Reasons For Children's Reasoning

Of all the efforts I have made in my life to this point, none has
been so exhausting and fruitless as trying to reason with a child. Oh,
not just my own children, though they are experts in the field, no - I
mean with children in general. I can't say I've run across a single
child that at some point in our relationship we have not seen
eye-to-eye in a matter....translated - I don't see things their way.
Don't get me wrong....I don't want to be portrayed as someone who does
not like or enjoy child....I just consider myself a realist. I actually
believe that children, as a group, should be elevated to higher points
of authority in our society. As negotiators, they are the epitomy of
"stubborn". If they are as persistent on pressing issues like stopping
the ice cream man, imagine the possibilites once tutored on the
inner-working of national security and the like. Ok, I admit I wouldn't
place a child in a position of "diplomacy", but I'd want them on my
side of the table if I was negotiating my new Labor Contract. Children,
first and foremost, have the innate sense of knowing exactly what they
want....the problem is it varies from second to second. There in lies
the frustration, but the beauty also. We adults could learn a thing or
two from the flexibility, which is coated in a thick glaze of rigidity.
I've personally spent endless hours trying to reason with children on
the most trivial of matters, but have ended up only frustrating myself.
Now I have graduated to a new low recently....I've begun to try and
understand them. Whatever got into the water system here has
influtrated my reasoning and made me the butt of jokes from one side of
my street to the other. "Oh look, there's goes Chris....he thinks he
can not only reason with children - he thinks he can understand them".
I recently spent some time just exchanging E-Mails with my oldest
daughter on the subject of relationships. Let me start by saying she's
15....so now that you've let out that collective sigh, we can continue.
We "speak" on the ins-and-outs of boys, girls, friends, companions, and
I try to embark some wisdom upon her. After each correspondance, I can
literally see her face as she analysises my thoughts....pick pick, eh -
that ain't bad, pick pick pick. Then her response....which usually
leaves me rereading my previous submission to make sure I remember what
the heck we are talking about. Reasoning with children....I will
continue to press onward until I fully grasp it, and when I do, I will
then rest and work on something a little lighter, like decyphering
Revelations.