Meridian Magazine : : Print

Courage Teaching Methods for All Ages
In Connection with Richard and Linda Eyre

As most Meridian readers know, Meridian Magazine, in collaboration with Linda and Richard Eyre, presents a specific and particular value each month, complete with methods for teaching that value to each age group of children. As is the pattern each month, we began August with an overview article that re-introduced this month's value. (The value of Courage was first introduced a year ago as the August Value and it now repeats itself, on the premise that children who are a year older will re-learn the same value but on a different level each year.) Click here to read the explanatory article that started this second year of monthly values.

Meridian readers can also send in their own thoughts and ideas on the value of the month. Just click the feedback button and send in ideas that have worked for you in teaching your child the value of the month. Your idea will then be incorporated into the follow up article (like this one) that goes live on Meridian during the second half of each month

Any time during the month, you can click on the "family value of the month" icon on the left side of the Meridian home page and go directly to the teaching ideas for the month. You can also get additional teaching ideas for teaching and communicating the value of the month by going to http://www.valuesparenting.com/ .

We appreciate your feedback on each value. Send your comments to Eyres@meridianmagazine.com. Meridian readers can also receive a marvelous (and free to Meridian readers) children's CD on the value of Honesty by following the instructions at the end of this column.

Methods for Teaching the Value of Courage (including those sent in by readers)

General Methods that can be Adopted for all Ages:

Catch your children being courageous.

This will nourish and fertilize their development of courage. We can't force courage on our children, and we can't give it to them. They must find it for themselves and within themselves. We can help this process by discussing courage, noticing courage in any of its forms, and praising it to the hilt whenever it occurs.

See the movie Chariots of Fire

Watching this classic movie (available everywhere on DVD or video) offers an excellent opportunity to give children clear and memorable images of particularly valiant and difficult courage. Watch the movie together. Discuss its several illustrations of courage, particularly the one when Eric Liddell stands up for what he believes before the kind of England. Look for other stories or movies that illustrate courage. Another favorite of ours is A Man for All Seasons.

Memorization

This kind of memorization exercise gives children a constant reminder that good impulses and ideas should be implemented even if we feel shy or inadequate or self-conscious.

Discuss with adolescents how often our doubts and insecurities can stop us from trying out for something or from acting on a good idea we have. Think of some personal experiences to share. Ask them to recall some. Reinforce the idea that trying and failing is better than not trying. Memorize some quotes together (and discuss them both as you learn them and as they come up in later situations):

'Tis better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all. — Shakespeare
Our doubts are traitors, and make us lose the good we oft might win by failing to attempt. — Shakespeare
A realization of the universal lack of self-confidence tends to strengthen one's own. — Anonymous
In the battle of life, it is not the critic who counts — not the man who points out where the strong man stumbled or where the doer of the deed could have done better. The credit belongs to the man who is in the arena, who does actually strive to do the deeds... who, in the end, if he succeeds, knows the triumph of high achievement and who, if he fails, at least will never find his place among those cold and timid souls who never knew either victory or defeat. — Theodore Roosevelt
There are many causes I would die for, but none that I would kill for. — Mahatma Ghandi

Courage and Its Opposites: Help or Hurt

This activity helps kids see why courage is a virtue and to focus on the reasons for developing courage. Start out by asking for antonyms or opposites for courage (cowardice, doubts, fear, tendency to blame others, etc.). Then ask for synonyms. Discuss whom courage helps and how. Then discuss whom its opposites could hurt — and how. Try this kind of a discussion at the dinner table … perhaps on a Sunday afternoon.

Methods For Pre-Schoolers:

Story of the Prince and the Dragon

The following story can help older preschoolers and young elementary schoolers relate storybook bravery to their own chances for everyday bravery:

The young prince had never seen a dragon before, but he had heard of dragons and knew of their great strength and of the hot fire they could breathe out from their fierce nostrils.

