You'll Never Get Anywhere at that Rate

For Day 4 Darwin and I set off to Wray Castle. He was desperate to go to the room where the spongy blocks are so we made our way there. The politics are funny in there. Obviously all the kids want all the blocks, and all the parents, actually, most of the parents want their kids to be nice and share. And then there’s stealing, vandalising and upset kids. Some of Darwin’s blocks were stolen by over-excited kids and I could see that he was sad by it, however shortly afterwards the kids had to go and his sadness was replaced with feelings of ecstasy as he destroyed the construction they had made with the stolen bricks.

During the stay in the room he made friends with a nice boy called James and they played harmoniously for about an hour. We then had lunch and Darwin and I went for a walk by the shores of Windermere. The lake is green in colour at the Ambleside end due to blue/green algae. As we walked back to the castle through the woods we were stopped by an old couple. The man, who looked like he was in his eighties was assisting his elderly wife (or mother, it was hard to tell) who was struggling with the walk. Out of breath he said, “Is this the way back to the castle?”. I confirmed it was and they set off at the same tortoise pace that they had got to us by. Darwin, obviously influenced by the previous day, said, “you’ll never get anywhere at that rate!”

How do you teach subtlety and discretion to a child?