Over the last few days, my nine-year-old daughter, S, has gone into the master bedroom alone several times and stayed in there for quite a while. Finding this behavior unusual, I have checked in on her to see what she was up to. Each time, I have found her sitting calmly in the rocking chair. And each time I asked her what she was doing, she simply brushed off my question and casually strolled out of the bedroom -- a little *too* casually.
Clearly she was up to something.
Today when she left the room, I noticed that she had left a book open and face-down on the filing cabinet next to the rocking chair. So I investigated. And learned that my little fourth-grader has been reading Kevin Leman's Bringing Up Kids Without Tearing Them Down -- a freebie I picked up at work a few weeks ago on a whim. She is currently on page 33. The folded down corners of quite a few of the book's pages, S's preferred place-marking method, prove that the child has been reading the book in short installments for much longer than I would have guessed.
Knowing S., she'll have plenty of parenting advice for me when she finishes the book. I trust that when she offers it, she will do so in a way that brings up this parent without tearing him down.
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