My daughter is an introverted thinker. Her angle of approach to things tends to be unusual.
One day my daughter and I were talking about the playground. She was in third grade. She was talking about having played with one girl on the playground that day.
I said, "Are you going to play with her at recess today?"
"No," she said, "I played with her the last two days so I can't play with her today."
I was intrigued. "Why can't you play with her today?"
She sighed. "Well, if you play with the same person more than two days in a row than they think they are your best friend. Best friends fight a lot. I don't like to fight, so I only play with a girl for two days and then I play with someone else."
"Does that work?"
"Yes."
"I think it is very neat that you figured that out."
"Uh-huh."
Another time she mentioned a disagreement between two girls.
"They came to me for help."
"Why did they come to you?"
"They know that I'm fair and I won't be mean."
"So they asked you to help? I would like to hear about it."
"Mary was angry at Anna for going to the playground monitor about the basketball. Anna said it was her turn. Mary said she had had three turns already."
"How did you handle it?"
"I listened to both of them. Mary tells the whole truth. Anna doesn't really lie but she leaves things out when she tells a story and she twists it."
"Exaggerates?"
"Yes, so the playground monitor was on her side and Mary got yelled at. It wasn't fair."
"Did they work it out?"
"Mary had gone after every other person and they had skipped Anna. Mary agreed that she had had more turns with the ball and that it was actually Anna's turn. They were friends again by the end of recess."
"It sounds like you have a pretty good idea of whose story to believe."
"Yes."
"That is very observant. Do they ask you to be a judge a lot?"
"Some."
"Do you like it?"
"Kind of. It is interesting and people get along better."
And that concludes this episode of the introverted thinker on the playground.