Friday, July 3, 2009

I'm on to you

As we prepared for take off on my flight out to Denver the flight attendant stopped by our row of seats to give her safety speech.

"Would you help me?" she asked, "Will you hold these for me?" and she distributed her props- the seat belt, oxygen mask, etc to the seats around us.

As I held the oxygen mask and paid attention to the security talk for maybe the first time ever it occurred to me that this is exactly what I do to encourage the more rambunctious children to pay attention. Give them something to hold under the auspicious of "helping me" in order to encourage them to pay attention.

Hmmmm.... I don't know if I feel tricked or if I'm just impressed at the flight attendant's airplane management strategies.

1 comment:

The Science Goddess said...

I was in a meeting a week or so ago when a (very) young colleague got "diarrhea of the mouth" and talked non-stop for a good length of time. She finally spun down, providing a statement about a solution she was trying for a particular problem. The co-worker next to me pulled out the classic Love and Logic "How's that working for you?" as a reply and I just about dissolved into giggles. The youngster never noticed how she was being handled...but I did turn to my colleague and tell her "I caught that." :)