Yesterday I enjoyed watching a group of youngsters at play and came to the conclusion that part of the solution toward avoiding conflict and aggression is simply wanting to.

I had turned my little dog loose on a small slope above a small city park and set myself on a bench in the sun. It was a gorgeous, warm day and we don't get many of those, in this climate. Mothers were chatting on benches in the park far below me. Little kids, ranging in age from about 8 down to perhaps 3 bustled and milled above the mothers but below me on a path alongside a plank that topped a wall of a path below that. The plank was about 10 inches wide and the fall, if one had occurred, would have involved a drop of about 5 feet.

These little kids were actually playing in small subgroups in their own age groups rather than all together. Like birds, they didn't really acknowledge each other's presence but as they traipsed busily back and forth on the plank and the path beside it, from the trees at one end of the slope and the bushes on the other, they moved out of each other's way, smoothly and swiftly. In that hour I didn't see even one incident of 'Watch it!' or 'Get out of my way' or even 'Sorry'. There was no need for it: it was a cooperative effort.

I left bemused.