(Editor's Notes by Christina Myer - Photo Illustration - MetroCreativeConnection)

Over the holidays I had the chance to spend time with the younger members of my family — specifically those ranging in age from 7-9. It was fascinating to get some insight into how young people learn how to become the adults they will be.

First, while playing an educational game, Boy 1 broke free from the game to run into the kitchen and rat out Girl.

“(Girl) just dismissed, no wait .. dis … disrespected (a former president. No, I’m not going to tell you which one)!!!” he said.

OK. Odd reason to tattle on someone, but I’ll go investigate. I asked Girl what she had said and she told me “(Former president) is dumb.” I asked her why she believed that person was dumb and she blinked at me for a minute and then shrugged. She had heard other adults in her life say that person was dumb and it was as much as she needed to adopt the opinion as her own.

I asked her what she knew about that person. She knew next to nothing, certainly not enough to make any judgments about his intellectual abilities.

So I reminded her people have lots of different opinions. It’s all right if her opinion is not the same as mine, or others around her; but it is not all right for her to make such statements without having a reason for them. If she learns more about the person and THEN comes to the same conclusion, fine. But until then, she needs to be careful about tossing around someone else’s opinion.

She said “OK, I’ll google him.”

Noooooooooooo!

I found a reference book for her, instead.

But how many other kids are hearing the way adults around them are talking right now and simply picking up that language and opinions as their own, without understanding why? Even if they do decide to do a little of their own research, how many of them are doing so in the cesspool that is the Internet? What will that mean for discourse in future generations? It’s a little frightening.

Skip ahead a few days, and I took the same bunch of kids on a hike. (I had my dog with me, and let me tell you that poor animal walked at least three times as far as we did because he kept circling around to keep the kids tightly herded.)

I took them on a section of rail trail that now runs through a sparsely inhabited community, but on which there is still plenty of evidence of a time in which that area was likely much busier and more populated.

Boy 2 is a train lover, and was not at all happy that “the train is gone! Why is the train gone?”

Boy 1 rolled his eyes and said “Um, because we don’t need it.”

I tried to cheer up Boy 2 by reminding him that if there was still a train running through that area, we would not be able to take the walk. But Girl had started thinking.

“Why don’t we need the train?” “What was on the train?” “What happened to the people in these houses?” “How far does this go?” “Is it like this the whole way?” “Why are there old pipes down there but new pipes up here?”

So I talked about changes in technology and economies in as kid-friendly terms as I could manage.

Girl said “So the people don’t live here any more because the jobs are gone?” That’s a simple way to put it, but mostly yes. Boy 1: “So put more jobs here.”

And that’s where it’s not so simple.

Too many of us are guilty of that kind of simplistic thinking as adults, as well. The thing is the problem? Do the opposite of the thing without considering the complexities.

People around me who I trust/admire think something? Well then I must think it, too.

As grownups, we’re supposed to be better than that, folks. But time and again, we demonstrate we are not. For the sake of these three and the millions like them who are depending on us, we’ve got to do better.

Christina Myer is executive editor of The Parkersburg News and Sentinel. She can be reached via e-mail at cmyer@newsandsentinel.com