Ok so it’s time for me to update this here blog. I’ve been to Disneyland, Disney’s California Adventure, and it is worth noting that the service of park employees is better at Walt Disney World. The castle is bigger, so that must be it, right?
Well, I’m becoming obsessed. I’ve put a reserve on the ‘Be Our Guest’ book that supposedly explains why WDW service is so damn kick ass. I don’t kick that much ass, but I’ve worked in customer service for a while and there’s a focus on customer service at my work right now so I’m interested in doing it right. I learned to talk nice to people (I have a specific tone of voice when I’m doing my best service) a long while back and it helped me scoot along until I started getting engineering work and later became a manager. Somewhere along the way of being responsible for people and then being leaned on an UNGODLY amount at work, I’ve got no game for charming the socks off of people.
I also read the first half of a book about Civility while I was on vacation several months back (by P.M. Forni) – it was on Oprah a few months back. I have to say that I’ve really enjoyed recalling pieces of it over the last several months.
I have been spending time in reflection, thinking about what I want to impart to my children – I think that choosing to live a moral life based on principles is great, but since it is apart from my parent’s religion I have to think about how I will impart my sense of morality and principle on to my children. I think that it is interesting that religions (many of them) have built in instruments of passing on morals to children – as I am fond of telling my son, it’s my job to make sure he’s a decent person.
And soon, it’ll be my job to make sure I raise a decent daughter. It’ll be interesting, because I think women should be on the strong side, so she’ll be raised to be strong and capable. Good luck to my future son-in-law, cause he’s in for it.
From day one when The Boy was born and cried about things (as babies are to do) I said I’d raise the first child that could be reasoned with. And that means I’d stop whatever I was doing, and take the time to explain things to him. I don’t know why people don’t do this more often, because young children are capable of being rational. I guess it’s just my way of doing things.
I also really like teaching kids – it’s really just amazing how quickly they learn – and if you do it right, they get excited abou learning. After a certain point, The Boy was off and running, he had learned to read and could read anything and learn anything. I look forward to teaching my daughter all the same stuff, and I think The Boy will love having a sibling and helping us out with her.
I credit all the brain smarts of the boy to you especially reading, you took the extra time and care to teach him. I can’t wait to see what you do with the girl!
You guys did a great job reasoning and explaining things to The boy, and that’s why he’s so sensible now. I’ll admit that i take a short cut once and a while with Katie and reasoning, but I do my best to make sure she hears the truth of things, when I can. (though there are occasions that I tell her I’m sick when I’m actually sad, like when Scott got laid off and I was a mess, i told her that I was sick. :S)
Interesting post!
For me, the foundation of moral behavior is that acting a certain way helps contribute to making this the kind of world that I (and most people, really) want to live in. It’s a little abstract, but that’s the reasoning I try to pass on to the kids. Even though I am religious, my morality is separate from my religion.
As far as reasoning with the children goes, I am perfectly willing to explain anything at all to them, even to the point of debating with them, as long as they bring it up after the fact. In the moment where I am telling them (or anyone else) what to do, I expect immediate obedience every time. I try to keep that bar set pretty high.