My wife and I have made a concerted effort to decrease the amount of interactions our 2 year old daughter has with technology.\u00a0 We haven’t so much decreased her screen time as just avoided it all together.*\u00a0 However, if you’re a parent like I am, then you know that your\u00a0 child has an uncanny ability to chip away at your resolve.\u00a0 Between ear twisting whines to sweet smiles our daughter has learned the art of begging, leaving shame in her wake to finagle her way into getting what she wants.\u00a0 Lately, as her reasoning ability has begun to develop it’s been interesting to hear her try and use logic to get what she wants: “I can’t take a nap today because it’s cloudy,” or “I’m sad, can I have ice cream because it’ll make me feel better.”\u00a0 Of course, when despite all her effort we still say no, she resorts to dramatic flails of her hands in the air with an exacerbated “please!”<\/p>\n
Truthfully, although I don’t want to give into my daughter’s iPad fix I’d like to see her sharpen her ability to beg, or said differently, sharpen her skills of persuasion.\u00a0 I think we undervalue this skill in schools, and outside of schools we often relegate it to the used car salesman.\u00a0 In doing so we miss an important skill-building opportunity with our students.\u00a0 No not the art of car salesmanship, but the important skills of persuasion, argument, rhetoric, empathy, resilience, networking\/community-building and many more.<\/p>\n
In fact, this is an area I continue to try and build in myself.\u00a0 If you’ve been around me lately, you know that I’m constantly talking about the possibilities of building a house in Honolulu.\u00a0 To some it looks like I’m scheming, but what I’m doing is sharpening my ideas against others and looking for fellow collaborators who share my same dream of an affordable dwelling on this island.\u00a0 So far in my journey I’ve spoken with landowners, fellow builders, contractors, city planners, architects\u2026you name it.\u00a0 And along the way I’ve learned more and more about what it would take to do this project.\u00a0 You might ask what does have to do with begging?\u00a0 Although, I’m not begging people for money (yet), I’m often begging people for their knowledge and time, which many people have generously given to help me understand the ins-and-outs of doing something like this.<\/p>\n