09 Dec 2025
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 Safe habour: My son and his toys
 
 Busy day continues. But rather than the temptation for one to rant, typically
 online, the more impactful thing that it does, in my opinion, is the narrowing
 of one's vision - it is like forcing you to be always thinking about work and
 make it easy for you to overlook things around you.
 
 I remember that I have seen a picture explaining what happens when people are
 in despair. It was like on a mountain pass, a narrow and dangerous path, but
 with a lot of "exits" along the way. When one is in their normal state, they
 can see clearly there are many "exits" to their current situation; However, 
 the more they get affected in their mental state, the narrower their vision
 will be, and eventually they won't see the "exits" but a single path leading
 to nowhere.
 
 I think not everyone will be like that, at least I think stress does things
 differently to different person. But still it knows how to drain one's focus.
 
 Quite the opposite, my conclusion after observing children for a few years is
 that children are very good at "getting distracted". I always believe there
 are many faces in one thing, so "getting distracted" can also mean "very 
 flexible in switching their focus to another matter that interests them".
 
 Children, not like adults, they are interested in everything and they don't
 get bored of repetitions. I believe that may be because we adults learned
 prediction, and "as expected" just get us bored, sometimes. Like there will be
 no excitment if a film's plot goes the classic way. That's not the case for 
 kids - they can enjoy the good ending of a story, many many many many many
 many times. Since I, if correctly, figured that out, I tried to remind myself
 to observe carefully and don't judge too early on every repetitively-looking
 things.
 
 But one of the thing that always beat my prediction would be how kids react.
 It is never boring to see how a kid react to a new environment, a new friend,
 a new toy, a new whatever. It is very interesting to observe my son, and I
 like having a tiny little observation log in my head. Good conversation
 materials with his mummy and other parents too, so it does help a lot in my
 normal social life.
 
 The one thing I thought about and observed quite a lot is toys. The very first
 problem that I thought I should prepare for, was what to do when I see my son
 fighting other kids over toys, or considering his personality, what to do
 when another kid snatch his toy. Some said that it is a good chance to teach
 the kids to trade (i.e. ask the kid to find another toy to trade back the one
 that they were playing with); Some said that they would teach the kids to
 share; Some said that they would teach the other kid to learn about waiting
 for their turn.
 
 I honestly didn't have a plan, so I decided to play by ear. Turned out, the
 situation rarely happen, luckily we have quite some friendly children in
 nurseries, kindergartens and the community! But even when it happened, I
 noticed that my kid would just come to me, telling me that the other kid was
 having "bad manner", then look for another toy to play with.
 
 Many people online mentioned about the sense of ownership that children will
 develop, so that they will hold on tight their toys. The inevitable that I
 would be fighting against - lost/broken toys, is another thing that I now
 doubt if it is his personality or actually my fault...
 
 I remember at the very beginning a toy was broken, he would come to me asking 
 for "car repair". I would super-glue it, but my son would never touch the 
 fixed toy anymore. We once asked him why, and he said he didn't want the toy 
 to get broken again. I asked if he would still love that toy, and he said yes. 
 He would even tell the toy that "even you are broken, I still love you and I 
 won't throw you away".
 
 But when some toy was unfixable, he would tell me "Nevermind! We can always 
 buy a new one"......I really don't know if he is easy-going or something.
 
 He is as well not a child who would want to buy the whole toy shop back. Most
 of the time, he will walk around, then spot a toy car or something that he
 likes. He will hand it to me, then tell me that we can "pay the bill" and go
 somewhere else. The only exception that I have seen was when we were in
 Edinburgh, and he went into each and every single souvenir shop and asked us
 to buy this and that and this and that.
 
 Sometimes he would buy 2 or 3 of the same thing, may be different colours. The
 reason is that he would give each of us one, so that we could play together.
 And when he give me a toy, I have to hold it dear. My guilty thinking is that
 it is quite bothersome, but understandable. When we were young, we always had
 a certain rock that we picked up on the road and loved it like it was our best
 friend. I learned to ask for permission before I put anything down.
 
 I think getting chance to went out with my kid on the last weekend reminded me
 about this, so I wouldn't get overwhelmed. It is a blessing, and I hope
 everyone who is in hardship, get to find their safe habours and eventually to
 the solutions.