Monthly Archives: May 2011

A Tall Tell Tale

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Living for a year in Switzerland as a child, I saw and heard frequent mention of that country’s legendary hero, William Tell. Pictures of the man with the crossbow on his shoulder and his son by his side were common. I like this story a lot, because it’s a story about moral courage and emotional courage in action in spite of anger and smoldering resistance. Anger can be a great motivator, but indulging in our passionate indignation can blur our vision and our decision-making. When we storm the castle with pitchforks and flaming torches we get to vent our feelings, but it usually doesn’t get us closer to our goal. This story is literally about keeping a steady hand in spite of anger. Courage requires self-control, or else it risks being mere recklessness.
In long ago days, the forest cantons of Switzerland suffered under the dominion of the Austrian emperors, and for some time, a cruel and tyrannical governor named Gessler ruled the canton of Uri. His authority was absolute, and many of his laws were designed to bring the people shame and humiliation. In the high hill town of Altdorf he had a tall pole raised in the center square and his hat placed on top. All the people were required to show their obedience whenever they passed through the square by bowing to this hat. To avoid this, most people just found a different route through town.
Now, in the mountains outside of Altdorf lived a hunter named William Tell, said to be the best shot with a crossbow in all of Switzerland. One day, not knowing the law about Gessler’s hat, Tell came to town with his young son, and passed through the town square without saluting.
Just then, a troop of soldiers with Gessler at their head rode through the square. Seeing William Tell pass without paying respect, Gessler had him arrested for treason.
“They say that you are the best shot in the land,” the governor said when he heard William Tell’s name. “If you can shoot the mark I give you, you will go free.”
“Name the mark,” Tell replied, taking an arrow from his quiver.
Gessler smiled at Tell’s son. “Do you think your father will hit the mark I decide?”
“My father can hit anything,” the boy replied proudly.
The tyrant laughed, and told his soldiers to stand the boy against a distant tree, and place an apple on his head. Then he turned to William Tell. “If you can shoot that apple from your son’s head on the first try, you go free. If not, you both die.”
Even the soldiers were appalled by this command, but William Tell just took another arrow from his quiver and tucked it in his belt. Then, with the first arrow notched to his crossbow, he took careful aim at his son. The crowd hushed. In the silence, the arrow’s whistling flight and the thump as it hit the tree were perfectly clear. The apple fell to the ground, pierced by the arrow. The boy ran back to his father, apple in hand.
“Impressive,” said Gessler. “But what was the second arrow for?”

William Tell looked Gessler straight in the eyes. “This one was for your heart, if my shot had harmed my son.”
At that, Gessler had Tell arrested again, and taken off for execution. But William Tell escaped on the journey and made his way to Gessler’s fortress. There, Tell shot the governor with his second arrow, freeing his people from tyranny.

Courage Book Review – 1,001 Versions of the Arabian Nights

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The great, overstuffed toy box that is the 1,001 Arabian Nights has provided stories and inspiration for generations, with examples of each of the six types of courage.  How many of us have had occasion to say “Open Sesame!” or joked about the perils of rubbing tarnished lamps?  It is likely that only scholars or novelists would attempt to make their way through the entire collection.  For most of us, “selections” will have to do.  Rather than 1,001 we might be satisfied with far fewer – the highlights reel.  Here are three to consider:

