Ever worked for months or years trying to teach your child something and then you leave for a dinner party and come back 3 hours later and they are doing it all on their own?

Or that you give up on them ever learning it and then one day you glance out your window and see both of them (not just the one you were trying to teach) riding bikes down the driveway together?

I have seen enough examples like this over the last 10 years to figure out that we really are powerless to teach our children very much at all. When it is their time they will learn what they are ready to learn. (and not a knit wit before or after). it seems like the best we can do for them to learn it is be prepared to back away, let them do it and then applaud.

Yeah- it helps them to have to tools on hands and the examples of how to do it in front of their face... but really we can't teach to do it. They magically pick it up and one day go flying with out us.