Explaining Things To The Children

[barry1010]

The hardest thing I ever had to explain to any of my children was when my daughter was 5 or 6. She insisted that a series a numbers such as 1234 is not a number, but most definitely must be 'numbers'. I could see her logic, there is more than one number.
We discussed and debated it often over a good six months but she just couldn't grasp it.
Finally my wife explained it in a way that was acceptable to her (a series of letters such as animal is not letters but a word; a series of numbers is a bigger number. A series of numbers needs commas and spaces between them to be numbers).

What seemingly straightforward thing have you had trouble explaining to your children?

By the way, looking at the word 'numbers' - it doesn't look right, somehow. Surely it should be pronounced 'nummers'? :D

[Mamyalynne]

My youngest daughter was sat at the table, I heard huffing and puffings of exasperation.

On enquiring what the problem was she announced that her soup kept bending down.

What was happening was what was left in the bowl was shallower that the bowl of the spoon, therefore it came up empty every time.

We got there with a lesson in the delicate tilt ;-)

[bednobs]

my 9yo is curently being taught about puberty at school. She said to me that as her teacher had told them about periods, willies, boobs moods and smelling what could possibly be left to learn in yrs 5 and 6

[Calibax]

[Calibax]

https://multimedia-english.com/videos/esl/telling-the-time-dave-allen-2054

[barry1010]

I love the idea of the soup bending down - what a great way to describe it :)
bednobs, she's in for a shock :D

[bednobs]

i dodged it by saying shed have to wait till years 5&6 to find out

[Mamyalynne]

Yes, she always had a good turn of phrase - also came up with 'escapeas' for the little green blighters that roll off your plate.