Now Rebecca, this is hardly fair. Most other posters give me something sweet to chuckle at with my morning cup of coffee. Your posts . . . I have to print off every linked article, sit down and meditate on each one, think and pray about the eternal truths that are presented, and how they ought to apply to the raising of my kids!!!!

This one, since it had the photo of a “super” at the beginning, required that I look back at a past post (which I also printed off) because it reminded me of something that Cardinal Stafford had said about the difficulties surrounding the publication of Humanae Vitae. His comments about our “sexual powers” and using them for the good somehow sparked the thought in me that we need to be raising “supers” (that’s what they’re called in The Incredibles)—those who know how to use their powers for good and not for evil. Giving them good role models such as the saints (well I suppose Superman or Mr. Incredible would also qualify), teaching them discipline in their personal lives (ahem, by example of disciplined parents!), and overall inspiring in them the love of good over evil will in at least one sense be a way to inspire them to heroic actions in their daily lives.

Keep these posts coming, Rebecca! I’ll have to ask Father if I can count this as my morning meditation!

When raising children of great character you must demand service.  They must be taught to serve their family members.  Not because they have to but because they desire to.  It starts with a mother that sacrfices for them daily. It is in giving that we receive.  Simple but not always easy.  One last thing, read about the saints.  These people led lives of great virtue.  We use there stories often.

Rebecca,

Thank you for your very thoughtful blog entry! Since the day I saw Titanic (I was a theology student at the time), my biggest complaint about the movie was that it portrayed a basically selfish guy as a self-sacrificing hero. Self-sacrifice, courage, heroism don’t just happen when a big crisis hits. Its the ones who practice these virtues in everyday life that can rise to the occasion. You are right, it is all the little things done each day that add up to heroism!! In fact, technically a person is not said to possess any particular virtue unless that virtue has become habitual in them, it has become the way they automatically act, not the way they act every once in awhile when they really try hard. When the going gets tough, when your life or well-being are on the line, you will not act with virtue unless you have been doing it habitually for quite a while.

With kids I think this means we help them to act in self sacrificing ways (not just giving up sweets for lent, though these things help as well). For example, I am trying to teach my 6 and 4 year old to respond to their 2 year old sister’s needs. When she hurts herself, they should be there to help her up, when she needs help, they should be there to offer. Too often they ignore crying or cries for help because...well, they hear it all day! And they don’t have the maturity to distinguish one cry from another. However, they can learn to look and see if she needs help, or to help her up if they have knocked her down. This will hopefully translate into helping people that are not part of their family. My four year old son is getting in the habit of holding open the door for us, and that sometime translates into holding it for others. Sometimes it is just a matter of noticing someone else, no matter how small and insignificant, and being willing to lend a hand, step aside, or even just smile.

A related thought has been stirring in me lately...that of whether or not we take young children seriously enough. I don’t mean treating them like adults and not letting them be kids. I mean that even in their “kidness” they are quite capable of being sincere and serious, even devoted, about certain things. Two examples are in my head: one is the little Chinese boy who was seen walking into the Olympic opening ceremony with the very tall Chinese basketball player. The boy was a victim of the earthquake there not too long ago, and after crawling out of the rubble himself, he went back in to save classmates. When asked why he did it, he said because he was a monitor (had some sort of “in charge” role in his classroom) and felt responsible. This little boy took so seriously a job that we smile patronizingly about, that he ended up saving lives as part of that role.
The other example is the confession of a young child. I have heard of priests complaining about hearing the laundry list confessions of little ones, sure they are wasting their time and energy on things that are “not really sins anyway”. But to those little children they are sins...they are failings for which they want forgiveness. They are the makings of those nasty little habits we in the adult world call “vices”. If we ever want our kids to grow in virtue and conquer vice, we better take their earliest efforts seriously...they do!

(sorry for rambling on...back to the real world. )

Anyone else believe this is an extension of being pro-life?  You know, a basic philosophy of protecting the weak and helpless?

In considering this, I think my husband and I are just trying to instill in our children the basic idea of service above self.  This begins at home by teaching our children to care for and protect their younger siblings. Our hope is that these lessons taught at home will naturally extend outside of the home as they grow in grace and maturity.

Great post and great comments too.  I wanted to share a recent conversation I had with my m-i-l last week---regarding the kids playing on a sports team but never being able to play in the game.  Two of our boys play football.  One starts and has since he began in 2nd grade.  Our HS age son has never started yet is going out for the team.  My m-i-l shared with me that my husband was on the freshman team in HS but since he never played, they made him quite.  She didn’t agree with kids not getting to play--ALL kids should get to play.  That could be another entirely different discussion, but I shared with her our(mine AND my husbands) feelings about the game and why it was okay if our kids did not get to play.  Talking football especially, it is a TOUGH sport--physically and (especially) mentally.  And it is a TEAM sport.  (I am not trying to down any other team sport...).  There is NO WAY that any starting line-up of any football team can be competitive unless they have a tough, determined, self-sacrificing “second-string” to work/against with in practice.  There is no shame for those uniformed men to stand on the sidelines while the team works towards a victory.  Those sideliners are what got that on-field team where they are. 

