Monthly Archives: May 2011

5-Minute Courage Workout: Talking Dirty

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Compiled and written by Lisa and Jennifer:

We have become quite the sanitized culture.  Unless you live in a rural community or on a farm, you may have an arm’s-length relationship with dirt.  If you are suffering from a dirt deficit and have forgotten the joy, freedom of self-expression, and just plain fun you can have in the dirt, here’s a workout for you and your kids.  (Younger kids will probably not find this one too challenging and may already be leading you down the garden path: parents, this one may be more for your benefit!) Also, please be sure to read Let’s Talk Dirty.

Here’s a list of 5-Minute Courage Workouts by age range to boost confidence in our dirt-deprived and germophobic world.

Remember, all workouts are more effective when followed regularly.
 Grab Some Lion’s Whiskers Today!

  • Toddler: at this age, your child is likely perfectly comfortable getting down and dirty.  At dinner tonight, put away the cutlery and eat with your hands.  Enjoy the texture, the colors, the sheer squishy sensation of feeling your food before you eat it. If you didn’t pick the ingredients from a garden, tell a five-minute story about the journey your food has taken to get to your plate. Imagine the worms that fertilized that garden squirming around your food just before the farmer’s hand pulled it out of the ground. Say a blessing for all involved in helping plant, grow, tend, harvest, package, and deliver your daily food.
  • Preschooler: get some vegetable or flower or herb seeds, find a spot in the yard or pot you can fill with dirt, and plant the seeds with your child: no gardening gloves allowed! Or find a lonely, long-forgotten houseplant stashed somewhere in your home and offer it a fresh start in a bigger, nutrient-rich, new dirt home (either in your garden or in a larger pot).  Notice where your comfort zone ends with getting dirt under your nails or on your clothes.  Water the earth until it’s nice and muddy and pat down the surface together with loving care.  Talk about how the dirt will give nourishment and protection to the seed while it grows.  See dirt as life-giving and positive rather than a menace.
  • Early elementary student: it’s probably been a few years now since your child has run barefoot around the yard, on the beach, or on a playground. It’s time to kick off the shoes and find some interesting paths to walk barefoot.  Spend five minutes finding as many different surfaces to walk on — some surfaces may even hurt if your tender toes have been cooped up too long.  This is where some physical courage might come in handy! 
  • Upper elementary student or ‘tween:  See if you have any long-forgotten clay or a tube of facial mud mask around the house.  Plan to spend five minutes with your hands in the clay sculpting some exotic creature, or give each other a five-minute mud mask facial.  If you have the opportunity, on the next rainy day find a mud puddle and surprise yourself and your child by sitting in it!  Let go of the worry of dry-cleaning costs and what the neighbors may think.  Bask in the healing properties of mud; have you ever noticed how contented pigs seem to be?  There’s a reason.  Let the nutrients in the mud rejuvenate you and your ‘tween. 
  • High schooler or teen: It’s time for your teen to cook tonight.  The meal could be as simple as spaghetti or scrambled eggs, but it’s going to be served with a twist.  Tonight, dinner is to be served on the floor!   We are not suggesting that you simply sit on the floor to eat off your plates, but that you actually eat off the floor. This could bring up all kinds of inner and outer resistance; notice what you’re feeling and explore with your teen what’s coming up for them. This may provide the perfect opportunity to test what you and your child’s comfort level with getting down and dirty is just before they leave home and eat off someone else’s floor.  You could also try just eating on the floor together, as many cultures around this world do everyday.  You may need to revisit some of the earlier dirt workouts if your teen seems to have skipped a few stages of getting comfortable with dirt.  Improvisational workouts like this provide an opportunity to practice the kind of  emotional, social, physical and for cognitive flexibility that today’s world requires. 
Research suggests that playing with dirt exposes us to beneficial bacteria, and also allows us to build resistance to the less friendly microbes.  Working on these skills may call upon different types of courage, depending upon your child’s particular strengths and/or temperament.  For example, asking some children to play in the dirt may require physical courage, for others social courage if they care what their pals think. Review the Six Types of Courage to figure out which types your child needs to complete this workout.
Here are some additional 5-Minute Courage Workouts: Navigating the Neighborhood, Playing With Fire, A Fate Worse Than Death, Saying I’m Sorry,  It’s a Dog Eat Dog World

We’d love to hear about your results with one of these workouts, or share your own!

