Teach Your Chickens Well

 

Teach your children well,
Their father's (hmhmhm. . .rhymes with well) did slowly go by,
And feed them on your dreams
The one they picked, the one you'll know by.

 

Joanie B: Braawk! Crosby, Stills, Nash and (a long time ago) Young - they can really crow a message across, but my parents fed me on bugs and worms and chicken scratch -

Alice: My parents taught me very well how be a chicken and to find worms myself!

Joanie B: My mother hen did keep me warm so I could dream well...

Alice: My mother sang to me when she found worms -- her own special song like she's rrrrolling a worm in her beak - "krrrruk krrrruk!" (English translation: "Come here, I've found something for you to eat, scratch at, or play with.")

Joanie B: My daddy rooster, same as my mother hen, would say in rooster-speak: KRRRRUK, KRRRRUK!!! (English translation: "Hey, I found food, come and eat it." )

Alice: Laurenjoan yells "ChickchickchickchickCHICKIES!" and I know there's food - peas or pumpkin or blueberries or wheaties or ANIMAL CRACKERS!! - so I rrruunnn fast!

Joanie B: And - like any good chicken, I know there's worms when she weeds the garden - so I come running!




Alice: But mostly our Chicken Parents and Grandparents and Aunts and Uncles and Friends -- know how to teach a chicken to be a CHICKEN very well!

Joanie B: I'll scratch to that emotion!

Notes from Laurenjoan:

Ahh parents, how much and how well do we teach our children? Being the mother of grown children I am often surprised at what stays with my children from their growing up years. My daughter, a fashion designer, complains to me that as a kindergartener I never dressed her in matching clothes! Yet, I am proud to see that she can match her own clothes and make a profession of it as an adult (see thecurvyelle.com). Woo hoo! She did it - I believe, in good part, because as a parent I instilled values of persistence, a good work ethic and strength and resilience to the bumps and brusies of life that resonate from her core sense of self. I believe too, as a parent, that if I have done all that I can to love, nurture and inspire my children to know and hear their own voice--I have succeeded and I have accomplished what I have been set here on Earth to do.

Ultimately, it's the human condition - as my father would say, we all carry our own bag of rocks around. Seeing how my father and mother lived their lives, I've learned it's how we carry that load and keep on truckin' that really matters.

Here's a few new books that you might want to check out - inspiring and resourceful, all at the Santa Clara County Library - huzzah!


Teach your Children Well

Find out more about the book and the author, Madeline Levine, Ph.D. by clicking here .


How Children Succeed

And for you Chicken Parents out there -- here's a little wikihow -


http://www.wikihow.com/Talk-to-Your-Chickens







You can also see this blog post at:  www.sccl.org/blogs/aliceandjoanieb