Earlier today, I asked Max how he was doing. This sort of small talk question is anything but to a seven-year-old, and I expected a rambling answer about the condition of his wrist (which he banged up this morning), his feet (which are sore from walking around barefoot for the first time this year) and his general state of mind (a mystery to me, as usual).

But he surprised me.

"This is the best weekend ever," he said. Not an exclamation, mind you, but a simple statement of fact.

Apart from staying up until eleven on both Friday and Saturday nights--and having a sleepover on the second night--this Memorial Day weekend hasn't been particularly exciting. We did hang out at friends's houses far too late, but we haven't done much else. We spent a couple hours on Saturday in a futile search for training wheels for Sam's bike, but most of our time has been spent doing mundane things around the house. Replanting plants in our potted garden, say, or playing around in the yard. Nothing spectacular. And yet, even later on Sunday Max confirmed that this has been the "best weekend ever."

There's a lesson here for parents, and it's pretty obvious: Kids don't need a lot to be happy. You give them food, a bed, a happy home, some friends and a few toys and they're pretty happy. Trips to Disney World? Nice, but not necessary. Extracurricular activities every day after school? Fun, but tiring. The latest bedding from Pottery Barn Kids? That's strictly a parental happiness thing.

Kids are astoundingly simple creatures. It's often easy to predict their reactions to just about anything. If you give them a treat, they'll be happy. If you punish them, they'll curse you. Good parents are able to handle both of these situations with equanimity. After all, a treat isn't a treat if you get it all the time, and sometimes kids need to learn the consequences of their behavior.

Nonetheless, kids will always surprise you. The one thing I remember most clearly from my childhood is how much adults underestimated kids. It seemed like adults were always astonished by the everyday things my friends and brothers and I would do or create.

Kids may be simpler creatures than adults--their black-and-white view of the world can be breathtakingly bracing--but nonetheless, there's an awful lot going on in their heads. Indeed, kids think about a wider range of subjects than adults. What adults accept as normal is often a revelation to children.

Max reads the newspaper. Not the whole paper every day, but more than most adults might imagine a seven-year-old might. He gets through most of the sports section, all of the "KidsPost" (a one-page segment within the Style section), the weather page and more of the front section than sometimes he ought.

One morning last week, he skimmed one of the pieces on the current torture debate. He didn't understand much of what he read, but he did pick up that people from the United States hurt other people. On purpose. "Why did they do that?" he asked me. I told him the truth: "I really don't know." Unfortunately, he's aware of the wars in Iraq in Afghanistan--his opposition to these wars is the reason he was such a rabid Obama supporter last year. "But should they have done those things?" he asked me. I told him that I didn't think so. "Me either." As it is for many people on both sides of the torture issue, answering that question was easy for him. A question of dazzling complexity seems simple to almost as many adults as children.

Parents want to give their children the world without exposing them to everything within it all at once. I wish Max didn't know about the war, but it's been going on for almost his entire life. There's no way to keep it from him, especially now that he reads with abandon.

But just as we can't keep the entire world from them without stunting their growth, we can't give them the world, either. And we shouldn't. Children need to learn how to manage life's difficulties. I'd like to think that Max and Sam will life wonderful lives free of stress and pain...no, I guess I don't want to think that. Stress, pain, disappointment, frustration and failure are all parts of life. They're important, too. Without those things--especially failure--we can't grow as people.

And if you give your kid everything, there never will be a "best weekend ever." Even if nothing particularly unusual happens on the best weekend ever.

Jon Worley had a pretty darn good weekend, too. And he's still got a day to go.