HeyJaredListening to Children
Listening to Children Weekly examples of what children have to say – about friendship, aggression, punishment, gender, religion, grown-ups, and about all the great questions we discuss with college students in philosophy 101.
- Indexed issues, last 90 days
- 12
- Latest publication
- Sep 24, 2026
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- Earliest in this view
- Jul 16, 2026
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Consultation in the Girl’s Room (opens the original)
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In last week’s Listening to Children, I shared a story by a fifth grader who told us that her friend gave her courage. I made the argument that peer relationships in elementary school are the primary site for the development of emotion regulations skills. Children help each other cope with fear, embarrassment and anger. This week I’m sharing a story by another fifth grader, Allie, who describes in some detail how seriously friends take their responsibility to help each other face difficult feeli
Consultation in the Girl’s Room (opens the original)
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On Tuesday night, when I thought I was going to do some final editing of this post, I accidentally published it. If you are a subscriber, this is the same post that came to you Tuesday night. I’m back on my Thursday morning schedule!In last week’s Listening to Children, I shared a story by a fifth grader who told us that her friend gave her courage. I made the argument that peer relationships in elementary school are the primary site for the development of emotion regulations skills. Children he
“My friend gave me courage.” (opens the original)
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In about 500 of the stories children wrote for me, the author wrote about someone they called a ‘friend,’ and these authors often emphasized the expectation that your friends support you. Usually, when they wrote about supporting one another, elementary-school children were either talking about physical or material support (e.g., “doing things together like helping with all kinds of work”) or social support (e.g., “So my best friend helped me fight them back and we were a good team working toget
Colorless green ideas sleep furiously. (opens the original)
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My 9th grade English teacher, Mr. Hayes, taught us to diagram sentences. I was enthralled. “Diagramming sentences,” I exclaimed to Mr. Hayes, “is like doing algebra with language!” Before the 9th grade, I thought language arts was the easy part of my education. Mathematics required much more concentration and skill development, but language just came naturally. Now, I was discovering dozens of grammatical rules I had never known about. Mr. Hayes assured me that I did know all these rules already
Friendship Drama in the Sixth Grade (opens the original)
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The primary developmental task of the pre-teen years is the establishment of mutually satisfying relationships with age-mates. In a classroom of twenty-or-so students, children must find a few they will relate to as friends or ‘best friends.’ This is not a simple matter of finding the people with whom they share interests. It happens in a complex network of relationships where notes are passed, secrets are shared and betrayed, where fashion choices may be harshly judged, and there is an ever-shi
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