Let’s Talk Dirty

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I am a gardener. I get dirty. I often wear dark nail polish in the summer to hide how unscrubbably grimy my fingernails have become.

And that’s okay. Dirt’s not that bad.
Becoming a mom for the first time to a little girl who had already grown out of the crawling stage (so I thought) I was rather foolish about some of the clothing choices I made early on. K. was 8 when she came here, and needed her first snow suit. I bought a white one. Oh dear. She goes to a Waldorf school where there are two recess periods a day, in a play yard that is wood chips and mud. They crawl in it, jump in it, roll in it, dig in it – there seems to be nothing they don’t do with mud. I’d meet her at the gate that first winter, and behold a child in a white snow suit that was entirely coated with mud. 
“You’re new at this, right?” other moms would say with sympathetic smiles.
The following year I bought the snow gear in dark colors, like most of the other moms. K. was still coated with mud at the end of each day, but at least it didn’t show so much.
My relationship with dirt is fairly casual. I ask that she have clean fingernails at school, and clean (ish) clothes, but as a sign of respect for her teachers more than anything else. As for the dirt itself, we’re not afraid of it. I myself used hand sanitizer (usually) in Ethiopia on two visits, but mainly to protect the babies in the orphanage from my American microbes. And K.? My dear girl lived for eight years in one of the world’s poorest countries. For the first five or six of those, she lived in a rural village in a house with mud walls, and she has shared many times that she and the other children routinely picked at the mud walls of their houses and nibbled on the bits. Maybe their bodies craved trace minerals they found in that mud. I don’t know. All I know is that she has an immune system like nothing I’ve ever seen: she has missed only one day of school due to illness in three and a half years. I guess if you can survive 8 years of poverty and want  (by American standards) in rural Africa, you were either hardy to begin with or became hardy because of it.
Physical courage allows us to experience the world without layers and layers of protection – it allows us to experience the world directly, with all of our senses. I always assumed kids were supposed to get dirty. I know I got dirty. I ran barefoot and had scabs on my knees and tree sap in my hair. I stubbed my toes a lot, and endured many painful splinter extractions. But I also caught crayfish in streams, and built forts under giant bushes, and ate raspberries right off the prickery canes. I climbed trees and onto the house roof to smush my fingers into soft, warm tar on summer afternoons. I’ve gone camping and eaten food with sand and ashes in it, and wiped my knife “clean” on my dirty jeans. I don’t want dirt to cause my daughter to hesitate as she experiences the world. And so far, judging by the state of her clothes, it doesn’t!

Another Lion Story (actually two!)

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A startling video on YouTube made the rounds a few years back, about a lion named Christian and the two men who had raised him. The background is that in 1969 these men saw a lion cub for sale in London (let’s not even begin to talk about how this could have been legal) and brought it home, raising it in their apartment and exercising it in the neighboring churchyard. Inevitably, this male lion (named Christian) became too big, and the young men did what they must to reintroduce it to the wild in Africa. More than a year later they returned to look for their old friend; the lion came to them and embraced them, rubbing against them like an overgrown kitty, and even introduced them to its wild-born mate. Watching this video (with a power ballad soundtrack!) brings tears and also the question – how could those men be so sure they were safe? What sort of courage is that?