The Seven Voyages of Sinbad the SailorThe Seven Voyages of Sinbad the Sailor  retold by John Yeoman is enlivened by the wonderful illustrations of Quentin Blake.  The narrative follows the familiar formal style of the early translations of the tales: “Little by little my strength began to return and my spirits began to revive.  When I could walk comfortably again, using a stick that I cut from a tree, I decided to explore the island.”  This formal diction can weigh heavily, but the loose, breezy style of Blake’s artwork adds lightness to a heavy dough.  The shipwrecks and monsters and twists of fate that make up these voyages will provide many hours of excitement. 
Tenggren's Golden Tales from the Arabian NightsAnother beautifully illustrated mix-tape of tales from the Arabian Nights is Tenggren’s Golden Tales from the Arabian Nights.  The ten stories here are among the most popular of the tales,  retold by Margaret Soifer and Irwin Shapiro in a more contemporary style with plenty of dialogue. Acclaimed Scandinavian illustrator, Gustaf Tenggren, turned this into a visual feast of full-page illustrations in dazzling colors.  Originally published in 1957, this book has been reissued with an introduction by Mary Pope Osborne of Magic Tree House fame.  The Scheherezade story starts the ball rolling; it is significant one, as it gives us the moral courage of a girl who is willing to risk her life to put a stop to the murderous wife-killing spree of the king. 
One Thousand and One Arabian Nights (Oxford Story Collections)For readers with more ambition, One Thousand and One Arabian Nights (Oxford Story Collections) retold by Carnegie Medal-winner, Geraldine McCaughrean, offers many more stories.  Here, McCaughrean follows the spirit of the original by weaving the tales into and around  the story of Scheherezade who preserves her life day after day with the infamous cliff-hanger style of story-telling.  “‘But what am I thinking of,’ said Shahrazad, breaking off suddenly.  ‘I have told you the story of the First Voyage of Sinbad and now I presume on your patience to tell you the awful events of the Second Voyage.’   ‘Don’t interrupt the story with your chattering,’ said King Shahryar. ‘Go on, go on.’  ‘But your courtiers are knocking on the door, my most eminent and conscientious lord, and I still owe you your rightful wedding present – my little head in a silver dish.’  ‘Worthless woman!’ said Shahryar, stamping to the chamber door… ‘Are you suggesting that I go without the Second Voyage of Sinbad rather than keep my own headsman waiting?  I forbid you to leave this room until I have come back tonight and heard the story.’  ‘O patient and even-tempered husband,’ said Shahrazad. ‘To hear you is to obey.'”   The intellectual courage and physical courage she displays is a lesson to us all – “grace under pressure” is putting it mildly!

What the McCaughrean book also has, that the others do not, is Allah.  What is noteworthy about the earliest Western translations (I’m looking at the Burton translation from the late 19th Century) is the omnipresence of Allah as an inescapable force throughout the lives of the characters, frequently invoked, frequently praised, always credited with ultimate control.  Since this is a blog about courage, I think this is important: many of the characters in the stories are sustained by their spiritual courage as much or more than anything else.  To remove this major source of courage from the stories robs them of their power, and renders them mere adventure tales.  I recommend the first two books for the pictures, but for the spirit of the Arabian Nights, go with the third.

C’mere! C’mere! Go ‘way! Go ‘way!

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Let’s take a look at what happens when infants may not have the opportunity to attach in healthy ways, due to parental death, neglect, abuse, addiction, or infant illness, isolation, or cognitive disability, for example.  Less tragically, but no less significantly, a constant rotation of caregivers will also fail to support the attachment process in ways that are sustaining and mutually beneficial between caregiver and child.

I want to remind everyone that even in cases of parental abandonment for one reason or another, other loving caregivers can securely fill the primary attachment relationship role and ensure a child’s survival and well-being! 

Attachment is not destiny; our brain and our being are flexible and resilient.  We continually develop throughout our lifespan!

We do not all share the same race, culture, gender, personality type, or family configuration, and we all, to some degree or another, vary in our attachment style.  The important thing is that we learn to attach, even if we are, or our parents were, at times insecure, avoidant, or ambivalent.  We are watching out in our parenting for extreme insecurity in attachment relationships—which is in the minority of cases!  And, in those cases treatment is possible!   

Much of what is now understood about unhealthy attachment styles is based on Mary Ainsworth’s (1978) “Strange Situation” study.  Essentially, Ainsworth’s hypothesis was that infants and children (between 12 and 18 months of age) tend towards exploration in an unfamiliar environment when a primary attachment figure (typically the mother) is present, and slow-down or cease exploration when he/she is absent.  What resulted from her longitudinal studies was support for her hypothesis.  Her studies also showed that individual differences were evident amongst the children depending on the nature of attachment relationship.  In particular, differing behavioral responses in children upon reunion with their mother figure were most telling in terms of the quality of attachment relationship.  According to Fraley’s (2010) summary of Ainsworth’s research:

Children who appear secure in the strange situation, for example, tend to have parents who are responsive to their needs. Children who appear insecure in the strange situation (i.e., anxious-resistant or avoidant) often have parents who are insensitive to their needs, or inconsistent or rejecting in the care they provide. In the years that have followed, a number of researchers have demonstrated links between early parental sensitivity and responsiveness and attachment security (¶ 5).

