Listen to the children

Today, we went to a nature park in Singapore. There are a few of these and they help give nature-lovers a break from the City.

We wandered far and wide within the park, seeing its peaks, its artificial lakes (dug out quarries) and wildlife, peeking from the trees. There is no need to speak of the detail of this.

After some while climbing many a step, high up in the midst of the "park", Fintan suddenly said:

"I heard a lion roar!"

My wife and I looked at each other and smiled. We both knew of Fintan's great imagination and, not having heard a lion roar, ourselves, we ascribed it to his imagination. "He heard a lion roar." echoed my wife, as if she was saying that he had seen a U.F.O.

About three minutes later, we both heard a sound, rather like a roar, in the distance. "Did you hear that?" my wife asked, suddenly a little anxiously. "Yes."

"Maybe not a lion," I said, doubting that there would be a lion roaming any part of Singapore - despite its name: "Lion City".

My wife looked towards the dense foliage all around us and to the kids down below us, perhaps thirty metres away. She didn't need to speak her thought.

"Boys!" I shouted, "Come close!"

"Don't frighten them." she said, a bit frightened herself.

"Perhaps it is a wild dog." I hazarded.

"Yes. Not a lion."

An animal, anyway, I thought.

The boys came closer and we walked together through the wooded area, a little more warily than before.

So, listen to the children when they speak of having heard and seen things: for one thing is for sure - they haven't heard and seen nothing. There will be something behind their perceptions even if inaccurately described.

What that something was, we never found out. It sounded like an animal roaring. It could have been a distant machine, of course. It was, however, something - not the nothing we had supposed when Fintan (and his acute senses) first spoke of it.

(If you would like to learn more of Ainan Celeste Cawley, a scientific child prodigy, aged seven years and ten months, or his gifted brothers, Fintan, four years and three months, and Tiarnan, twenty months, please go to: http://scientific-child-prodigy.blogspot.com/2006/10/scientific-child-prodigy-guide.html I also write of gifted education, IQ, intelligence, College, University, Chemistry, Science, genetics, left-handedness, precocity, child prodigy, child genius, baby genius, adult genius, savant, gifted adults and gifted children in general. Thanks.)