<div class="text-justify">

There comes a time in *most* Finnish children's life - a turning point of a kind - and today, Smallsteps reached this milestone - she can now trill her "Rs" - which for explanation sake, is similar to a roll and is necessary to be able to speak Finnish properly. 

>Note: I can roll mine, not trill.

So now that she "perfected" it at daycare, she is walking around the house finding as many R-words she can find, rolling them over and over and over - it was cute. 

>*At first.*

Nah - I am really happy for her as all of her friends have been able to do it for a while and she has felt a bit left behind. It isn't that uncommon to not be able to do it at her age though, however I think a lot of people put it down to her being bilingual and for her being language gifted, this has been a bit of a sore point for a little while. 


![image.png](https://files.peakd.com/file/peakd-hive/tarazkp/244A2AFzr2mBUnrA9Lyye3C2bWBQzpB6Cj1tL5eukEuLmXnG5thgpR8ALsA8bjBE8b4iX.png)


I am glad that she got it though, as kids can be pretty cruel over these kinds of things and there will be enough *other things* that having one more is unnecessary. These days, there are so many "pressure points" that society applies and kids pick up on, that it is no wonder there is so much bullying and so little peer support - since like the adults of the population, they are fragmented across far too many "preferences" too and as a result, the "norm" is not very normal.

Resiliency is key, but I feel that there is a lot of cotton-wooling going on, where kids are protected and don't learn the skills to cope under adverse conditions. Simultaneously, the increase in choice is making commitment hard and therefore, I think less children are building a preference identity when young and are instead, just going along with the general peer group defaults. 

I read these heartbreaking stories of children committing suicide and I don't understand why society isn't seeing why this is the case - like adults, children are increasingly isolated and without strong friendship ties too. It doesn't matter that they go to school as a group, it doesn't matter if they have their social circles, the bonds between are loose and there is a "point scoring" culture, that is very much like adults on Twitter subscribe to. This means that when they need someone to trust, they don't have anyone trustworthy, as secrets are made public, even the most intimate. 

And parents can't fill all of the social gaps, especially when there are other factors that need to be taught that conflict with the "friend" environment. The worst behaved kids I know, are those whose parents want to be friends with them - as all of the disciplinary activity gets omitted. 

While I do hope that my daughter will feel that she can come to me (or my wife) about anything important in the future. I also hope that she will build trusted relationships with people outside of the home that she can leverage when she needs, and *support when they need.* 

I think that this is another problem these days, as again like adults, everything for children has become transactionary too and unless someone is getting something directly out of the relationship in the moment, they are not willing to put anything into it. Likely, they have learned this lesson from watching us turn everything we do into a value transaction and making everything and everyone disposable.

> "The children are our future"

And if this is the case, we are setting them up to fail themselves and us as a species, as we are fragmenting them and putting them into increasing conflict with each other - the sins of the father. This is the world we have, where we are forced to build systems for freedom of speech, because we just can't manage it ourselves. We need laws to protect us from violence, because we can't control our own actions. We have to beg for opportunity, because we are so filled with greed, we will not provide for each other. 

Perhaps it has always been this way, but the question is, in the process of evolution, do we ever work out a society that empowers us, protects us, brings us together to collaborate and be our best for ourselves and each other?

The forecast doesn't look good. 

>RRrrrridiculous. 


Taraz
[ Gen1: Hive ]



</div>