It immediately brought to mind the story of Androcles and the Lion, one of my favorites from childhood and a great example of emotional courage.
A Greek slave named Androcles was badly abused by his Roman master for many years. One day, when an opportunity presented itself, Androcles ran away, choosing the unknown dangers of the forest over the known dangers of life as a slave. He wandered for many days, hungry and exposed to the elements. At last, he found a cave where he could take shelter, and lay down to rest.
Hours later, a sound awakened him. To his horror, he saw the daylight at the mouth of the cave obscured by a great shape, and by its shaggy mane and powerful frame he recognized his terrible mistake: he had taken shelter in a lion’s den. With a short prayer he resigned himself to his fate and closed his eyes, but when minutes passed with no attack he peeked. The lion lay just within the opening of the cave, grunting as if in pain and licking at a front paw.
Androcles crept closer, and saw that a large green thorn was stuck in the paw, which was swollen and infected from the sap. His heart was pounding with fear, but when the man crept even closer the lion stretched out his leg, as if asking for help. Trembling, Androcles reached out and, bit by bit, worked the thorn loose. The lion sighed, and lay his head down, blinking tiredly at Androcles before falling asleep. Androcles too, exhausted by the fear and relief, soon gave way to sleep.
For several days, Androcles and the lion shared the cave with growing trust and friendship. The lion brought food to Androcles as if the man were the lion’s cub, and they both regained their strength and walked among the trees together. One day, however, a team of hunters ensnared the lion in a net, and guessing that Androcles was a runaway slave, they captured him as well.
In those days, it was the Roman custom to watch criminals be torn to pieces by wild animals as a spectacle in the open-air theater called the Coliseum. This was to be Androcles’ fate, as a warning to other slaves not to try running away. On the appointed day, Androcles was thrown into the ring, while hundreds of spectators cheered and applauded from all sides. On the far side of the arena, a gate was drawn open by a chain, and a ferocious lion burst out, roaring and snarling in rage. 
Androcles stood his ground as the lion charged, and a hush fell upon the blood-thirsty crowd. To their astonishment, the lion stopped when it reached the slave and licked his face. Androcles wrapped his arms around the lion’s neck, for it was the same lion who had been his friend in the forest. So great was the wonder of this event, that the emperor granted pardon to both slave and lion, who spent the rest of their days together as free citizens of Rome.

Courage Book Review – Three by Idries Shah

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Afghan scholar and author, Idries Shah, spent years interpreting the Sufi tradition for a Western audience.  With many illustrated picture books to choose from, Lion’s Whiskers here offers three.

The Silly ChickenFirst, we have The Silly Chicken, illustrated by Jeff Jackson, which offers a very amusing parable about intellectual courage.  I remember many years ago asking myself why people in fantasy stories were always so quick to believe talking animals.  Why would you place such confidence in the accuracy of the animal’s information, or assume a lack of agenda?  Might the animal not be a liar?  Might the animal not be stupid?  In this book, we have a excellent example of why being skeptical of talking animals may be proper wisdom.   A man spends a great deal of effort teaching a chicken to talk; finally, the chicken does speak, and what the chicken says sends the people of the town off into a  hair-tearing panic.  After a great deal of confusion, the people finally discover they’ve been given information by someone with no intelligence at all.  They ask “How could you tell us such a thing?”  And the chicken – with common sense that can only be seen as ironic – replies, “Only silly people would listen to a chicken in the first place.”  In an age when we swallow information – especially alarming information – without chewing first, this is a timely cautionary tale!  The pictures are cheerful with bright, bold primary colors, and the book is sure to amuse young children.  Feel free to act it out.  The story is just begging for exaggeration and silliness.

 

Fatima the Spinner and the TentAnother fine example of intellectual courage is Fatima the Spinner and the Tent, illustrated by Natasha Delmar.  A young woman is the ‘victim’ of one reversal of fortune after another.  With each disaster, she must build her life again in a new place, learn a new trade, acquire different skills.  Just when it seems that she must surely be doomed to a life of bad fortune without let-up, it becomes clear that every single stroke of “bad luck” has prepared her for her ultimate triumph with the intellectual and manual skills she acquired along the way.  We can also see emotional courage at work here, as Fatima picks up the pieces each time, “and within a year or two she was happy and reconciled to her lot.”   The illustrations are beautifully detailed, with borders that change as Fatima’s circumstances change, and illuminated capital letters that give the book the look of an old treasure.  Maps on the endpapers trace Fatima’s journey through the story.

