Our physical position changes completely how we see an event compared to others. Two people can view the same activity and see two different things. If you are on the left side of the field, things will look very different than if you were on the right. I went to a football (soccer) game with my son. We had spectacular seats 4 rows up from the field. The players looked like real human beings not miniatures. I noticed the field appeared to be convex with the sidelines lower than the centre. I never thought anything about it until half time. During the half time break we were discussing how a couple of the players that were very big name stars seemed to do absolutely nothing during the first half. When the game restarted, the teams switched ends of the field. These players had a fantastic second half, involved in all the action. The difference must have been the half time speech of the manager. No, it was the fact they were playing on our side of the field for the last half. The arch in the field was enough to block them from a clear view. We couldn’t see what they were doing due to our perspective.
My father always told me when walking in the woods to stop at regular intervals and look behind you as the perspective of the same area you just walked through would be completely different when you returned. People get lost on walks, as the path does not look like they remembered from going on the outward journey. Believe me it is so true!
This week I returned to England to visit my family and receive my citizenship certificate at a ceremony. I’m now a “dual-ler” as my daughter so nicely put it. When I visited my youngest son’s family, their two-year-old daughter kept her distance from me. She knew who I was, had talked to me many times on Face Time, yet she did not want to get too close. I was a little surprised by this reaction. On the second day of my stay her other grandparents came to visit. We were all standing at the door and they were asking her about me. “Who’s that?” “Grampa.” “Where did he come from?” “Canada.” Then she said: “Grampa big”. I looked down at her, then looked down upon her mother and grandparents and realized that she had no idea how big I was from the screen of a mobile phone. She only comes slightly above my knee. For her I was a skyscraper.
In my education training to be a teacher they taught us to go down to our student’s level to talk to them. One of my supervising teachers was of the opinion that you stand as tall and straight as possible to intimidate them by your presence so that the students knew who was the boss. Their perspective is so different than ours. Things look far bigger to them than they do to us. When I was young, the city I lived in had mountains of snow every winter. But as I got older it was so obvious that we didn’t get snow the way we used to. Must be climate change!
Are we sometimes reacting to our children’s concerns from a wrong perspective? Could we be telling them to suck it up and get on with it when the situation is really intimidating for them? Would it behove (got to love that word! Behoove in N.A.) us to take the time to come down to their level and see things from their perspective once in awhile? Hum!
My father always told me when walking in the woods to stop at regular intervals and look behind you as the perspective of the same area you just walked through would be completely different when you returned. People get lost on walks, as the path does not look like they remembered from going on the outward journey. Believe me it is so true!
This week I returned to England to visit my family and receive my citizenship certificate at a ceremony. I’m now a “dual-ler” as my daughter so nicely put it. When I visited my youngest son’s family, their two-year-old daughter kept her distance from me. She knew who I was, had talked to me many times on Face Time, yet she did not want to get too close. I was a little surprised by this reaction. On the second day of my stay her other grandparents came to visit. We were all standing at the door and they were asking her about me. “Who’s that?” “Grampa.” “Where did he come from?” “Canada.” Then she said: “Grampa big”. I looked down at her, then looked down upon her mother and grandparents and realized that she had no idea how big I was from the screen of a mobile phone. She only comes slightly above my knee. For her I was a skyscraper.
In my education training to be a teacher they taught us to go down to our student’s level to talk to them. One of my supervising teachers was of the opinion that you stand as tall and straight as possible to intimidate them by your presence so that the students knew who was the boss. Their perspective is so different than ours. Things look far bigger to them than they do to us. When I was young, the city I lived in had mountains of snow every winter. But as I got older it was so obvious that we didn’t get snow the way we used to. Must be climate change!
Are we sometimes reacting to our children’s concerns from a wrong perspective? Could we be telling them to suck it up and get on with it when the situation is really intimidating for them? Would it behove (got to love that word! Behoove in N.A.) us to take the time to come down to their level and see things from their perspective once in awhile? Hum!
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