Dizzy with Thoughts – and a Solution to the World’s Meanness

I was supposed to go swimming today, but I’m skipping it. Instead, I’m sitting here thinking about yesterday and about how important it really is to listen to children.

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My body feels tired and my stomach is acting up again, so the swim can wait. Yesterday, I was looking after a little one all day, and it was an intense day from beginning to end.

Everything had to happen.

We had to play, draw on the board, cosy up in the motorhome, go to the playground and cook food. I was also going to spend some time with my brother, but naturally, most of my attention was wherever all the action was.

And there was action all the time.

At the playground, I also had to work a little on myself.

Oh, how high a child can swing.

And oh, how high they can apparently climb.

It’s strange how much courage an adult sometimes needs simply to stay on the ground and let a child discover what they are actually capable of.

But most of all, it was so much fun.

It was wonderful having the little one beside me in everything we did. We had so many lovely conversations, and I enjoyed hearing his thoughts.

Because thoughts – that little man had plenty of them.

Listen to children – “dizzy with thoughts”

Big thoughts. Lots of thoughts. And sometimes those simple, completely free thoughts children can have before the world has had time to tell them how things are supposed to be solved.

At one point, he told me that he felt dizzy with thoughts because there were so many of them.

I thought that was a wonderful description.

I told him that of course he has lots of thoughts in his head, and that he should be glad he does. Imagine if there were no thoughts in there at all.

Then he told me about a mean man who had been unkind to his grandfather.

And he had a solution.

A rather wonderful solution.

He would tickle the man until he started laughing.

Sometimes saying sorry is enough

Actually, this wasn’t the first time he had given me such a simple solution to something we adults can make very complicated.

A few months ago, he said something else that stayed with me:

“Sometimes it’s actually enough to say sorry.”

So simple.

Not always, of course. An apology cannot undo everything, and sometimes much more is needed. But sometimes he really does have a point.

We adults can keep explaining ourselves, defending ourselves and trying to make the other person understand exactly what we meant. We search for the right words and arguments when perhaps there is a much simpler word that needs to come first.

Sorry.

And now he had another solution:

If someone is being mean – try to make them laugh.

Perhaps that is what I love so much about the way children think. They don’t always begin by asking who is right. They can start somewhere completely different:

How can we make this better again?

Just imagine.

Someone is being mean, and the solution isn’t to be even meaner in return. It isn’t to shout louder. It isn’t to win.

You tickle them a little so that the meanness turns into laughter.

I loved that thought.

Just picture it.

Two people are in the middle of a conflict. Their words are getting harsher. Both are angry, and neither intends to give in.

Then someone comes along and breaks the whole pattern.

In his world, with tickling.

What if we could interrupt a conflict?

Of course, conflicts in the adult world cannot be solved by running around tickling one another. But perhaps there is still something in his idea that we adults could learn from.

Does every conflict have to continue in the same direction in which it started?

Does anger always have to be met with more anger?

Or can someone sometimes do something completely different and interrupt what is happening?

The child’s solution was simple:

Make him laugh, and maybe he’ll stop being mean.

And as I think about it today, tired after our intense day together, perhaps it is those free thoughts that I love most.

The thoughts we have before we learn all the reasons why something cannot be done.

Perhaps the world could sometimes use a few more of them.

We need to listen to children

I really do think that we adults need to spend time around children whenever we can – and truly listen to children.

They make us wiser.

They make things simpler, and perhaps they make us a little more alive too. They notice things we have stopped noticing and find solutions before they have learned that the solution is supposedly impossible.

But of course, I can say that as someone who no longer has small children around me all the time.

I don’t have to put a tired child to bed every evening. I don’t have to wipe noses, search for missing mittens or take a little one to after-school care on a morning when they absolutely do not want to go. I don’t have to juggle work, meals, laundry, schedules and everything else at the same time.

I have the privilege of having a day like this.

An intense day, absolutely. A day full of movement that leaves my body feeling finished afterwards and means that today’s planned swim can wait.

But I also get to hand the responsibility back.

Perhaps that is why I have the opportunity to stop and really listen to everything that is said in the middle of play.

And imagine if those of us who are no longer in the middle of the small-child years could do that a little more often.

Be close to children.

Not because we need to teach them something.

But because sometimes we can let them teach us.

Because perhaps we adults occasionally need someone to remind us that a mean man might just need to be tickled until he laughs.

A few questions for you

When was the last time you really listened to a child’s thoughts?

Has a child ever said something that made you stop and look at the world differently?

Are there things children make simpler than we adults do, simply because they haven’t yet learned how complicated everything is supposed to be?

And perhaps the most important question:

What would happen if we adults sometimes listened to children in order to learn, instead of always assuming that we are the ones who should teach them?

Feel free to leave a comment. I like it when the thoughts in a post continue through the people who read it.

You may also like

If you enjoyed this post, you might also like some of my other reflections:

• I’m Getting Older – But I’m Not Finished Yet
• Yellow Time – When Preparation Makes Everyday Life Easier
• You can find more posts under Life Reflections – Thoughts About Life, Relationships and Being Human.

Between the lines

Perhaps we don’t always have to be the wise adults.

Sometimes we just need to sit beside a child and listen.

To the big thoughts.

The many thoughts.

The thoughts that can make a little person feel dizzy with thoughts.

Children don’t have all the answers. Neither do we adults.

But sometimes they turn the world upside down by making something complicated very simple.

Say sorry.

Make the angry person laugh.

Try to make things better again.

Perhaps we can become a little wiser, a little less complicated and a little more alive if we sometimes stop and truly listen to children.

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“Every day is a new opportunity to begin again, to grow, and to choose the life you want to live.”

Malix / Carina Ikonen Nilsson