The Old Woman and the EagleLast, we offer The Old Woman and the Eagle, also illustrated by Natasha Delmar.  Here we have a parable that many of us would do well to heed.  An old woman, whose experience of birds is limited to pigeons, finds an eagle in her garden.  Thinking it an odd-looking pigeon, she gives the eagle a pigeon make-over.  Instead of seeing the qualities that make him an eagle, she sees those qualities only as flaws of “pigeon-ness.”  She lacks the intellectual courage to question her assumptions; she lacks the social courage to feel comfortable with something or someone outside her experience; she lacks the emotional courage to let the eagle just be himself but instead tries to make him into a better pigeon. Fortunately for the eagle, he manages to escape and undo the “improvements” she had made to him.  “And with that, the eagles flew back to their own country and returned to their own nests.  And they never went near that silly old woman again.”  Nor do I blame them!  Sometimes it is worth the effort to educate someone about what makes us unique; sometimes our explanations fall on deaf ears.  Emotional courage and social courage allow us to preserve our unique gifts in order to share them with those who will appreciate them!
There are many other illustrated tales from the Sufi tradition by Idries Shah.  Lion’s Whiskers wishes you good fun in discovering the six types of courage within these stories.

Peek-a-Boo!

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Little did I know that all the hours of playing Peek-a-Boo with my children actually produced necessary neuronal growth in their brains so they can feel secure in this world!  Peek-a-Boo teaches our child that we are a secure object.  I thought we were just having fun!?  That’s the cool thing about putting psychology research into practice, it can be fun.  Research now shows that many time-honored traditions in parenting help create the trust and courage in kids necessary to conquer many of life’s challenges. 

Around eight months of age, children develop the cognitive capability called object permanence.  Developmental psychologist Jean Piaget coined the term object permanence, that refers to the cognitive understanding that even when a secure object is out of sight, it doesn’t cease to exist. Even if we can’t see, hear, or touch someone or something, we can access the memory of its existence in our mind.  Imagine how much psychological comfort this cognitive capacity we all develop brings, given healthy and normal development.  Have you ever felt lonely and imagined calling someone you love and what they might say to comfort you?  Have you ever run a race and imagined the people who support you waiting with smiling faces at the finish line—especially when you feel like stopping?  Has it ever brought comfort and solace to remember the funny and loving memories of a relative who has died?  Object permanence can be protective and inspire courage in moments when we feel alone, distressed, or stressed. 
It is so fun to hide yourself from your child, just long enough to create some suspense, and then pop back into view.  Careful, though, around eight months your child will begin to show the normal signs of secure attachment, called separation anxiety, and cry for your prompt return—especially if you take too long to peek back out!  The game is not meant to be a psychological torture test, just helpful practice for building separation anxiety tolerance.  Remember, before your child develops object permanence, you literally cease to exist.  Who says parents aren’t master magicians? 
The goal is to teach your child to self-soothe, be reassured that you are a permanent object in his/her life, and how to reach out and find you or someone they love for comfort. 

Our family game was actually called, “Peek-a-Boo, I Love You.”  As soon as I would reappear, I would reassure my child that I really was back with a big smile, open arms, eye-to-eye contact, say “I see you” and, what would eventually become one of their first phrases, “I love you!”  I made sure to give the same verbal and non-verbal cues every time I would go away and come back once I started having other caregivers help in caring for my children.  Consistency being an important key to unlocking the treasure trove of trust between parents and children!

