6 Traits Adults Lack that Children Pointed Out

I have to admit that despite me being 23, I rarely consider myself an adult. I don't have enough grasp on how to live in this world to consider myself with the automatic wisdom associated with adulthood. Saying that, I also consider myself lacking the traits that the younger generations would typically associate with the old, boring, strict and scheduled elders. Yet, this week I spent a considerable amount of time with ages 6-13 and have to admit that I have taken on a few of those adult-like qualities especially compared with these fun-loving, high energy kids. This isn't a post to rant about my coming identity as an adult, rather a reminder of the few lessons I learned this week from my younger counterparts.

Just a quick summary of how I came to spend so much time with these kids. Sunday, I was bored so I decided to ride bikes with a former seventh grade student who is now my neighbor. Tuesday, I got suckered into being a participant in an Active Shooter Simulation (yes, that was just as haunting as it sounds) with a few students and then taken hostage to the lakeside with a co-worker, her daughter (also a former student) and a couple of her friends. The students, then, escaped to my house for a few hours of movies, pretzels and Piano Tiles only to devise a plan for a sleep over with their parents' permission while a couple more joined. Grand total being four of my seventh graders spending the night at my apartment-which ended up being one of the most memorable nights of my life (yes, I realize how pathetic it may be to say that about a night with girls 10 years younger). Once their parents came to get them, I spent a few hours sleeping before they and more returned for Campus Life. Thursday, I drove home to pick up a 6 and 8-year-old to come stay with me until today (Saturday) when I took them home.

Now onto the lessons learned:

1.) Pizza and Ice Cream Cake Do Constitute as Dinner: Adults spend way too much time testing the latest diet trend, and working out constantly to remember just how good junk food can be. A little junk binge every now and then is not going to solely make you put on the pounds. If you are uber paranoid, just walk to go pick up said pizza and ice cream cake to burn a few of the calories.

2.) Remember to Treat your Cashiers with Kindness: Too often, adults are too busy to even look up from their phones or watches as they order, much less shoot their cashier a smile. We are all individuals just getting what we need from each other. Why not stop and try to make the other person laugh? For example, order an ice cream cake that reads "I shaved a guinea pig today!" while teaching the cashier how to spell guinea pig. There, we have a life lesson and a smile without doing much of anything.


3.) Stop Caring So Much About What You Look Like In Public: Most of us adults won't go out in public without a shower, change of clothes and at least a bit of make-up, deodorant and brush ran through our hair. Yet, I found so much freedom in pairing hideous items of my closet together after completing "blind make-overs" (where one person will be blinded while being handed make-up to put on their partner...creating faces that look like a crayola box attacked). This was on top of our rachet lake hair that hadn't been showered or brushed...
It didn't matter who we ran into at Wal-Mart or Speedway because we were confident in who we were at that moment...complete dorks who were having a blast.

4.) Money Is NOT Everything: As I have grown into adulthood, I progressively stress more and more about money: loans, rent, utilities, phone, internet and that's not even including food and gas and anything fun. I will admit that I am rather irresponsible when it comes to money...spend binging and then uber saving when my bills are do while stressing that I will basically die before my next pay check. HOWEVER, every now and then you gotta just splurge for those pretzels, the expensive pizza and fake eyelashes...because well, you could die before your next bills are due and make all the saving stupid. I'm not saying make this a habit because I definitely will be not spending anything for the next two weeks, but I'm also saying that that splurge was well worth it in the memories.

5.) Stop Planning Everything: We live in an age where we carry our calendars everywhere, making it easier to pencil people in and book ourselves to the max. I, too, am one of these people who thrive on schedule, but why? Why have I made it so necessary to know what I'm doing every minute? You feel like getting a Freeze at 12am? Do it. You feel like spontaneously letting 12-year-olds dye your hair a color of their choosing because you're too tired to double think that? Just go for it. If that sleep-over were scheduled, we wouldn't have done half of the hilarious impromptus and missed out on many memories. I'm not saying we need to throw away the planners, just be open to events that aren't penciled in. 

6.) Sleep When You're Dead:Going back to scheduling everything, we are sure to schedule enough sleep so that we can function the next day. However, have you ever thought about what you miss late at night-the stars, shelve stockers during hide-and-seek in Wal-Mart, empty roads and fireflies just to name a few. Your inhibitions are lowered as the night sets in which can get you into trouble...or (with trusted accompanists) you could embark on adventure. 

7.) Trample a Fear:By the time we are adults, we have made a list of things that we refuse to do, eat, say, read, insert verb here. Some of these tasks have come from experience whether others' or our own, while others are just mindsets.

My 6-year-old was all over conquering fears this weekend as she learned how to do a one-handed cartwheel and made it all the way across the monkey bars without falling...or jumping down because she thought she was going to fall. She also spun in the tire swing at the park despite initial protest...of course, that took some cheering on from her big sister. The tasks on our fear list may just become some of our greatest past-times. 

 I know this post is the black sheep out of my usual posts, but as I have been sitting here in my house without my young companions for the first time all week, I couldn't help but think about how refreshing it was to let lose without a care in the world. I didn't fear being judged by them, or find the need to schedule every minute. Instead, I just went with whatever cray cray idea that one of them presented and it ended up being a blast. Try it sometime.

8.) Sing Way Too Loud: This, ironically, was taught by every girl I encountered this week. With my seventh graders, we blared "Girls just want to have fun" (our theme song for the night) along with "We are Young" as loud as we could while singing along with our various levels of non-talent. Then, with the younger ones, I listened to the Frozen soundtrack so much I will probably be singing it in my sleep tonight...seriously I listened to each song at least 10 times in the last 2 days. Those two girls sang at the top of their lungs, sang in funny voices, did interpretive dance moves, made up their own words...it didn't matter if the windows were down, I was on the phone or the cars around us could see/hear them. They were filled with confidence in their talent and weren't about to stop. I can't remember the last time that a car pulled up next to mine at a light and I continued to sing, but does it really matter that much? Is that person really going to judge me as a lesser human being because I sing like nobody's watching? I doubt it. 


What child-like behavior are you running from? 
Why?
Are you afraid to let lose and just be? 
What is holding you back from your child-like ways?
Is it really that important?