On our way to a park, one of my grandchildren started to sprint across a street to the swings and sliding boards. I corralled the boy and explained, as his parents already had, that two tons of metal, plastic, and rubber going 30 miles per hour don’t mix well with 6-year-olds.
“You stop, look, and listen,” I said, pantomiming that dictum that every kid should have engraved on the brain.
Judging from the way he kept eyeballing the jungle gym across the way, I’m pretty sure my grandson wasn’t hearing a thing I said.
Many of us are just as easily distracted. The next time you’re in a sports bar, for example, watch for a couple engaged in conversation. The woman is talking and looking directly at her companion. The guy’s nodding his head, and maybe he’s catching every word out of her mouth, but his eyes keep sidling away to the big screen where the Packers are playing the Bears….