Yep. My teenagers were ALL about flash notifications back then. Even they were like “nah” after a brief period of time.

I’m the ADHD type that’s got just “a touch of the tism” as my daughter likes to say about me, so any red notification dots on my apps is a no-no. 😆

Flash alerts would kill me.

LEGO. 100%. How else are you going to fill the time while your laundry dries the old fashioned way?

It’s circular logic for sure, but LEGO.

100% and deep.

That foundation is a platform for experiencing normal (often messy) emotions. We recover.

If the platform is damaged by trauma, or never completely formed in childhood/young adulthood, then the normal emotional friction of life is corrosive and cumulative until you fix it.

9/ The skillful use of language (acquiring it through reading, thinking, writing, and speaking) is so much more than a skill built through repetition and standardized testing. The poverty of lacking these abilities is immeasurable.

8/ Now bring all of those skills to bear on a group of people, a spouse, or a child that you need to inspire, persuade, lead, or simply inform. You have the words to express nuance, your ideas are fully formed as though you were writing them, and you speak them cleanly from your mind to others’ ears

7/ Through practice, the skill of close reading, the discipline of sharing your ideas in writing, eventually your mind begins to work in a more complete way. You no longer think in the outline or rough draft stage, but can formulate and express ideas nearly completely.

6/ That step is taken with the ability to write. Pull out the manual tools of pen and paper and write out your thoughts. You’ll see pretty quickly that they’re less certain, less clear than you thought. You’ll need to work to get your ideas in order before your writing can reflect your thoughts

5/ If we’re curious we might even read related things to deepen our understanding. For example a reading of Les Mis might prompt one to become more familiar with the French Revolution. This is one step short of historical and literary criticism and a gateway to a life of scholarship.

4/ books are people talking to us about their lives. Fictitious people, historical people, regular people.

We connect at a very human level with people and circumstances which we may otherwise have never been aware of. We imagine ourselves in their worlds. This is the very definition of empathy.

3/ as we progress as a readers, we’re increasingly exposed to new thoughts and new perspectives in an orderly and often artful way. Our minds begin to be shaped by this, and become themselves more structured and sensitive to the music of language.

2/ Language acquisition is complex and varied, but reading is an essential pathway for new words and more importantly the ideas they represent to enter our consciousness.

If you lack vocabulary not only can you not say what you mean, but often you can’t think the things you feel. This is a poverty

“The man who does not read has no advantage over the man who cannot read”

I’m doing everything I can to reinforce the act of reading and why it’s so important with my bonus son.

I’m sorry it’s turned into a rare skill, but it’s one that he’ll have.