He was all alone the morning when he dragon came. He had gone for an early ride on his favorite horse and had just galloped down the path and into the woods. As he turned a corner, he found himself face to face with the dragon (who was as surprised as he was). He could have turned his horse and run, and maybe he would have escaped, but the dragon was heading for the town, and surely others would be hurt or killed.

The young prince, his heart beating fast with fright, charged straight at the dragon while it was still startled and drove his sword deep into the soft valve on the neck that is used to draw in air to make dragon fire. The dragon was killed, the kingdom was saved.

Expand and elaborate this story as you wish. Then ask, "Did the prince have courage?" (Yes.) "Do we need courage today in this world?" (Yes.) "Why? We don't have dragons!" (Because there are other things than dragons that require courage.)

Make a list of "today's dragons" — things that take courage:

Admitting you're wrong if you are.
Doing what's right when everyone else isn't.
Saying hi to a new child or a child you don't know.
Saying no when kids try to get you to do something you know you shouldn't.
Getting up early on a cold morning to practice the piano before school.

Praise the Attempt

Help your children to feel the joy of trying ant to learn that courage is in the attempt, not in the accomplishment. If a little child is trying to learn to ride a two-wheeler, or to tie his shoe, or to skip — and can't quite get it — praise every attempt and assure him that he is getting better. Don't worry about the failures. Encourage the child to try again.

Remember, you can't overpraise! Especially not on the attempts your child is making. Attempts that are praised become the superstructure of deep and lasting courage.

Teach Them to Look People in the Eye

This can help children learn a useful habit that takes courage and that gives you a good opportunity for praise. Establish a family tradition of looking people in the eye. Explain to small children that if you look right at people, they will like you and know that you like them. Practice looking in each other's eyes as you say "Hello," "How are you?" "Thank You," or as you ask questions: "Where do you live?" "What school do you go to?" And so on. Have little contests to see who can look into the other person’s eyes the longest while having a "made up" conversation.

Explain that being brave means not having anything to hide — and when we look right at someone, it is like saying, "I trust you and you can trust me." Learning to do this helps us not to be afraid to ask people questions or start conversations and it is a very real and very useful form of courage.

Methods For Elementary Age Kids:

The Red, Orange, and Yellow Game

This game makes it fun for kids to think about courage and its alternatives in various situations. Start with three pieces of construction paper or cards that are red, yellow, and orange. Ask children what they would do in various situations and hold up the color that their answer represents (red= courageous, orange=average or neutral, yellow=no courage, a little cowardly).

Alternatively, present the situation and have children see if they can give all three levels of answers. Use the following list of situations and add more of your own:

You're offered drugs by a fellow student. Yellow — you take them. Orange — you don't. Red — you report the distributor to school authorities.
You're given a difficult chance to take an advanced class in a subject you're good at. Yellow — you decline. Orange — you say, "Maybe next year." Red — you go for it.
You see your grandparents for the first time in a year. You want to hug them, but there are a lot of people around and you eel embarrassed. Yellow — you stand there and look down. Orange — you shake hands. Red — you give them a big bear hug.
A new child from another country comes to school for the first time. he probably doesn't speak English and he looks scared. Yellow — you ignore him. Orange — you wait until you see other kids talking with him and then you try it too. Red — you are the first one to talk to him.
There is a tryout for the school musical. You like to sing, but none of your friends are trying out because they think musicals are silly. Yellow — you don't try out. Orange — you try out for a minor part by yourself. Red — you tell your friends you don't think it's silly and invite them to try out with you, for a major part.
You have a sweater that you like but it's different from the kind "everyone is wearing." Yellow — you put it away and beg for one lf the kind everyone else has. Orange — you don't wear the old one or ask for a new one. Red — you wear the one you like.
Now make up your own situations, and see if your children can identify the Red, the Orange, and the Yellow behaviors.

