We have chains around our brains. These chains limit our thinking. They box us in, hold us down, reign us in.

The chains often come in the form of assumptions. Assumptions we make without even knowing it.

Assumptions kill creativity. Assumptions keeps us in our own dogged perspective, our own worldview.

How to bust out? Listen to kids. And learn.

Here, thanks to an email my mother-in-law sent, are some example…

A little girl was diligently pounding away on her grandfather’s word processor. She told him she was writing a story.
“What’s it about?” he asked.
“I don’t know,” she replied. “I can’t read.”

What’s the broken assumption? You have to know how to read to write a story.

When my grandson asked me how old I was, I teasingly replied, “I’m not sure.” “Look in your underwear, Grandpa,” he advised “Mine says I’m 4 to 6.”

What’s the broken assumption? You have to know in your head (you can know in your body).

A second grader came home from school and said to her grandmother, “Grandma, guess what? We learned how to make babies today.” The grandmother, more than a little surprised, tried to keep her cool. “That’s interesting.” she said… “How do you make babies?” “It’s simple,” replied the girl. “You just change ‘y’ to ‘i’ and add ‘es’.”

What’s the broken assumption? Making babies has to involve sex.

Children’s Logic: “Give me a sentence about a public servant,” said a teacher. The small boy wrote: “The fireman came down the ladder pregnant.” The teacher took the lad aside to correct him. “Don’t you know what pregnant means?” she asked.
“Sure,” said the young boy confidently. ‘It means carrying a child.”

What’s the broken assumption? To be pregnant means having a child within you. There is more than one way to be with child.

A 6-year-old was asked where his grandma lived. “Oh,” he said, “she lives at the airport, and when we want her, we just go get her. Then, when we’re done having her visit, we take her back to the airport.”

What’s the broken assumption? Home is where you live. Airports are home to all sorts of things, including magnificent reunions.