Notes from a Fantasy Father
Edwin P. Cutler
spaceship79@hotmail.com
23 March 1999
When my children came to me with a question, I tried my best to give a proper answer.
But, to my dismay, their question was often not what they really wanted to know,
so my answer was useless. If they did ask the right question, since I didn't
know all the contingencies my advice was most often wrong or didn't really
apply, and I was discouraged when they claimed I didn't understand.
After observing numerous misguided children floundering in a morass of inapplicable
advice I realized something was wrong. To try to clarify the situation, when a
question was put forth, rather than provide an immediate answer, I, instead,
asked what are the alternatives and what do you really want to do. I then
pursued the situation further by asking which alternative they thought was best
and why.
To my amazement, I found them selecting the obviously best solution and
thanking me for helping them and telling each other how well Dad seemed to
understand things.
And now, years later, I discover they are using the same
evaluation techniques to make their decisions: list the alternatives and
evaluate each possibility, then choose the one that promised the greatest
benefit for all. Not only that, but they are asking their children to suggest
alternatives and make value judgments.