| Hanging out with my granddaughter has made me realize something I think I might have missed my first time around with my own kids: Children mostly exist in what scientists call "flow state." They simply are. Watch them at play or hard at work on a piece of art or tough math problem. They are fully immersed in the moment. That's part of the beauty of children, the innocence of them. And it's pretty much what adults are trying to attain when they get into meditation or mindfulness training and all that stuff: they want to just flow again without passing judgment on everything. If we start asking kids to delve into their subconscious, to get too self-referential and introspective, we are playing with fire. We're messing with something that isn't broken. We do that and we end up making premature adults—beings without the brainpower and life experience to make sense of all the existential problems adults face, with all of the anxiety, uncertainty, and stress that go along with it. Ironically, that's what adults are trying to escape. They want to return to the innocence of childhood, or at least be able to enter that flow state as needed (for focus, for stress relief, for total engagement with the present). On some level, adults should be living vicariously through their children (and grandchildren). That's one of the advantages of parenting, beyond the rote "passing down your genes and furthering the species" level—you get to see the world through a child's eyes once again. The benefits of doing so are immeasurable and vast. If we turn our kids into small maladjusted adults, we destroy the greatest resource of all. Innocence. I recommend we don't do that. Let's stave that off as long as possible. Let it happen on its own. Reality, after all, has a way of asserting itself whether we want it to or not. What do you think, folks? Do you consider innocence (and flow, and engagement with the present, and other uniquely child-like attributes and abilities) a precious resource to be preserved? Let me know what you think in the comment section of New and Noteworthy. | 