My kids are so bright and so fast, sometimes I fear being able to keep up! I drink a lot of coffee.

Discipline is so hard for me. I know why they do what they do and I sypmathize. I hate all of the boundaries I have to create. But there is another side to sympathy. If I really had well-rounded sympathy, I would teach them to respect and work with boundaries. I would teach them to set their own. Then I would teach them to thrive and think beyond all of the boundaries constructively. If I don't teach them this, I am cruel.

The key is to let them know that a benevolent teacher ultimately provides you with a false and harmfully rose-colored view of life. Then I have to let them know that though life has many boundaries, when they learn to work within them, the possibilities are endless.

Maybe that is the whole of teaching: telling students every rule and boundary they will encounter in life, and then telling them how to work the system ;)

and i thought teaching was confining . . . psh