Ainsworth proposed three types of attachment relationships based on her observations: secure, ambivalent-insecure, and avoidant-insecure.  A fourth attachment style was proposed by Main and Solomon (1986) known today as disorganized-insecure attachment, frequently corresponding with the mental health disorder called Reactive Attachment Disorder (RAD).  Here’s a great link for promoting healthy attachment in kids, particularly those diagnosed with RAD: http://www.attach-china.org/activities.html

Schore (2001) explains the process of finding the balance between separation and attachment as follows: 

Infant resilience emerges from an interactive context in which the child and parent transition from positive to negative and back to positive affect, and resilience in the face of stress is an ultimate indicator of attachment capacity and therefore adaptive mental health (p. 21).

The nature of the kind of relationship we form with our children leads to specific behavioral responses on the part of our children, particularly in stressful situations and in intimate relationship.  When we listen to ourselves and our children’s cues for happiness, discomfort, sadness, hunger, loneliness, tiredness, sickness, and fear we reassure ourselves and our children about our capacity for caring, for courage, for emotional regulation, and we once again restore our homeostatic and symbiotic balance after stress.  Stress is, after all, an unavoidable part of life. Our kids are just looking for us to be their constant secure base and safe haven, especially during those stressful moments. 

Keep in mind that the vast majority of us form secure primary attachments early in life.  It is a small minority of us that fall into the following categories of insecure attachment styles that can form based on a poor quality of our primary attachment relationship(s):

(Courtesy of Kendra Cherry, http://psychology.about.com/od/loveandattraction/ss/attachmentstyle.html)

If you are curious what your attachment style is, check out this survey developed by attachment theory specialist, Chris Fraley, PhD, at the University of Illinois:  http://www.web-research-design.net/cgi-bin/crq/crq.pl Be aware that this survey is primarily based on research about adult romantic attachment relationships as an indicator of attachment style.  My advice would be, take it with a grain of salt.  It might be interesting or simply confirm what you already know to be true…why, for example, you may hover as a parent or never want to play the “Feelings” game. 

Keep in mind that you need not be filled with regret if your own early attachment experiences were not positive. Adult romantic and/or otherwise intimate relationship learning contribute significantly to our later ability to attach as parents to our own children.  Where there is life, there is hope!  To be inspired by this message, watch The Human Experience (it is now available on Netflix as an instant download).

Dr. Lisa’s Parenting Tip:

If you are worried about improving your own or your child’s ability to form secure attachment relationships, seek therapeutic support—particularly someone trained in child development, attachment theory, and family systems therapy.  In addition, most states and/or provinces offer early child intervention services (ECI) available in major city centers.  Knowing what we do about the importance of forming secure attachments and early intervention with childhood developmental disorders like autism and Reactive Attachment Disorder (RAD), particularly during the first three years of life, it is essential to reach out for support earlier than later!  Remember, one of the most important ways to boost resilience is reaching out for support when you need it. 

A helpful book for any parents of children with RAD is When Love is Not Enough: A guide to parenting children with reactive attachment disorder (rad) by Nancy Thomas or Attachment-Focused Parenting: Effective Strategies to Care for Children by Daniel Hughes.

Sources:

Ainsworth, M., Blehar, M., Waters, E., & Wall, S. (1978). Patterns of attachment: A

psychological study of the strange situation. Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum.
Bowlby, J. [1969], (1999). Attachment (2nd ed.), Attachment and Loss (Vol. 1). New York: Basic Books.
Bowlby, J. (1988) A Secure Base: Clinical Applications of Attachment Theory.  London: Routledge.