Schore’s (2001) research stresses the importance of this parent/caregiver-child game in that a child gets to experience glimpses of loss, and practice emotional regulation to handle any stress associated with object loss until the attachment object returns.  In other words, Peek-a-Boo helps us to teach our children the foundations of interpersonal trust.  We are playing a game, but practicing and building the mental, physical, and emotional muscle to handle bigger separations, and other courage challenges, to come.
I also didn’t know that my own learning and memory were improved through motherhood—that was a shocker given how hormonally zoned-out and tired I have felt at times.  According to Kinsley et al. (1999), increased neuronal connections occur in late pregnancy and in the early postpartum period reshaping the brain to handle the increasing demands of motherhood—now that I get!  The benefits, it turns out, of attachment between mother and infant are not unidirectional; our infants ensure their own and their mother’s development and survival through a rich set of sensory, and primarily non-verbal, cues related to what I’ve written about previously on attunement (see my post about one of the first of life’s courage challenges).  Playing Peek-a-Boo can help you not only wire your child’s brain, but any infant-caregiver game that evokes love, trust, playfulness helps us improve our own dendritic brain connections and calms our limbic system, too!
Upcoming posts will include more trust-building games to play with your kids!
Sources:
Kinsley, C., Madonia, L., Gifford, G., Tureski, K., Griffin, G., Lowry, C., Williams, J.,
Collins, J., McLearie, H., & Lambert, K.G. (1999). Motherhood improves
learning and memory. Nature, 402, 137.

Schore, A. (2001). Effects of a secure attachment relationship on right brain

development, affect regulation, and infant mental health. Infant Mental Health Journal, 22, (1-2), 7-66.   http://www.allanschore.com/pdf/SchoreIMHJAttachment.pdf

5-Minute Courage Workout: Saying “I’m Sorry”

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Compiled and written by Lisa and Jennifer:

Saying “I’m sorry” takes emotional and moral courage.  Learning about the true purpose and importance of making an apology begins and ends with empathy.

In learning to say “I’m sorry” children first need to learn to identify and express their own feelings.  Then, to develop empathy for another’s feelings.  Next, they will learn to recognize right from wrong.  Following early emotional and moral development comes responsibility-taking for one’s choices and behaviors, self-discipline, and assertive communication.

Hopefully, by supporting our children to develop emotional intelligence, empathy for others, and a sense of personal responsibility (whilst continuing to develop these skills ourselves) we can all help create more peace in ourselves, our community, and our world. 

Here’s a list of 5-Minute Courage Workouts by age range. Remember, all workouts are more effective when followed regularly.

