Isn’t it strange that we try to change the obvious because? Because why? I watched a segment on television about how they are now enhancing the teaching of math classes by using dance and exercise. For how many years have we fought, bribed and disciplined children into adult thinking when all the time those kids were just acting normal and learning the easy way?

What do I mean? It doesn’t mean we let children believe without restrictions or using discipline. It means we’ve simply put rules in place that are often unnecessary and destroyed the national instincts of childhood. For example: jumping on the bed. It is natural and children love it. Parents don’t, but then they come up with trampolines.

How slow were we to realize the value of washing our hands to protect them from the bacteria that is all around us? So simple, and yet the doctors didn’t think about its importance until the last few years.

If your children were like my children, the fascination with stairs was something to reckon with. Yes, it is dangerous in some respects, so you teach children to respect them. So what did somebody finally come up with? Climbing walls, that’s what. 

Climbing is a natural thing for children. Ask your parents about climbing trees when they were kids. For far too long we have worked against the natural instinct of children and have not given them credit for what they knew naturally.

Often children have adverse feelings about certain foods and tastes, so do we argue, urge and run the risk of having them hate that food forever or develop bad eating habits? In Head Start, children are allowed to eat their food in whatever way they choose. Dessert before dinner is fine. Just make sure the meal is something good and healthful.

We’ve come to learn that breakfast isn’t breakfast as we once knew it. It might be beneficial to eat the protein and more sustaining meal we usually call “supper” for breakfast and the lighter “breakfast” foods for dinner or supper. After all, when do you need the energy? In the morning before the day’s workout or at night when you should be getting ready to sleep? What and when you eat should be a bit negotiable. Some say breakfast is the most important meal of the day. Our ancestors probably ate a hardy breakfast and retired at night with less, like a bowl of oatmeal or leftovers.

Back to the children. Most will grow up without that taste of “flavored sugar water” called “pop” if they don’t see it as a mainstay at home by their elders. Even juice should be monitored and should not be used to take the place of fresh fruits. 

We didn’t always know that peanut butter sandwiches didn’t have to have jelly on them. Peanut butter, though high in calories, has potentially as much protein as about the same amount of meat – two tablespoons.

Most kids will eat most anything if they are started out right and have good models to follow and no negative language like, “not that again,”  “Yuck,”  or “I don’t like” whatever.

They should be given a right to choose, but suggest they try one teaspoon of everything just to taste, or even a tiny little bite. My mother tried the “It’s O.K., you probably aren’t old enough to appreciate how good it is” tactic. That doesn’t always work. Though it is often true. Do you eat food now you would have turned your nose up to as a child?

Medical science has now decided that for every time you sit for a period of time, you should get up and move around. Yet, for years we have expected children to sit at a desk without moving and if they moved too much they were labeled AD, Attention Deficit, and are often, sadly, “showed down” with drugs. It is part of being a kid.

We now know the value of getting up and moving around for exercise and circulation. Children are born with natural instincts. It is society that makes the errors. But thank goodness teachers and doctors are learning.

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Some of our Star Eagle readers have commented that they like to read about events such as family and school reunions, birthdays and anniversaries, and birth and wedding announcements.  In order to read about these important things we need our faithful readers to pass along the information to us.

Also, if you have an idea for a story that you think would be of interest to our readers, please contact me.

If you have birthdays and anniversaries you would like to include, or news to share, please contact me via e-mail, This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it., by postal mail, P.O. Box 192, Geneva, MN 56035; or telephone, 507-256-4405.

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Birthdays and anniversaries:

• Thursday, March 31st: Carson LaShawn Ray, his 8th,  Hannah Haroldson, Melissa Collins, Jill Anderson, David Hemingway, Ross Johnson, Shane Johnson, Doug Hunt, Joanne Neuhart. Jinny Nielsen, Mollee & Joseph Tscholl

• Friday, April 1st: April Fools Day!  Madison Hanson, Irene Paulson

• Saturday, April 2nd: Harold Wayne, Leanna Burns, Genevieve Wayne, Deb Nelson, Luke Miller, Joyce Tufte Sorenson, Sonja Larson, Teresa Jensen, Kaleb Smith, Dwight Schewe, Greg Nelson, Matthew Halla, Bill & Pat Draayer, David & Shelly Mangskau, Brian & Lois Nelson

• Sunday, April 3rd: Solvieg Sorenson, Linda Goodnature, Jase Dean Knudson, Mikayla Moon, Joanne Christensen, Randy Kronberg, Patty Slater, Kevin Born

• Monday, April 4th: Daryl Paulsen, Jena Richards Thompson, Erik Smith, Rachael Nicole Rhoades, Erin Elaine Peterson, Nathan Spande, Theresa Kasper, Danny Larson, Don Larson, Ann Michelle Larson, Diane & Dave Broskoff, Amber & Daryl Jacobson

• Tuesday, April 5th: LaVada Jensen, Colette Bauers, Samuel Thompson, Alyssa Haried, Brian Schultz, Duane Nelson, Mike Johnson, Gary & Sue Hunnicutt, Dale & Nancy Kelly

• Wednesday, April 6th: Skip Cromwell, Dean Westrum, Andrew Hareid, Paul Underland

• Thursday, April 7th: Janice Jensen Skovera, Michael & Kari Ingvaldson,

• Friday, April 8th: Ivy Obermoller, Bob Donnovan

Surprise somebody. Call someone. Send a card and make their day.  Little things mean a lot.