Main, M. & Cassidy, J. (1988). Categories of response to reunion with the parent at age

6: predictable from infant attachment classifications and stable over a 1-month
period. Developmental Psychology, 24, 415-426.
Fraley, C. (2010). A brief overview of adult attachment theory and research. Retrieved January 30, 2011, from University of Illinois: http://internal.psychology.illinois.edu/~rcfraley/attachment.htm

Roisman, G. & Chris Fraley, C. (2008). A behavior–genetic study of parenting quality,

infant attachment security, and their covariation in a nationally representative
sample. Developmental Psychology, 44, (3), 831–839 doi: 10.1037/0012-
1649.44.3.831.

Rutter, M. & Taylor, E. (2002) Child and adolescent psychiatry. (4th ed.). Oxford:

Blackwell Publishing.

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

Warren, S., Huston, L., Egeland, B., & Srouge, A. (1997). Child and adolescent anxiety

disorders and early attachment. Journal of the American Academy of Child &
Adolescent Psychiatry, 36, (5), 637-644. doi: 10.1097/00004583-199705000-
00014.

Happy Mother’s Day!

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Happy Mother’s Day to all our wonderful mother readers around the globe!

May you honor yourself today and everyday for the vital role you play in your child’s life. Parenting requires everyday and heroic acts of courage to be the best parents we can be. Never underestimate how important you are in a child’s life, as a powerful model of courage, compassion, and caring.

Blessings on the parenting journey!

Courage Quote of the Day

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“You gain strength, courage, and confidence by each experience in which you really stop to look fear in the face.  You are able to say to yourself, ‘I have lived through this horror.  I can take the next thing that comes along.’ You must do the thing you think you cannot do.”~ Eleanor Roosevelt

Courage Challenge of the Day

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Lion’s Whiskers offers this courage challenge: Choose a worthwhile cause that your family can donate some time, petition signatures, or money to this month.  The organization or cause could be local or global.  Here are a couple of websites devoted to making your search for your family’s cause easy: Charity Navigator or Global Giving.

Developing the moral courage to be the kind of concerned citizen active in local and global causes begins at home.  Discuss with your child causes that are important to you: environmentalism, religious freedom, reducing poverty, or combating racism (just to name a few).  If your child is young, you could spark a discussion about animal welfare and the protection of endangered species, like Panda or Polar bears. Read Jennifer’s story about Holocaust rescuer Irene Opdyke to become inspired about how moral courage and activism starts at home with small steps leading to heroic strides.

“A small group of thoughtful people could change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has.”
~ Margaret Mead

 

What’s a true story from your life about inspiring your children to develop a charitable consciousness and/or one of the examples from your life when you demonstrated moral courage by giving to something or to someone in need?

Everyone Is a Hero

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Everyone is the hero of her own story, her own heroic journey. We only play secondary roles in other people’s journeys – guide, helper, obstacle, shadow, grail. Having a deep understanding of this allows us to put responsibility where it belongs: I am responsible for the choices in my heroic journey, you are responsible for the choices in yours. Either making ourselves responsible for someone else’s story, or making someone else responsible for ours, creates havoc, weakness, and confusion. Courage often means seeing the difference between my story and yours, and knowing which role to act.

