How do I Raise Happy and Successful Goal Setting Kids?

Child at Play

Dedicated to Jacob with love.

You were the perfect host, always making sure I was entertained, always inviting me to join in your games.

Your prized train set is the best. We build a huge circuit, as sprawling as a London suburb. You are the architect, pointing out the best positions for wooden bridges and for the train houses where the trains go to bed at night.

I try my best to follow your directions. I’m not a great builder but you never criticize my clumsy efforts, even when the wooden notches won’t join up and I have to put in a makeshift piece of track that makes the trains bump when they go over it.

When the track is built I can sit back with a sigh of relief and watch you. You hand out the best engines and cabs, tell me that I must be the green one. I’m entranced by every detail about you; the pure concentration in your little face; big blue eyes that dance with delight; delicious laugh when you tell me my train is going the wrong way over the bridge; unfathomably soft, fine hair that’s been bleached almost white by the sun; the perfect curve of your back as you crouch over your toys, supple as only a toddler can be; the nape of your neck; and your perfectly formed toes which look just like a baby’s although you’re already three.

You never mind if I don’t feel like talking. I don’t need to say much, you supply the conversation and I love the sound of your tiny voice. It’s a delightful challenge to decipher your language. Now that I know a little better the idiosyncracities of your toddler-talk - only recently grown out of baby-talk - I can work out nearly everything you say. Your every sentence is important. A stranger might listen for a few moments and give up, frustrated. But I know that it’s worth listening harder than usual, to hear your descriptions and ideas. They give me a beautiful window into your child’s-eye view of the world.

You explain why the tractor must stay in the field. This piece of carpet inside the track is part of the farm, you say. You tell me that all the train engines have names. Then you find zoo animals and the farm becomes a safari. Your pronunciation may not yet be perfect but your vocabulary is impressive, and your expression when you mimic the wildlife with miniature roars and growls is priceless.

Now the pace of play steps up, as we pile toy animals on the track and stage great train crashes. Your boyish exuberance brings back a distant memory of a time I’m sure existed, a time when anything was possible, when I knew I had unlimited energy. Your passionate play and your laughter are a testament to the joy of living. The French say it best – “l’ardeur de la vie”, “passion for life.”

When it’s time for bed you throw your delicate arms around my neck and give me wonderful kisses, the most innocent I’ve had. Then your big brother calls you and you run from the play room. I think wistfully of the peaceful sleep of childhood and imagine that tonight in Neverland you will have incredible adventures, and wish I could be in them with you.

The train set has suddenly lost its magic, the plastic animals are lifeless. Your red engine lies forgotten on its side, and I push my green one slowly into the train house. As I get awkwardly to my feet I realize that my knees ache and my back is stiff. But my mind is supple and my spirit refreshed.

Tonight we leave, and tomorrow I’ll be missing you. To you – just another game, soon forgotten; to me – a treasured memory I’ll take out of its box and wonder over for years.

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