Lessons of Life Learned in Kindergarten

Some of the best advice I can give you is to allow your children to experience the wonder, joy, and wisdom that comes when you enroll them in daycare/Pre-K and Kindergarten. The poem I will share today was given to me when I was 21 yrs old. I was completing my internship at the Hertford County Office on Aging in Winton, NC and the staff presented me with a poster signed by all of them and it simply read the following:

All I Really Need To Know I Learned In Kindergarten

by Robert Fulghum
                        - an excerpt from the book, All I Really Need To Know I Learned in Kindergarten 

All I really need to know I learned in kindergarten.
ALL I REALLY NEED TO KNOW about how to live and what to do
and how to be I learned in kindergarten. Wisdom was not
at the top of the graduate-school mountain, but there in the
sandpile at Sunday School. These are the things I learned:

Share everything.

Play fair.

Don't hit people.

Put things back where you found them.

Clean up your own mess.

Don't take things that aren't yours.

Say you're sorry when you hurt somebody.

Wash your hands before you eat.

Flush.

Warm cookies and cold milk are good for you.

Live a balanced life - learn some and think some
and draw and paint and sing and dance and play
and work every day some.
Take a nap every afternoon.
When you go out into the world, watch out for traffic,
hold hands, and stick together.
Be aware of wonder.
Remember the little seed in the styrofoam cup:
The roots go down and the plant goes up and nobody
really knows how or why, but we are all like that.
Goldfish and hamsters and white mice and even
the little seed in the Styrofoam cup - they all die.
So do we.
And then remember the Dick-and-Jane books
and the first word you learned - the biggest
word of all - LOOK.

Everything you need to know is in there somewhere.
The Golden Rule and love and basic sanitation.
Ecology and politics and equality and sane living.
Take any of those items and extrapolate it into
sophisticated adult terms and apply it to your
family life or your work or your government or
your world and it holds true and clear and firm.
Think what a better world it would be if
all - the whole world - had cookies and milk about
three o'clock every afternoon and then lay down with
our blankies for a nap. Or if all governments
had a basic policy to always put thing back where
they found them and to clean up their own mess.
And it is still true, no matter how old you
are - when you go out into the world, it is best
to hold hands and stick together.

© Robert Fulghum, 1990. 
Found in Robert Fulghum, All I Really Need To Know I Learned In Kindergarten, Villard Books: New York, 1990, page 6-7.

The rules have changed over the years but more than likely if you're at least 30 yrs old, you remember when things were simpler. However, it doesn't change what I believe to be a fact that Robert Fulghum was on to something when he wrote this prose as a part of his book.  I believe that if we teach our children these basic principles then we might actually have a chance of saving the world. Yes, I believe in God and Jesus Christ is my Lord and savior but even He keeps it simple. I know everyone may not practice the same faith that I do but what's written above are the simple things in life and when I work with children this is what works. 

Anyway, I don't have much left to say...It's 3 o'clock and think I'll go have a some cookies and milk.

Have a fantabulous day! We'll talk again soon...