On the topic of kids and comfort zones

It was while reading a tweet by Janice Kobelsky regarding comfort zones that something all of a sudden dawned on me.

A big part of the role, I have been playing as a parent during later years has basically been the role of what we could call a "comfort zone manager". From the moment, your first child is born, you will constantly have to work with comfort zones.
First of all, in the moment the kid is born, you take a giant leap out of your own comfort zone - a leap, for which you have only nine meager months to mentally prepare for. But from that point in time, work starts on challenging the comfort zone of the child - to give the child the possibilities to move to the very edge of its competences, but never further than where you have an almost certain assumption that the child will be able to handle the situations. At the same time, you also constantly work on your own comfort zone - because there are limits to what you dare expose the poor kid towards. In the beginning, it is actually just as much a question of holding back a kid who is convinced that it is able to do anything - later on, it also turns into a question of persuading or convincing the kid or the young adult to understand that there will be no problems handling the situations that you try to help it handle.
But it all has one thing in common: if you are too happy staying in your own comfort zone, then you will try to stay clear of any borders of the things that you dare expose your kid to. And then you will eventually turn into a helicopter parent, overly shielding the child in order to challenge your own comfort zone. But if you are of the opinion that comfort zones are there to be challenged in order to be extended - then it is time to leave the aircraft and challenge your kids to take responsibility for more and more of the things they do in their daily lives.
(Translated from Noget om børn og komfortzoner, originally published February 8th, 2018)

On the topic of lack of truth

Lies are problematic for me. Probably, it's only a few of those who read these posts, who may be in doubt - I am a great supporter of the truth and very aware of - yes, to a certain extent even fascinated by - how there may exist multiple sides to the same matter; Sides, which, with a certain degree of fairness, seen from different angles, can be regarded as true. Yes, maybe even The Truth.
But, actually, I'm having a hard time with lies in a different way. I have problems with the word "lie" itself - because, when someone uses the word "lie", this is much stronger than just saying that someone does not tell the truth. For the truth is subjective. It is conceivable that the person who tells something actually says what she pure-heartedly believes to be true. Even though my perception of truth and reality is inconsistent with hers. Lying, on the other hand, relates to the situation where you have deliberately failed to convey what you find is the truth, or perhaps even put something that you knew was untrue, in the place of truth.
At home, for the same reason, we have always been careful about using phrases like "it's a lie" or "X tells a lie". In several situations we have had the opportunity to emphasize the sensibility of moderating this into "I'm not sure that is a fact" or "I do not agree with X". It may well happen that some will think that this makes their language vague far beyond what's reasonable. But on the other hand, it ends people up in a situation from which conversation is actually possible.
This is because hereby, we open up for other people to have their interpretation of the truth, I'm not at all sure that it will be a truth that agrees with my version. But by acknowledging that my conversation partner does not necessarily have bad intentions just because her version of the truth is not consistent with mine, I fail to dig trenches that might otherwise make all further communication impossible.
(Translated from Noget om mangel på sandhed)

On the topic of bricks in the foundation of success

While we are at it with the quotes, here's one from the newscaster and journalist David Brinkley:

A successful person is one who can lay a firm foundation with the bricks that others throw at him or her.

Because that's the way it is. As we know, no person is an island, we are all surrounded by other people and circumstances, which by more or less random chance provides the framework, in which we are able to act.
From the very first bricks, thrown at us by our parents when we are kids, this random chance provides the foundation for our success (or lack of the same) in life.
And the better one is at handling the given circumstances - well, the higher the probability of success.
(Translated from Noget om murstenene i succesens fundament, originally published May 16th, 2017)