Staying on the team even when we don’t play is a lesson in being a hero.  Supporting the talents of those who have more talent maybe than you do--even if they are arrogant, unappreciative, etc.--is learning how to be a hero-saint.  Learning how to be a hero--a saint--covers all facets of our lives. 

Thanks for another good piece to think about!

Unlike patience or temperance, courage is a virtue that we can’t regularly exercise.  It’s a virtue of extraordinary circumstances.  But we can heap our children with heroic stories!  The priest from my childhood parish used to tell us all about St. Maria Goretti, St. Agnes, St. Tarcisius and St. Dominic Savio and many other young martyrs.  The jury is still out on whether this approach works--I’ve never been called to “take a bullet” as they say.  Still, I think that admiration for courage in the face of death is a great start for a young child.

I agree with Maurisa that this has a lot to do with recognizing the dignity of life- your own personal dignity and other’s too.  If you don’t value life, why save it or other’s? 
I also feel like in order to teach my children virtue, I have to fight the desire to do everything for them.  There is such a feeling of entilement in youth, and our culture.  I saw it when I was teaching- “I deserve the A"- even if they didn’t do the work.  One of the reasons people don’t stand up and fight is because they haven’t been taught to think for themselves, or to think about others. Also, they’ve been protected from suffering any consequences of their own actions so often that they don’t know how to react in emergency situations. 
It’s an uphill battle, one that I struggle with- balancing the nuturing with the tough love.

My oldest son went through a “super hero” phase a couple of years ago.  He’d never watched Batman or Spiderman, or read any books about them, but he would zoom around the house in his capes “saving” the world ( or his little sister who wasn’t so sure she needed saving).  Once while wearing his Spiderman helmet, shoes, and shirt he said, “I’m Spiderman!” He ran off into the distance and then came running back and asked, “Mom, what does Spiderman do anyway?” I realized then I had a lot to teach my little hero.  It’s one thing to feel like a superhero, and it is another to actually be one.

I don’t know where I heard the quote: “Heroes are not born, they are made”. I believe it’s true. It is in the daily routine that we are given many ways to develop character, integrity and self-sacrifice attitudes. All the “teachable moments” we have with our children are
God given opportunities, and we need to take full advantage of them. However, many times we are so busy or tired that we missed them. When we do take the time, we see how faithful God is in providing all we need to teach our children his ways. I also think that there is no greater witness to our children than our own faith walk to help them learn those “Heroes qualities”. How we respond daily to our personal challenges; how we express ourselves; how we relate to others;do we make use of God’s graces through the Sacraments etc, etc, speaks volumes to our children.
My last point is that besides the lives of the Saints, we can also find the great Heroes of the Faith in the Bible.
God bless
Gabriela

I think one thing we need to do is tell them stories of true heroes, to let them know what kind of behavior we admire.

There are stories that go along with history and there is interesting (not sappy or preachy) fiction with examples. There are stories in the newspaper every couple of weeks. 

At the time of the Titanic, most of the literature aimed at children tried to install virtues of heroism, courage, etc. Some of it was very poorly written, but it was enough for the passengers to know what was expected of them and to feel that it could (and should) be done.

This is a topic I have thought about often. I was in high school when the Columbine tragedy happened, and I was a college instructor when the Virginia Tech tragedy occurred. My fellow instructors and I were then trained on what to do if a gunman entered our classrooms, and it went like this: do whatever he/she tells you and try to stay behind a desk. Or jump out a window. We had some discussions about if that course of action is really the best or if challenging the attacker would be better. I just don’t know. At the time, I was pregnant and I knew that my first instinct would be to protect my unborn child, which would have meant probably not rushing a person with a gun. I don’t think I blame anyone for “freezing” or for running away. I honestly don’t know if I have it in me to throw myself at a guman if I have just seen people around me get shot.
Anyway, there is a child development specialist named Chuck Smith at Kansas State University who studies courage in kids. He also happens to be Catholic, I think! He has written a book about it, so check it out!

One of the most terrible crimes perpetuated in our society is the way in which we emasculate our boys.  Movies, television shows, music, and literature aimed at our young regularly portray men as either buffoons or brutes.  Given those examples of manhood, many of our boys choose a protracted adolescence.
Suburban life is sterilized of any minor harm, challenge, or necessity of thinking on one’s feet, that it is no wonder that young adults today are left unprepared for adversity.  In an effort to keep our children safe, we have made them wienies. 
Jen in OK