuses correlation and causation all the time.  We eventually grow out of it* of course, but it's sometimes so frustrating in my 9 year old to hear, with absolute confidence, her explanation of everything in the world.  When I try to correct her - when it's appropriate** - sometimes she gets very animated and digs in her heels and insists that she knows better how the world works than I, in my paltry 44 years of experience could ever attain.

And part of me celebrates this stage - she's so curious about the world and how things work and what things mean.  There have been (with both girls) and continue to be lots of "what happens if" moments...  And that's not all bad.***  I thought the girls would freak out the day on our walk in the woods when they saw bones on the path.  But they didn't.  They wanted to know what kind of bones they were.****  Then they wanted to bring them home. (We didn't).  When we go back to that path we look for the bones, though.  And we check out everything on the walk - even spiderwebs are cool outside.

And Elie can try to figure out - what caused the deer bones to be there.  And the girls look at all kinds of stuff and wonder - what caused this?  And they draw conclusions.  When I know something, I tell them and we talk through it.  If I don't know, we investigate.

It's an awesome time to be alive. *****









*Yeah, well, MOST of us grow mostly out of it.  We still fall into it, not just the pointy haired boss...
**You know sometimes you gotta correct stuff - but a lot can slide - she's experiencing the world and trying to make sense of it so I TRY not over-correct.  After all, sometimes it's better to just be dad than be right, you know?  Check out this guest post on Michael Hyatt's blog.
***Scar sometimes.  Oh, and messy.  And, yes, sometimes it IS bad - because kids don't always have the right filters on "what happens if..." that they should.  But it's also fun, too, and creative, and eye-opening and wonderful...
****Turned out to be a pretty complete deer skeleton...
*****Even when I'm frustrated... 'Cause half the time I get treated like I don't know anything...but that day will pass, I know...  It's okay.  It's all worth it.