I always guilty joked that I had good parents & childhood. I'm only putting together that: no but really.
I had one shitty year: kindergarten. my parents put me in public school and it v much did not work. what kept me going was my girl best friend, I loved playing w/ Barbies from my parents w/ her
1st grade they tried something else: a little unaffiliated hippie school in the hills. The owner/principal/math teacher/bus (old van) driver made a school on an old farm. in 1st grade there were 26 kids in the school. after ~4th grade we could spend lunch hour walking unsupervised up into the hills.
I think through most of my time there there were ~10 kids per grade. They basically always gave kids options in each class, sometimes like in math there'd be a table in the back where kids could just paint.
Just so many things that I'm really understanding other people didn't get.
Through all that time my mom exposed me heavily to poetry and art. When I had new special interests they'd give time and resources to helping me explore them. They'd be a reliable audience if I needed to info dump. If I was thinking out loud, they'd ask questions as took mental meanders.
Those questions were often "is that fair?", "don't you need to ask them first?", "could that hurt them?", etc
When I damaged things w/ my curiosity, they had me help fix em then talk about what I learned
My first tattoo was paid for by my mom. Lion w/ "I Will" from Nietzsche, self-determination
