To the Untrained Eye

Me: What are you doing?!

BodhiWan: Decorating the tree.

Me:  ...Why?

BW: I'm being a butcherbird.

Me: That's awesome.

BW: It is awesome...but not to the untrained eye.



Unfortunately, I did not photograph the tree at the height of it's glory.  They had really gotten a pretty phenomenal amount of junk up there--which was impressive.  
But more impressive was that little bit of sage wisdom from my seven-year-old:  

​"It is awesome...but not to the untrained eye."

​We often tell our kids to stop something--or tell our kids to start something--based on our own criteria of what is 'good', 'right', 'important' or 'valuable'.  On a crabbier or busier day, I might just have easily asked them to hurry up and put all those things away without asking what it was they were up to.  

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Even as I write this, there is an implication that my seeing and understanding what they were doing  somehow gave it value.  It would have been just as cool if I had missed the whole thing all together.  

​What did they learn by being butcherbirds?  Who knows really.   But here a few observations: 

1. It ended up being a sort of collaborative art project as they negotiated between the vision of what they wanted and what was possible with the materials they had on hand/where the twigs and branches existed for hanging.  (At one point the girl next door (hereby ever after knows as the "Girl Next Door" and PrincessBea were also up in the tree as BodhiWan gathered things and directed them where to put them).  
2. There was  a good amount of practice of manual dexterity as things were tied & hoisted up.  Muscle strengthening and coordination, no doubt; it was an excellent PE. activity as they went up and down the tree multiple times.  
3. ​They recalled and shared with each other what they knew about the butcher bird--which if you don't know--are birds who impale their prey on trees or thorns to attract mates (btw--when I asked BW who he was trying to impress he got a sideways smile and said, "....the Girl Next Door." and then quickly added that he was also trying to impress his sister.  So there was also some social experimentation going on.  Since the Girl Next Door did look thoroughly engaged and duly impressed, I've no doubt this was great encouragement for BW to keep learning new things....you never know how little bits of knowledge will come in handy!

So...lesson learned for the day:  

​When looking at your child's activities (and interests) don't be too quick to judge...maybe you just need to train your eye.
 

Real butcherbirds.