Tuesday 9 April 2013

Bees talk to each other!

Some days I feel like I know more than I ever remember learning!

I do! (Feigns shock) Don't laugh ... You know that moment when you are sitting at home watching "Hot Seat" with Eddie, and you've got the answer blurted out even before the multiple choice answers are put up! And to your self satisfaction ... you discover you are right! $50,000 right there! Bam! Thank you ...



On another occasion, I will be flitting around in the kitchen cooking, washing up, cleaning ... whatever, and the young one has the TV on watching "Mama Mirabelle's Home Movies" on ABC 4 Kids and I suddenly have to stop what I am doing and sit down with LJ to watch the story about how Bees communicate with each other. Because I did. not. know. that.


Bees actually know how to tell each other where they got their last lot of pollen from and can actually give each other directions! They do it with subtle movements of their body, wings, feet etc. it's like sign language; for bees!

While I most certainly found this new information very interesting, what I began to ponder and eventually found much more interesting, is how do we as humans, know this?

How many hours of research, study, observation, reaffirming that which has been learnt, has actually gone into knowing how BEES communicate? Not to mention the video that has now been made and is being played by that know it all, Mama Mirabelle, to our children so they can learn how Bees communicate with each other.

So why is there not a video being played to our children to explain to them the subtleties of Human Communication?

Why, in this day and age of Video, Facebook, Twitter, Texting, YouTube etc., where every time we turn on the TV we see a news item on how we are loosing the art of communication and our kids can't spell, are we spending, who knows how many hours and dollars, on a video that tells us how Bees talk to each other?

We need to be teaching our children to converse and if there is not going to be a video made about it, well I am damn well going to start talking to my kids ... I mean, not like I never have, I mean, I do all the time in fact ... but ... Oh you know what I mean!

We need to engage our kids, we need to spend time listening, not just telling them what we expect from them or for them, not just hammering out orders and instructions. Yes, we need to teach them so many things, but the art of communication, well I think it is the most important gift we can give our children.

Do you converse with your kids? Or do you talk to them? Do you really listen, or just wait for your turn to talk?

My Happy Ending will be, generations from now, the English language is something that is used every day, not just something we find in old books.

"Communication is and should be hell fire and sparks as well as sweetness and light." Aman Vivian Rakoff

1 comment:

  1. I talk to my little devils all the time. And we laugh our backsides off most days too. They know I am interested in them - mostly - and I am grateful they still bother to include me in conversations.

    As for the bees thing, I did not know that either :)

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