Let me put this another way: If you are playing a passive role, awaiting rescue by a hero, then by definition this is not your story! You are right now playing a secondary role in someone else’s story! When you step back into the active role of hero you are inhabiting your own story again, and you are back on your own heroic journey.  You are back on your path.   You can also see this from Dr. Lisa’s perspective as the question of locus of control: do you believe you are an active agent in your life (internal locus of control) or do you think the actions of others are dictating yours (external locus of control.)
Children are by nature self-centered, taking the lead role in the only story in the world that counts – their own. All other people are merely supporting characters who dwell in suspended animation until their turn comes to deliver their lines on the child’s stage. But if I can reveal to my daughter that all those other people are also the heroes in their own stories, she might begin to see that they all probably have something else to do besides think about her. It might make it more obvious who should be taking an active, heroic, courageous role.  Sometimes it takes courage to admit when you are not the hero.  In other words, sometimes it takes courage to shut up and do nothing!  As a parent, I have to remind myself again and again to be  mindful of when it’s appropriate for me to step aside and allow my daughter to take the lead.
But how to illustrate this for a kid? How to show that there are millions of heroic stories unfolding and crossing paths simultaneously, like a massive, multi-plex cinema where you sometimes hear the sound effects from next door through the walls? I find the multi-plex cinema image exciting and beautiful. It opens my eyes to a world full of heroes. So here’s something I’ve done all my life:
I went for a walk the other day with the dog. As we passed a shriveled little old house, a shriveled little old lady stepped out the front door to get the mail. “Hello,” I said. “Hi,” she replied in a shriveled little old voice. She looked like an apple head doll.
Wow, I thought. I hope I’m still bringing in the mail when I’m that old.
What’s her story? I wondered as I walked on. Who was she before she was so very old? A bank robber? A rodeo clown? An army nurse? Was she born in that house or did she immigrate from far away? Where was she during WWII? Was she a great beauty who broke many hearts? Did she have a dozen great-grandkids or was she all alone? Was she famous for her pies or her pinochle playing? Did she have a great sorrow in her past? And what was it she found in her mail? Tickets to a cruise? Test results from the doctor? A reconciling letter from a prodigal son?  Is she someone who has lived  her life with inspirational moral courage or someone for whom a lack of social courage has been a lifelong barrier? This is just a simple “I wonder” game, but it’s powerful in its simplicity. I’m not prompted to seek her out and ask her; I really don’t need to know. It’s enough that I see her as someone with her own story. I don’t need to see the story itself, I just need to see that there is a story.
This is what I want to teach my daughter to see. This is the game I will play more and more as the Lovely K. grows too old for Aesop’s fables and the legends of Hercules. I want to show her that when we recognize the hero in another person, it gives us strength to resume our own heroic journey. It gives us the courage to keep walking.

Damon and Pythias, BFFs

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The yearning for a BFF runs deep. When I was a child, one of my favorite stories from Ancient Greece was the legend of Damon and Pythias. I haven’t run across it in children’s literature for a long time, however, possibly because of homophobia – I’m not sure, really. All I can say is that it spoke directly to my soul when I was young and had a BFF, and we dreamed that nothing would be better than for us to live together forever, as only best friends can dream. We drew detailed floor plans of the house we would build, remodeling it constantly – at one point it had a room-sized aviary that would house all our parakeets and zebra finches. It was a dream of complete reasonableness for us.
          So, the legend of Damon and Pythias:
          Two men, Damon and Pythias, were the best of friends, loving each other and living as brothers, sharing everything in the greatest joy and confidence and mutual trust. The claim that each would be willing to lay down his life for the other was no exaggeration, for it was put to the test.

It happened that they were visiting the kingdom of Syracuse, and the tyrant king suspected Damon of making slanderous statements against the tyrant. For this crime, Damon was sentenced to death; but he begged leave to return to his home to say farewell to his family, promising to return and accept his punishment. The tyrant refused, saying that Damon would use the chance to escape, but Pythias stepped forward, offering himself as hostage. If Damon did not return one month from that day, the tyrant could execute Pythias instead.
               The cruel king thought Pythias was a fool, but agreed to the terms, and Damon departed. For the entire month, Pythias confidently awaited his friend’s return. Yet the day of execution arrived, and Damon had not come back. The king mocked Pythias’ misplaced loyalty, and told the executioner to make ready. Pythias never doubted his friend, however. He knew Damon would not abandon him, and that there must surely be a reason for the delay. He went to the place of execution without wavering in his trust and love for Damon.
             Almost at the last possible moment, Damon arrived on bleeding feet. He had been on his way back to Syracuse when his ship had been seized by pirates. After much struggle he had escaped, but with no money he had been forced to make his way the best he could, and walked night and day without rest to make the deadline. He wept with joy to see he had not been too late, and that his friend was still alive.
             The king, astonished by their self-sacrifice and courage, and humbled by a friendship that erased the fear of death itself, pardoned Damon, and the two friends returned to their own country.
            That kind of unwavering confidence in a friend takes a lot of emotional courage. Trust can be hard! But to have that confidence and be worthy of it in return is the ideal of the BFF. When I hear K. and B.  talk about how awesome it would be if our families bought a big house and lived there together so they would never have to part, I know the story of Damon and Pythias would make complete sense to them. It made sense to me.