On Thursdays, I babysit 6 kids at my church. When you think of 6 kids in a nursery, you might imagine them running around and being loud. These kids do that. Often.
One day, they were particularly wild. To try to keep them occupied, I played Ring Around The Rosy with them. We had lots of fun with that until Nathan, 9, the oldest of the bunch, asked if we could play a game. He suggested we play Mother, May I.
It sounded like a good idea and we were about ready to play, when it dawned on me...I forgot how to play Mother, May I. I played it all the time when I was little, but over the years (despite how few they were), the rules of the game got lost in my memories.
I asked Nathan how to play, despite how embarrassing it felt to ask a 9 year old for the rules to an easy game like that. As he was explaining, it seemed as if I was the student and he was the teacher. It seemed backwards.
I felt kinda bad because I thought I should have already known the rules. I thought I should be teaching him things, and never the other way around. But it doesn't always work that way with everything.
Everyone can learn from each other, no matter what their ages. In fact, it's a good thing that people forget things because then the kids can explain things and share their knowledge with others.
It's also good for adults and teens to share their knowledge and advice with kids because it broadens their field of knowledge and challenges them and distills curiosity in them.
I figured out that Mother, May I isn't exactly my specialty, but most kids are experts at it. It didn't end up being as embarrassing as I thought it was; I found it to be a gift...to see the confidence and fascination behind the bright eyes of a child.
