maturity.

How many times have you heard "kids nowadays...they're growing up to fast." (If I had a nickel for every time...) But I'm here to make a counter-argument.

Mind you, I'm biased, and will admit that up front. Working with kids ages three to 12 full-time in a non-school setting opened a lot of doors to their minds.

Yes kids are more mature than ever nowadays, but they are also sophisicated beyond belief.

This week, I had a camper who was so embarassed over something that she started to cry. Thinking back to my childhood, I was totally in that girls shoes once, and was prepared to step in and tell her that we all have our moments.

What blew me away was that none of my other campers laughed, joked or made fun of their crying peer over her actions.

Instead, not one, not two, but at least half a dozen of the girls all said, "Don't worry, I've done that before, she's so strong to stay at camp and keep her chin up."

In a group of 20 girls, no one mentioned it for the rest of the week.

Yes, we long to be young, stupid and naive at certain moments of life. When my kinder-dance kids pee their pants, I wish that they were older. But now, I see that we're in an exciting time of change in the "modern" childhood.

The grace and maturity that these girls demonstrated to me this week was unparalleled - I know people my age who don't know have any of those social skills.

Driving to work yesterday, a report on CBC Radio caught my ear and I immediately cranked it.

The report was discussing how children are not able to gage risk and danger because parents hold them back from getting hurt. Therefore, the simple method of getting hurt once and remembering that big fall, scrape, etc., (and thus not doing that again) isn't even in the picture.

So how is it that these kids are so mature, yet we're treating them like they have no brains to understand danger?

Hmm.

I'll let that sit. Next week I'm going to watch more of what I'm doing and how this plays out. I have so much hope for this next generation of children. They aren't horrible people, they're just different. And at the end of the day, different isn't good and it isn't bad, it's just different.