Socialize Like a 2 Year Old, by Joe

My 2 year old son started daycare for the first time Monday. It's a sad yet proud moment of parenthood to watch them leave their babyhood behind and march through those classroom doors. (enter The Verve's "Bittersweet Symphony" here) but this post isn't about my life, it's just the spark that stirred a deeper observation. You see as I sat in on his first real interactions with children his age, I was happily surprised. My little boy just strolled into an unfamiliar environment, filled with strange children and he did so without a care in the world. Like Kramer but with little light up shoes and no goofy slide. The other children his age took notice and with incoherent language greeted him and unequivocally accepted him into their group. A big eyed boy with a mop top was playing with a mock kitchenette and I noticed that this caught my son's interest. As he left my side and went around the counter I could only see the curls of his head bounce up and down the aisle to join in the fun. As one of the teachers talked to me of their curriculum I could only focus on getting that one last peek to see how my son was doing. And there he was at the fake sink humming the sound our water makes. He had managed to get 3 other children to join him as they pretended to wash hands.

What a relief this was. I had always heard the horror stories of terrible twos and how they don't play with other children and are very selfish. But what I witnessed from these children is something we could all learn from. No prejudgment, no inhibition, just hello let's play. Now I'm sure there will be rough paths, several studies have shown that two year olds are not good at sharing the same toy. But they are great at sharing the same space. They invite others to be near them and enjoy imitating and watching others around them. How many of us would settle for that from our work environment. Instead we imprison ourselves in cubicles hoping that nobody will come bother us and pretend we can't hear anything past the 2 inches of plastic padding. Or how many times have you gone to a party or get together and didn't take advantage of the fun people you could have met because you didn't want to leave your comfort zone or just stuck with the people you knew. Maybe your even one of those people who gets some giggles at others expense from afar and if they approach, don't give them the time of day. You never know, the 'outcrowd' may be having more fun. Or maybe debating about star wars vs star trek is more entertaining than Paris vs Lindsey.

So tomorrow I invite you to step out of your social learnings and just pretend your back in the nursery again. Just don't eat the glue.