 Grab Some Lion’s Whiskers Today!
  • Toddler: play I Spy the Feeling! while people-watching on your adventures around town today, or in the books you read together at bedtime, play-act different feelings with a puppet, or sing a five-minute rendition of “If You’re Happy And You Know It” about feelings and act-out the matching body language. The child who can say, “I’m mad!” is less likely to become so frustrated he/she will strike out.  If he/she does strike out, let them know “That hurt! If we hurt someone, we say ‘I’m sorry’.” If you do something hurtful accidentally, like stepping on a tiny toe or bumping into each other, look your toddler in the eye and say “I’m sorry I stepped on your toe.  Are you okay?” Just like please and thank you, I’m sorry can now begin to be part of your child’s developing vocabulary.
  • Preschooler: play the Let’s Take Turns game.  Sharing is an important first step in building the kind of empathy and self-control associated with social and moral courage.  Use a kitchen timer, if necessary, to help your child and his/her brother, sister, or friend take turns with a toy (you can practice with your child first, too)—don’t start with one of their favorite toys and keep the time limit short (2-5 minutes each to start)!  Allow them the opportunity for success.  Have them each pick two toys they’d like to practice sharing. At the start of the game, say “We’re going to play a sharing game today so you both get a chance to play with these toys.  We are going to use a timer and when your turn is done, you give the toy to Sam and you give your toy to Ella.”  At the end of the time, say “It’s time to share your toy.  After their turn, you will get another chance to play with it.” Use praise. “I noticed that as soon as the timer rang, you both shared your toys.  What caring friends you are to share! Now everyone has a chance to play with the toy today.”  If one or the other child grabs the toy before the end of the time, make sure he/she knows to say “I’m sorry I took the toy” and returns it.  Start the timer again. 
  • Early elementary student: your child’s cognitive development has now progressed to the stage he/she is able to empathize.  The world of right and wrong is now viewed through black and white lenses.  Deepening your child’s understanding that not everyone experiences everything he/she does in the same way will be important now.  For example, you may hear your child say “Well, I didn’t mean to break your cup, slam the door, etc. It was an accident!”  It will be important to teach your child that even if something is an accident, their behavior has an effect.  Letting our child off the hook at this stage (when they have done something wrong), and continuing to let them off the hook as they mature, may be the very reason some adults on Wall Street have yet to take responsibility for their actions and the consequences.  Children at this age are now becoming aware that they may have made a mistake or done something hurtful, but being worried about what others think of them may cause them to be shy about saying “I’m sorry” and/or taking responsibility for their action.  Start with a 5-minute review of classroom and family rules.  Discuss together over dinner tonight these two questions: “Why are rules important?”  “Why is saying ‘I’m sorry’ important?”
  • Upper elementary student or ‘tween: you may be hearing a lot of “I’m sorry…OKAY?!” at this stage.  Many kids are usually more than familiar with the throw-away version of the apology, couched in sarcasm and not an ounce of regret.  Here’s where parents can get creative and encourage children to brainstorm ways to “make amends” for their misdeed to get the full-impact of what an apology is really about.  One evening this week, consider spending five minutes writing together, on small slips of paper, something you would like to apologize for (be specific) but haven’t had the courage yet to do so.  The goal is to get any free-floating guilt on paper, whether or not you follow through immediately with the apology or not.  Then, share with one another your misdeed and intended apology. Discuss some of the barriers standing in your way: embarrassment, too much time has passed, fear of being judged/excluded, not really liking the person you hurt, etc. Decide together if the true forgiveness needed is actually self-forgiveness?  Or does a phone call need to be made, a note written to the special someone you wish to apologize, or simply a behavior changed? 
  • High schooler or teen: by the time our kids are teenagers, there are usually plenty of opportunities to apologize to our kids—heck we’re all hormonal by this stage!  On your drive to work, walking the dog, or just before bed spend five minutes reflecting on something you may have done that you would like to apologize for.  Now apologize.  For example, “Kyle, I’m sorry I said how stinky your socks were in front of your friends.  I am aware that I thought I was being funny, but noticed you may actually have been embarrassed.  I’m sorry for saying something potentially embarrassing about you.  I will be more mindful in the future to wait until we are alone together to suggest you use the foot odor spray we bought for your shoes. I hope you can accept my apology.” Then, make sure you follow through with said behavior change so your teen will, too!

Guilt is a powerful psychological mechanism that warns us when something is wrong, amiss, out of balance, or that a mistake’s been made.  Guilt’s purpose is to help us correct our course and move forward unburdened.  Sometimes saying “I’m sorry” is the first step to unburdening.  Oftentimes, however, when we are forced to say “I’m sorry” prematurely or without a complete understanding of what these two short, but powerful, words actually mean, we can transform guilt into shame.  Shame has a nasty way of keeping us stuck in the same behaviors that got us into trouble in the first place, and we end up feeling unworthy, suffer from low self-esteem, and can become socially isolated. As a parent, you are a powerful role model for your child to learn loving communication, assertiveness, and how to use his/her voice to express concern, care, and culpability (when necessary). 

Working on these skills may call upon different types of courage, depending upon your child’s particular strengths and/or temperament.  For example, asking some children to apologize may take emotional courage, for others social courage to do the same task. Review the Six Types of Courage to figure out which types your child needs to complete this workout.

Care to share what you’ve learned about teaching and modeling “I’m sorry” with your kids?

