Logical Children

I always considered myself to be a fairly intelligent individual capable of using logic and reason to solve problems. Then I had a child; a pre-teen to be exact. The problem with parenting today is listening to all the so-called "experts". You see, the "experts" tell you to reason with and use logic on the child. The problem is that is like putting a square peg in a round hole. Children do not have reasoning abilities. The younger the child, the less reasoning and logic abilities they have.

Consider this proof: It is clear that the child has eaten the chocolate cake. The child has not bothered to get a plate, cut a nice even piece off of the cake and place it on the plate. You would have been impressed with this and maybe even, in your pleasure, have let go of the fact that your child ate the chocolate cake at 6:30 in the morning. Instead, the child simply bit into the entire cake coating his or her face with a ring of chocolate icing encompassing his or her face. At this point, adult logic has broken down as well for the adult. Adults ask a dumb question: "Did you eat some of the chocolate cake?" Forget the fact that the child's facial imprint is in the cake! What will the child say? "No!" Why do we even bother to ask the child? After a twenty-minute debate with the child in which you show clear and logical evidence as to how you know the child ate the chocolate cake, your child is still not convinced by the logic. You literally have to take the child to the bathroom mirror and allow himself to see the chocolate on his face. Children live in a fantasy land, where, their plausible answer is that the chocolate ferry must have put the chocolate on their face.

Older children will make you judge your sanity. They are in between the fantasy world where outlandish explanations make sense to them and the world of reality. This makes their fantasy explanations seem more plausible to you. It is at this point where you begin to question your sanity. The problem is you are getting older too. Maybe it was you that left the lights on! All of my adult life I have never had a problem turning off the lights or flushing the toilet, but now, for whatever reason, I must be forgetting how to do those things. The child will emphatically and convincingly argue that he turned the lights off when he came downstairs. Since you really don't want to question your own sanity or abilities, the Georgia Power troll actually becomes believable. You see, Georgia Power has these invisible trolls that go around and, after you know you have turned the lights off, go and turn the lights back on so that Georgia Power can make more money. This is more plausible than you losing your own mind or that your child forgot how to flip a switch.

Like I mentioned, I consider myself a fairly intelligent persona and I would like for my child to "inherit" some of that intelligence. So, in an effort to ascribe some intelligence, I like for my child to think through answers. (This is my first mistake: Children have neither the ability to use logic nor the ability to think. Thinking implies logic.) For instance, you have woken your son up - for the fourth time this morning - and yet you still find your son asleep instead of getting ready for school. You see the child asleep. You are talking to the child, in a very loud and frustrated tone, and the child is not responding. Finally, the child stirs - and you ask a stupid question: "Where you asleep?" In your mind, it is a rhetorical question, but children do not have the ability to understand rhetoric. If you ask them about rhetoric, he thinks you are talking about an NBA basketball player, Rhetoric James. You know the answer to, "Where you asleep," and "Why aren't you getting ready for school?" One question answers the other: the child was not getting ready for school because he was asleep. That does not matter logically however because your child does not use logic.

"Where you asleep," is met by, "No."
You are baffled! "You weren't asleep? So what were you doing?"
The child still has not moved from the fetal position on the bed. "I was looking for my shoes!"
The child is obviously irritated at your logic!
"You were looking for your shoes," you inquire? Now, it does not matter that your child is still balled up in his underwear on the bed and has not managed to put a shirt or pair of pants on, but he is somehow looking for his shoes. "How are you looking for your shoe, undressed, balled up on your bed and with your eyes closed?" There! You have him! You can't argue with logic - or so you think!
"I was visualizing where I left my shoes," he insists!
It is at this point that you begin to question your sanity. Maybe he was visualizing. You realize that logic will not work with your child so you give up shaking your head and muttering under your breath. Again, what the "experts" fail to understand is that you cannot use logic where there is a void of it.

It is at this point that you realize you miss the days of the "I don't know..." answers.
"Why did you touch the stove when I told you don't touch the stove?"
"I don't know."
"Why did you put these stickers on the television screen?"
"I don't know."
"Why did you put that in the toilet?"
Everybody sing it with me now..., "I don't know."
You begin to realize that you miss the "I don't know," answers because you realize that children are incapable of using logic. They really do not know why they do half the things they do. They are exploring and learning new concepts like transfomers can transform a toilet into an upstairs water park when attempting to flush them down the toilet.

The problem is that pre-teens and teens become devious because they are now coming out of the fantasy world and beginning to use just enough logic to drive you crazy! Meditating and developing the skills of a Psychic now seem plausible to you.

After a long battle equivalent to the final Apocalypse, your child finally makes it downstairs for breakfast. Among all the things you had to do to get yourself ready AND wake up your child, you cook breakfast, for all the experts tell you decent nutrition will help your child do well in school. After slaving over the stove, your child informs you that he is not hungry. Any other time - usually when there is no food in the house - he would devour a cruise ships buffet worth of food! After coaxing him to brush his teeth in order to keep some friends at school, he finally emerges and you are ready to take him to school. You have been ready to go 10-minutes ago even after all you had to do to get ready. The only thing your child really had to do is to wake up and dress himself. You on the other hand must get your self clean, prepare lunch for the child and yourself, engage in hand-to-hand combat to wake your child, make breakfast, clean up the kitchen, set things out for dinner and check the daily schedule and yet, you are still done with 10-minutes to spare.

Finally, your child has his shirt on, gotten his school books and is wearing pants - most of the time - and you are ready to go.
"Let's go," you say reasonably. Of course, the response you get is:
"I can't find my shoes."

I truly believe that all the "experts" who implore us to use logic never had a teenager living in the home with them!