In a comment on one of Justin Petrone's blog posts (click here for post), after stating that Estonian children are taught not to talk to strangers and frowned upon if they do, Marko ends with:
"So, the other day when one of the kids said Tere on the street near where I stay, I just turned my head away and kept walking. God knows what their parents are like and it's best not to get involved."
My tiny experience with Estonian children has been under different circumstances. One 9 year old boy was very shy, but I met him as a friend of the family so he didn't have the stranger danger. When he did open up, he spent most of the time sharing historical facts about Tartu and Estonia, playing strategic board games with me, or reading. Once we sat on top of the book of the Jakob Hurt statue and he stated that it was the place where he read his favorite book of all time.
One little girl was two years old and very sure of herself. She was better at using an ipad and a smartphone than I was. Her confidence was magnetic and it was never a dull moment with her. I couldn't understand what she said, but she didn't need me to. She was narrating her own world and my participation was not needed.
One 7 year old boy was quite childlike and open. When I told him that I will be staying in Estonia for another 2 weeks, he replied without hesitation, "I know. I can see the future. I have seen it." He was also very intuitive and sure of himself. He picked out a necklace for me 5 seconds after walking into a store, after which his mother, who is also sharply intuitive, combed the store and came to the conclusion that she would have picked the same necklace he did. When I first met him at age five, he spent 20 minutes running circles around the room behind me while screaming like a monkey and slamming a cushion against the couch, which sounded like a beaver slapping its tail on the water. His uncle completely ignored it and calmly explained that he just doesn't know how to be around me.
Another child I met just once at an event was very friendly and confident and demonstrated his passion for learning the English language. His knowledge was quite extensive for being so young (age 6 or 7) and having self-taught everything he knew. Then he politely asked if I had any warm clothes, because he wished to invite me outside to the garden. There he exhibited his arrangement of about 2 dozen snails he had placed in a group on top of the white picket fence. I was in such shock by all these snails on the fence that I didn't even think that I could have saved those snails a lot of time by putting them back on the ground. Later, before he and his mom left, he sat next to me and laid his head on my shoulder, then said in English, "We are friends."
