Testing Limits
“My kids are misbehaving because they’re testing limits.”
They might be. Kids do, in fact, naturally try to explore the limits of everything.
EVERYTHING!
The limits of nature, the limits of physics, the limits of time, and yes, the limits of their grown-ups too.
It's not personal, it's not misbehaviour, it's how they literally learn how the world works.
It’s how HUMANS learn (and shape!) how the world works.
After all, that's what sports are..."what are the limits of human athletic capacity?"
...and space exploration, "what are the limits of human technology?"
...and innovations in cooking, “what are the limits of pairing flavors and novel methods of preparation and chemistry?”
…and robotics, “what are the limits of what humans can code and create?”
…and activism, “what are the limits that don’t make any sense, the limits that are human constructs, the limits that leave out, the limits that limit all of human progress?”
…and so, so, so much more.
Yes. Even in utero, babies kick against the physical bounds of the space they’re confined within. Shortly after birth, they often feel safe snuggled up in a swaddle because they know where its physical bounds are…so that they can stretch against them, reach their hands and feet into them and push against resistance, and grow.
And grow.
The word “testing” is so loaded because when one person tests another person, there’s usually some kind of a power imbalance, or a pass/fail status, or both, associated with that.
Children explore limits. They experiment with them. They examine them. They try to understand them. They curiously seek whether there are exceptions, nuance, cracks in the walls. Not because they don’t respect you. Not because they’re trying to make you mad. Because that’s what humans do, and how they grow and learn and make new things you’ve never heard of into a reality.