And I didn’t even know it!

My parents taught me to love learning… and I didn’t even know it!
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Pretty sneaky, right?

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First there was Mom. She was a voracious reader. Once she borrowed a copy of War and Peace and returned it only a few days later. Reportedly, the person she borrowed it from was a bit offended and said, “Well, if you weren’t going to read it you could have just said so!” 

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But she had, in fact, read it and, like everything else she read, remembered it. She would frequently make reference to characters and lessons she learned from books, but most of all, she quoted poetry. She read and memorized poetry, classic, profound, silly, and playful. She loved them all and had a stanza or two to recite to fit most any occasion. They still come to my mind… “Halfway down the stairs is a stair where I sit. There isn’t any other stair quite like it…” (A. A. Milne).

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And then there was Dad. In my child’s mind, he knew everything. On Fridays when he got home from work we would bundle into the car and drive till late in the night to reach a hike he had planned for the next morning. With my siblings sleeping soundly around us, I would ask him, “What makes stars twinkle?” “How does the rain get into the clouds?” “Where do flies go in the winter?” He always told me they were good questions, and he always knew the answers. Why? Because he loved to learn.

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I grew up curious about life and still love to read and love to learn. When my own kids were little, I have to admit that I did not know the answer to all their questions, but I did know how to find them. And I remembered how wonderful it felt to be told I had asked a great question and tried to give them the same feeling. Then we went to the bookshelf, found the right volume of the Encyclopedia Britannica (our pre-internet source of knowledge), and started to seek out the answers together.

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With less stress and fewer deadlines, summer is a great time to help our kids learn to love learning. Read with them, memorize poems, ask questions, and seek answers. 

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The world is an amazing place, full of incredibly interesting wonders. Hope you enjoy some of them with your kids this summer and help them learn to love learning in the process.
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Here’s to more resilient wins at home and school or wherever you are today,

Anne 
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PS Want to help your kids have less stress and more success at home and school? CLICK HERE to get a copy of our book, The Resiliency Toolkit: A Busy Parent’s Guide to Raising Happy, Confident, Successful Children.