"Jeanne Illsley Clarke says that the main developmental task of a child age 6-12 is to feel capable and like they have good ideas. "

This is why I love the internet. I have no idea who Jeanne Illsley Clarke is and I don't care. I googled her, found out that she writes books on parenting. Marvelous. I have no plans to read any of them, though they might be good. Be that as it may, all I need is the one quote. It was posted on a bulletin board by a woman I respect. It has formed a glittery new focal point in my mind. Because of that one small quote I have started listening for ways to reflect my children's ideas back to them, to help them see themselves for the deep thinkers they are. I think most children are naturally deep thinkers. Reflecting this is my new "teaching." This is another thing I will "do" while they are busy thinking and learning.

With this on my mind, my son looked up at me this morning. I was knitting. He was rolling around on his back. He was rereading "The Dangerous Book For Boys." He was petting the dog. He was picking his toenails. And he was thinking. He asked me what an electron is made of. I don't know. But this launched a conversation about protons, electrons, nuclei, atoms, positive and negative charge, and quarks. He wanted to know what is the smallest known particle. I don't know. This lead him to ask, "How can nothing be real?" "Ahhhh, that hurts my brain," I said. "Me too," he said with a giggle. His father walked through the room on his way to work. We stopped him with all our questions. This lead us to a comparison of positive and negative charge (the glue of the whole manifest shebang) with computers. All the information encoded in a computer is a built on two commands: on and off. Isn't that cool? Then I said to my son, "I like the fact there are so many mysteries and so much we don't understand about the universe. This tells me there are still many possibilities in life that we are unaware of, and that makes me feel happy. I find that to be a comforting thought. It seems a bit like magic." (Subtext: Son, you are full of undiscovered possibilities. That makes me happy.)

This quote makes me sit down and try to list all of their recently capable and creative ideas. Between the two of them this year, and off the top of my head, they have: written a play, written many many new jokes and puns, written songs, learned how to ride bikes, built their own tree house, figured out how to catch crawdads without a net, spent hours upon hours immersed in secret worlds of their own co creation, created two new comic strips - "Yin and Yang" in which the halves of this symbol are separated into two individual characters. And "Big Head Brats" in which a boy thwarts an evil brat in many perilous plots. They are prolific artists, the both of them. There has been knitting, painting, embroidery, photography, coloring, singing, blogging, sculpting with clay (oh how I long to dispatch the foul clay,) and sculpting with Legos.

My daughter is especially brave. She is plagued by a neighborhood kid. The oldest of the group, he is almost 10. My daughter is the youngest. And smallest. This kid is not mean to her. He is mean to his own little sister. My daughter can not figure this out. It is beyond her ken but not beyond her sense of justice and fury. He calls his sister a baby. His tone is condescending and mean. He is rude to her. "Mom, she is NOT a baby, she is older than me!" At dinner we hear, "I told him, SHE IS NOT A BABY." "I am like you Mom, I can make myself very sharp." How are we sharp? I am thinking she doesn't mean "quick and witty." No. "I have a way of making my voice so sharp so people will listen to me when I say, for instance, NO." Ah yes, capable.

Lately I have been worried about school. Are they really learning enough? She is not reading fluently. He doesn't formally study math. We lack? They are 7 and 8. Yet there is our list up there and it is incomplete by far, limited as it is by my own pathetic memory and inattention. It doesn't even touch on all the new chores and responsibilities they have taken on this year. But I stop now. Reflect again. I think we are on the right path. I think this is working. My children are capable and creative. And I have a plan and intention to nurture both qualities.