If you’re looking for more workouts, here’s our 5-Minute Courage Workout: A Fate Worse Than Death , 5-Minute Courage Workout: Talking Dirty,  5-Minute Courage Workout: It’s a Dog Eat Dog World, 5-Minute Courage Workout: Home Alone,  5-Minute Courage Workout: A Fate Worse than Death, 5-Minute Courage Workout: Playing with Fire, 5-Minute Courage Workout: Navigating the Neighborhood

Meat of the Tongue

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Okay, by now some readers may be ready to give up on me and my fairy tales and legends. “Too late,” they’ll say. “Didn’t do that when the kids were small, and now that they are reading on their own they don’t want to read these things. They’re too old for bedtime stories, even if Einstein thought they should read them.”
Allow me to paraphrase a traditional tale from Kenya, called Meat of the Tongue. A ruler was alarmed because his wife was thin and sickly and weak. Looking around, he saw that a humble tailor had a robust and healthy wife, and asked, what was the secret? “Meat of the tongue,” replied the tailor. So the ruler ordered all manner of tongue meat for his wife – wildebeest tongue, lamb tongue, gazelle tongue, even ostrich tongue – none of it availed. In desperation, the ruler asked the tailor to swap wives for a month, to see if that might bring his wife to better health. Sure enough, the ruler’s wife was soon happy and smiling and putting on weight, while the tailor’s wife was looking sad and tired. “What is it, what is it?” the ruler demanded. “What is this meat of the tongue?”

As you might have figured out by now, meat of the tongue is talk. Meat of the tongue is the nourishment we get from tales told and listened to. The good news about this nutritious dish is it is never too late to thrive on it! If your kids think they are “too old” for fairy tales, try some other kind of story, but tell it. Half the magic is the connection between the teller and the listener, the voice and the ear, the parent and the child. Attachment isn’t only a concept for parents of infants. My voice telling stories was one of the primary tools I used to develop attachment between myself and my daughter, whom I adopted when she was eight.

Picture a teenager, angry, frustrated, grumbling at his computer because a virus is causing havoc among his files. Picture his parent later that day, maybe while walking to the car, maybe while unpacking groceries, taking three minutes to tell the story of the Trojan Horse: After ten fruitless years of siege, the Greeks are ready to go home. But clever Odysseus has a plan: the Greeks build a giant horse, wheel it to the gates of Troy, and then seem to retreat. Hidden inside the horse are Odysseus and his most trusted warriors. The Trojans, rejoicing at their defeat of the Greeks, drag the great offering into their city behind the high walls – and thus the fate of Troy was sealed. In less than three minutes, this teenager can see his predicament connecting him back, over thousands of years, to one of the greatest stories we have. That’s pretty rich meat.  Traditional stories are sometimes referred to as “messages from our ancestors.”  For myself, I would like to remain open to those messages, because there is wisdom there that may help me be a better person and a better parent.

Stories are portable and convertible, like those compact suitcases that can grow to twice their size by unzipping a zipper. You can make them short, you can make them long, you can put all sorts of things inside them and carry them around as you travel. On top of that, what matters as much as the content of that narrative suitcase is the structure. The architecture of story is part of the meaning. By becoming familiar with the narrative structure –introduction of conflict, development of conflict, resolution of conflict – we can see a way to give structure to our experience. Intellectual courage gives us the ability to see patterns in our experience and find what is significant.  

“Meaning in a story reflects our belief that there is meaning in the universe, that no matter the disorder that frames our lives, in the center – in the place that reveals who we are – there is order.” These words were spoken by beloved children’s book author, Katherine Paterson, National Ambassador for Young People’s Literature, Hans Christian Andersen Award Winner, Newbery winner, National Book Award winner – winner of too many accolades from around the world to list, so you can take her word for it! It’s never too late to learn that our stories are ours to shape. We are the authors of our own tales, and that connects us to all the other tales of the world.   We are the heroes of own own stories.  Let that give children courage. Let them grow strong on meat of the tongue.