Freedom Friday – Speech Games with K.E

King Earl:  Are you a girl?
Imani: (wondering where this is line of questioning is headed) Yes
King Earl:   Am I a boy?
Imani:         Yes
King Earl:   No I’m not a boy, I’m a son!
Imani:         Okay, you are a son.
King Earl:   No! I’m not a son, I’m a Moon
Imani: (Looking at him incredulously)  But you can’t be a Moon, nah.
King Earl:   I don’t want to be a Son again, I’m a Moon.

King Earl:  Mum, (quite innocently) I want to play your Candy Crush.
Me:           This one is difficult, you have to play with strategy
King Earl:  Okay, I will play with ‘stratedy’
Me:            It’s pronounced STRATEGY. Do you know what strategy is?
King Earl:   Yes (still focused and playing his game).
Me:            What does it mean?
King Earl:   So that we will not have any injury.

There it is!

A 3-year old giving me first hand definition of STRATEGY. Yes, he called it ‘Stratedy’, you know how King Earl can be with his pronunciations, he will simply refuse to call it any other way till he’s ready to do that. But his definition is so on point.

Strategy is “the science or art of combining and employing the means of war in planning and directing large military movements and operations.” Another meaning is “a plan, method, or series of manoeuvres or stratagems for obtaining a specific goal or result:” So when my son says “So that we will not have any injury”, he is correct – whether you agree or not. Not strategizing is bound to get you in the path of ‘casualty’ and though he has not been taught that yet in school, he just coined up his own meaning from whatever he figured mum was trying to say.

This and more are one of the many reasons I talk and listen to children – they say it the way it is! It is left for you to figure it out and understand. It is my day of Liberty and this is my prerogative. I’m still strategizing on how to go past that level of Candy Crush (when I have the time). So what’s your winning ‘STRATEDY’ for today?

© 2015. Frances Kelvin Otung. All rights reserved.