The Story of Butch O'Hare

Tell the following story to give your children a sense of large-scale courage and true heroics:

In World War II a young pilot named Butch O'Hare was trying to get back to his carrier after his fighter plane had been damaged. His squadron commander had sent him back, feeling that his riddled craft was of little further fighting use and that O'Hare should get it back to the carrier while it would still fly.

Reluctant to leave his mission, O'Hare nonetheless followed orders and headed back toward the carrier. On the way, by chance, he intercepted a squadron of Japanese Zeros (fighter planes) flying from another angle toward the American carrier, which, without its own planes, would have little defense against them.

Despite his crippled plane, O'Hare engaged them in a dogfight and ended up shooting down six of them. Finally, when he had run out of ammunition, he began trying to fly directly into the remaining Japanese planes, hoping to knock at least one more down, even though it would cost him his own life to do so. The Japanese flight leader, seeing that he was dealing with a "mad man" — with someone who had no regard for his own life — decided to retreat and flew off in the other direction. O'Hare had attacked them with the intent of sacrificing himself in the hopes that he could bring down enough of them to save the thousands of men on his carrier.

As it turned out, O'Hare was miraculously able to coax his battered aircraft back and land it safely on the carrier. He became one of the war's most decorated heroes. A few years later the airport in his hometown of Chicago was named O'Hare Field in his honor. It was to become the busiest airport in the world.

Methods For Adolescents:

Decisions in Advance

This can help adolescents make right — and courageous — decisions before they are in situations conducive to wrong choices. Explain to adolescents that many decisions are best made early — before we're confronted with pressure to decide. Help them to make a list (preferably in the back of a journal or diary) of "decisions I have already made." For example, "I will not smoke." or "I will not cheat." or "I will graduate from college."

With each decision in advance, help the adolescent to imagine a future situation where it would be very difficult to keep the decision. Think it through together. Point out how much easier it is to do the right thing when the decision has been made in advance.

Role play situations and have the adolescent actually decide what he would say when confronted in certain ways.

When you both feel that the decision is firm, have your son or daughter write it down, date it, and sign it. These decisions in advance should be in a personal, even sacred place, like a journal or even on a blank page in the Scriptures.

Encourage Children to Try New Things

Help your children develop a more daring attitude that will broaden their perspective. Encourage them to try something other than hamburgers and fries. Remind young adolescents that there are wide varieties of good things in life and help them adopt an adventuresome attitude toward things that are inherently safe. But also be sure to point out the difference between being daring and being foolhardy.

Make a List of "Everyday Ways to Show Courage." This can help your children mentally practice the exercise of courage by thinking about common situations that would require it. Make the point that courage is not something that is only useful on a battlefield or in great and momentous situations. It is an everyday thing. Say, "Let's use our imaginations for a moment and think of some common situations that require courage, and let's give a name to the type of courage that each requires."

Here are some examples of things that require everyday courage:

Everyone else is wearing a style you don't particularly like. You decide to wear what you like rather than following the crowd. (The courage to be yourself.)
Everyone eats lunch in the hall of the school. It's a nice day and you want to eat outside. Your friends won't go out, so you go out alone. (The courage to do what you like, even if it's by yourself.)
You're with three friends who want to shoplift a couple of small things, "Just for the excitement of it." You say no, and they ridicule you. (The courage to do what's right.)
You notice a new student in English class. He's sitting by himself and looks lonely. You go over when class ends and ask him about himself and make friends. (The courage to be friendly and overcome embarrassment or shyness.)
There is an essay contest at school. None of your friends is entering it, but you would kind of like to. You've never entered a writing contest before and you're not sure you're any good at it, but you decide to give it a try. (The courage to try.)

Thanks for being with us on the Meridian Family Value of the Month. Good luck in emphasizing the value of Courage for the remainder of August, and we will see you in September, when the value is "Peaceability." And remember to send in your own ideas for teaching each value so that they can be included in "the list" that will appear in the second half of the month. Send them to FamilyValue@meridianmagazine.com.