"I know more"

We were at Kinder Farm Park the other day, when Jen pointed me towards Luke who was surrounded by a bunch of little girls. At first I thought it was cute. . . until I realized he was arguing with them about something.

About what? About who knew more about animals of course! I wasn't sure exactly how the conversation got started, but this is the part that I heard:

Luke - well, I know more about animals than YOU.
Girl - No, I know more about animals than YOU.
Luke - Well, I watch Marty Stauffer's wild America, so I know more about animals than YOU.
Me - Luke, you don't even know this girl, so you don't know how much she knows about animals.
Luke - yeah, but I watch Marty Stauffer, and she doesn't

me - well, maybe she has seen something else about animals or reads books about them.


This was sort of the end of the conversation, but on our ride home we continued to talk about it. Luke kept arguing with me that he was sure that he knew more than her. (probably because I'm always telling him how impressed I am with his knowledge of animals). He said that she kept saying she knew more than him, and he KNEW that HE knew more. I asked how the conversation started and he said that she started it by saying "I know a lot about animals", and he said "well, I know more about animals than you".

Anyway, I told him that he probably DID know more than her (because he truly has an amazing memory for details), however when you don't know a person you can't tell THEM what they do or don't know. I asked him how HE would feel if he were in HER shoes - if she just assumed he didn't know much about animals, and she told HIM that. I told him a much better way to respond to her comment would have been to say, "I know a lot about animals too -- what's your favorite animal?" or something like that, starting a conversation about it rather than an argument.

It was then that he realized his error. He suddenly began to feel really bad about it, and I could tell just by the look on his face. He then said, "well, I hope we can go back there soon, and I hope I see her again so I can tell her I'm sorry."

what a sweetie.