Thought One: (courtesy garytebbe.blogspot.com)

"The assumption of childhood innocence is naive; although children are unknowledgeable about much of the world's evil, they are far from innocent when it comes to the root of inborn sin, self-centeredness. [...] The process of unlearning self-centeredness is a difficult, life-long one, elsewhere known as "dying to self." When a child's natural tendency to pamper self goes unchallenged, there's trouble down the road. "

Carambas! i wish i had this in good ol' Cog/Soc/Emo Dev of the YC! holistic Christian education my spleen! it drives me crazy; i'll know something "sounds" wrong but have no idea exactly WHAT. eg: constructivism ("children 'create' their own knowledge"), tabula rasa (blank slate of a child's mind), OSAS (but i did my best on that... still, would have liked another chance,) ...

Thought Two:
"In indulgent child-rearing, parents pay attention to children. In the earlier, Scriptural approach, children pay attention to parents. Childhood is not a resting-place isolated from the world, but brisk walk of growing self-discipline and responsibility; at the end, the child has earned the right to be counted as an adult. Childhood is just one phase of a continuum, a path of life-long growth and accountability before God."

EXACTLY! this kids ARE growing up into a sick, sick, unfeeling world. shall we pretend it doesn't exist and let kids "learn as they go?" CARAMBAS! now i'm getting emotional. hard work, discipline, THINKING must be trained into a child. age ten, eleven, twelve is incredibly too old, LET ALONE seventeen, eighteen! say to a child: "so, up until this moment, it's been all about you. now, welcome to the real world, nobody could care less about your dreams, and, just so you know, 'you are not a beautiful and unique snowflake.' " and expect them NOT to have problems...?

Thought Three:

i love words:

euphony~a smooth pleasant-sounding arrangement of words
anaphora~repitition of a word or expression at the beginning of successive phrases, sentences, or verses
zeugma~the merging or overlap of two normally distinctive constructions (e.g: he took my advice and my wallet)
antonomasia~ use of a proper name in place of an ordinary word (Xerox for copy machine, Coke for soda, Kleenex for tissue)
litotes~ ironical understatement (he is not the bad sort; it was halfway decent)