A CHILD’S OBSESSION WITH BRAID. Michelle Woo reports that children who have specialized obsessions (think of dinosaurs) are thought to benefit intellectually from the obsession in many ways.
I showed Mary Jane Michelle Woo’s article about childhood obsessions, and Mary Jane recalled another obsession. Ruth Goodman in HOW TO BE A TUDOR tells how as part of the research for the book, she tried performing many of the activities in Tudor times.
Gordon describes (at page 185) how when her daughter was eight years old, she learned to make a single finger-loop braid. She devoted enough time to becoming skilled at making braids that by the time she was nine she had a commission to make 15 yards of two-color braid to decorate the doublet of a character at the Globe Theatre. Today her braiding work “graces television production, museum displays and opera stars at the New York Metropolitan….”