Have you ever poured cement? No worries.
You know there is a narrow window of time from pouring to setting. During that time, you can smooth out the rough spots. The next day? Not so much. What you see is what you’ve got.
We don’t know exactly how our brains process events and make memories, but we do know enough not to let our kids do all their own masonry. We also know that what you see is not necessarily what you get. Or what there was to get.
Have you seen the Gorilla Experiment on YouTube? If not, stop and Google it right now.
Up to speed now? We don’t need a Gorilla to tell us that our perceptions of events don’t necessarily map onto what others took away from the same interactions. Don’t believe me? Just ask your spouse who was to blame for your last argument.
We also know that when we sleep, events of the day are laid down in our memory for more permanent storage.
Do you get the idea? There are lots of opportunities along the way for events of the day to be misperceived and filed away in all the wrong places.
Without some bedtime debriefing, your child might return to school in bully mode instead of peacemaker mode.
