Calvin and Hobbes - guide to raising children
Wednesday Aug 15, 2007
It's amazing how Bill Watterson, who has no children of his own, has such insight about them. Forget all those books by psychologists; Calvin and Hobbes tell you what it's really like to have a boy. Here's a practical example from the first Calvin and Hobbes book.
1. [Calvin is building in his sandbox.] "Here we find a thriving city: brand new buildings, a bustling economy."
2. "A scenic thoroughfare winds through this happy municipality. Here, a farmer drives his livestock to market."
3. [Calvin fills a bucket with water.]
4. [Standing in the sandbox, smiling.] "Tragically, this serene metropolis lies directly beneath the Hoover dam."
Sometimes it can be hard to get kids off the computer, and outside to play in the sunshine. Taking my cue from "Dr. Watterson" here's all I had to do: I filled a bucket with water and built one small building in the sand box. Then I said "the people in the village were very happy, but they didn't realize there was a giant dam nearby," and walked away. Slowly a smile came over my boy's face very much like that smile Calvin sometimes gets.
Then he started building the village. The rest of the afternoon computer games were forgotten as, alas, the unfortunate villagers suffered a series of disasters: dam collapse, flood, hurricane, tornados, earthquake, and tsunami.
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Next time, tell him about the tax inspector... :-)