She has a very good spatial awareness and memory, far better than mine. I think that she has been helped in this by her largely analogue life, as nothing is spelled out for her, she has to deal with the reality of it, no shortcuts.
You would have had a largely analogue childhood, what's your excuse ;D
All my kids have got pretty good spatial despite having pretty much the opposite upbringing (almost unlimited access to screens) but they have also had almost unlimited access to movement and outside which may have more to do with it.
we feel clever by connecting up large chunks of information provided us to find the solution to something already solved
When I noticed this, I associated it with school. It certainly seemed that way when I was going, and despite shrilly being told that it's different now, it seemed pretty much exactly the same when my daughter was trying out high school a couple of years ago.
I think we are losing the ability to solve problems
I think so too. And that's a problem that needs a bunch of other problems solved before or at the same time x_x
We see this now, where society has become bipolar in its approach to conflict, constantly on or off.
AAARGH.
I don't know how much influence I have over Smallsteps
Right now, a hell of a lot. In a few years, you'll be completely irrelevant, especially when you're telling her things she doesn't want to hear (all her friends agree with her therefore they must be right), but also not really because while she's desperately trying to prove she's an adult she also still desperately needs to be a child (especially when really hard stuff starts happening that they need to learn to navigate). In a few more years, she'll realise that you do actually know a hell of a lot and did know exactly what you were talking about and that your wisdom and experience is a useful addition to what she's collected living her life XD
My spatial awareness is good, my memory is very selective. When I was a kid, I spent my days largely alone - perhaps it meant I didn't have to remember much :D
i think a large part of spatial awareness is having a rich imagination - being fed the space means not having to build it. School encourages the filling of formulas, not the creation of formulas. There is very little to encourage looking for new, it is just about reinforcing what has already been discovered. Sure, that past is important to build the future, but without the tools to innovate, not much good it does.
Depending on how much the world changes, she will read all this and say, "Dad, WTF were you thinking back then?" :D
I feel like selective memory is fine but it could just be because mine is very random. I'm quite sure that I remember everything but just have a very weird indexing system. I will fail to remember something I'm desperately trying to remember but something vaguely, tangentially or sometimes not even related will trigger retrieval of something else.
LoL probably XD least you can honestly say you were doing the best you could with what you knew at the time :)