Courageous Ideas to Help Parents Teach
In Partnership with Richard and Linda Eyre

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

·      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.