Repost from @juliebravewriter using @RepostRegramApp - It’s easy to want to pacify children by asking them to be virtuous (patient, quiet, careful, helpful). 🌀What kids need? Opportunities to risk, fail, use thrilling tools (sewing machines, bread makers, hammers, hoses, paint brushes, bikes, guitars...), to do stuff without help, to do stuff with loads of help, to go places they love, to go places they’ve never been... They need table top games and dress up clothes and a kitchen. They love electric pianos and deck furniture that needs painting. They will put on plays or make stop action films for hours! They can be counted on to jump off the couch if they get to move that couch and all the furniture around into a new arrangement they think of. They love libraries and afternoon movies at the theater! • A rich childhood is loud, inconvenient, requires supervision, and leads to messes. It changes your plans for the day, week, month, or whole life! • It’s also way more fun for parents and kids: for everyone—than harping on duty and the dreary future of being a responsible grown up. If you lean into it. Which I recommend because.... living that way also happens to have created my best memories of mothering! • Surgeon General’s Warning: if you live this way, I cannot promise you respectable adults who live in America working down the street at the big box offices. • My five grew up believing that they could keep living that fun imaginative life as adults and ALSO be responsible grown ups. Like one adult is studying for the bar in the South of France, and another is launching a coaching business from a surfboard in Mexico... • No seriously. • #parenting #bravewriter #homeschool #raisingchildren #enchantededucation #bravewriterlifestyle #lifestyleoflearning #childhood #wildandfreechildren