Many Fort Collins parents are using a story filled with drama and deceit to teach their children about the perils of lying.

"Parents using Heene incident as teaching tool"
Today's Fort Collins Coloradoan

This is like using Arnold Schwarzenegger to teach the dangers of anabolic steroids.

Mommy and Daddy watched the balloon boy story for hours. They're pissed that they were duped. The story fell apart--See what happens when you lie?

If I'm six, not nearly as sophisticated as my parents who watch CNN News for hours, I see this--another little boy got lots of my parents' attention for stretching a pretty cool story.

As for teachable moments?

If you have a 6 year old, show them how to make a hot air balloon--either spring the $50 for a kit, or use a few garbage bags to make one of your own. Dry cleaner bags work, too.

(I do not recommend letting them go free--
keep them tethered to some fishing line--
I remind my classes every Friday to practice safe science.)

If you're child is a senior in high school, this would have been a fine teaching moment about volume, air mass, and density--just how much lift can you get from a Heene-style balloon?


If your child is a senior in college, this would be a fine teaching moment about life:

"Look, son, I just let myself be duped by a 6 year old, a nutty family, a hyperactive media, and my own inability to live a life more exciting than the vicarious thrills of a news story. Get a life. A real one."


I really dislike the phrase "teaching moments"--as though our time is split into little packets of commodities, to be spent judiciously.

Children are curious. Curiosity gets killed in our schools, in our culture.

Children learn what they see. If I were a kid, I'd have started collecting garbage bags by now.

If our kids were truly curious, this is what the lead line would have said:
"Many Fort Collins parents are using a story filled with drama and deceit
to teach their children about the perils of flying."