What we can learn from children

Children fascinate me. I learn from them every day. And I think my favourite thing of all about them is that they usually haven't had their instincts taught out of them- yet. 

Adults, on the other hand- well, we're ever so good at hiding our feelings till everyone around us is confused (and so are we), eating and sleeping based on the clock or social expectations, limiting ourselves through fear of failure, measuring ourselves with the yardsticks of strangers.  And so on. We could learn so much from children, if we allowed ourselves.

Take 'Jamelle', for example, a 3-year-old indigenous girl with a spirit as wild and free as a little wallaby (and I know a fair bit about wallabies, having brought up an orphaned one last year!). To the average observer, she might seem a little behind in her sense of 'belonging' to her classroom; she rarely does as she's told and her emotions have a fuse about as long as my little fingernail. But she has a lot to teach us if we're prepared to shut up, watch and listen.