Do you feel comfortable talking to kids? Do you find yourself at a loss when called upon to converse with a 6-year-old?

I feel like I'm not too bad with kids, but it takes me a while to get used to talking to them.

-- Anonymous, December 11, 2000

Answers

I want to like kids, but they possess a host of tendencies which effectively prevent me from getting too close, especially the ones involving sudden loss of bodily function control and making huge amounts of noise for no apparent reason.

-- Anonymous, December 11, 2000

Yep, great with kids. Since I have 3 girls of my own I am better with girls rather then boys. I help in both my older daughters classes (4th and 1st) and all of the other students love it when I'm there as well...for younger children (like the kid in your case Jen), I find that this works very well...plus it entertaining to see how worked up the kid gets...Ask him if he knows what a Cow says...usually they will answer, "Moo". You then with a straight face thell them, "No, your pretty sure a cow says Oink". They'll usually come back with, "NO!! A pig says oink." You then come back with, "No, a pig says meow" Etc...this usually works really well...especially when confronted with a very quiet child.

-- Anonymous, December 11, 2000

I've always been very good with kids up to about 5... As long as they're cute and pettable, we get along fine... We talk about Pikachu and Hello Kitty and I tell them about sea otters and capybaras... Once they go off to school they become obnxious... and they realize that I'm 3 years old at heart and that they're older than I am...

-- Anonymous, December 11, 2000

thats a good one, john ! i have a 4 yr old nephew, and been baby stitting him since he was 8 months. and i've been using that training to interact with other kids ages 3 - 6. What you say really works ! and of course, one has to mentally be that age as well. It gets hard with older kids ( guess i've no experience with that age group ) , and also unless one keeps up with some of the crazy new stuff out there. the powerrangers ( actually that too is hopelesly passe, i understand ), pokemons and all that. The hard part is that when i was growing up, all we played was soccer and hockey an dping pong and chasing each other in the woods and all that.

-- Anonymous, December 11, 2000

the little 6 year old obviously had a crush on Jen. I can't tell you how many times the plastic sticks under the watch band has worked for me. And paper airplane peltings -- I never, never head to the clubs without a notepad full of yellow legal paper. However, the lil' twerp better ease up cuz there's only room enough for one immature dude to crush on Jen and that spot's long been taken!

-- Anonymous, December 21, 2000