I remember a lesson from a professor in college vividly, now that I am a parent. He was a Science Methods teacher, charged with the job of teaching us how to teach science to others. He was a fantastic scientist, not such a great teacher. But he said one thing that will stick with me forever. He told us that parents words’ hold more weight with children than anyone. He told us how in his career he spent more time undoing what parents had done in order to teach his students the correct scientific fact or principle and sometimes it took years.
Yikes. That’s terrifying.
Needless to say every time my kids come to me with a question that I know is out of my wheelhouse (usually involving science) I always start to answer then stop immediately and say, “I’m not sure, let’s investigate that when we get home.”
I refuse to be the one who messes them up on why Pluto isn’t a planet anymore or what exactly Reps Per Minute means in our car.
The good news is that when they ask me something I want them to have a specific slant on
(ie: why we shouldn’t be Cowboy fans or what the correct song lyrics are) I am very quick to tell them my, uh I mean The truth.
Watch what you say, or at least use it for good and not evil.
Oh I am already feeling this pain… I told Amelia that "a couple" is two, so every time I say wait a couple minutes she says "Two minutes!" So I switched to "A few" she asked how many a few was… I told her 7. But if I give her a few crackers, she always tells me I am wrong I gave her 6 or 8. Sigh.