|
There's a story in the book Emile by Jean Jacques Rousseau, goes something like this, paraphrased. Emile is about a tutor and his student.
To teach his student, the tutor works out an arrangement with a local farmer to use a small piece of his land for a summer. They go and plant a vegetable garden. Every few days they visit it, and care for the plants as they develop and produce vegetables.
Close to harvest time, the tutor makes sure to convey his excitement at their progress, culminating in harvest day.
The day before they're to harvest the vegetables, the tutor visits the farmer and asks him to cut everything down and save them for him, and that he's trying to teach his student a lesson.
The day arrives and the student is very excited to go and harvest his vegetables. They arrive, and there's nothing left. Everything has been stolen and destroyed. The child bursts into tears. The teacher says not to worry, but that people should respect other people's property. He suggests they should go and talk to the farmer.
The farmer explains that he's very sorry, but he wanted to save them the work and prepare the vegetables for them, a misunderstanding. The child is very happy to have the fruits of his labour back, and has learned really valuable lessons of what it's like to put time and care into something only for someone else to steal or destroy it.
Most importantly, he doesn't just say he understands, but knows exactly what it feels like to find your property destroyed.
There's almost always a sneaky way like this to teach your children by leading them to the solution rather than directly telling them your opinion.
|