Brave

We took Liv to see the movie BRAVE last week.  She loved it.  Although we had heard some parents say it was "too scary" we did not find it so.  There was a fight between two bears, but the good bear won in the end.  Life is not always cotton candy and teddy bears and I think that too many times in our society we try to "sugar coat" everything.  This leads to a lot of ill prepared youth graduating from high school and college without a clue how to handle the challenges which occur in "real" life.

I'm not saying we shouldn't protect our children from traumatic events and harm if possible, quite the contrary.  What I am saying is that we need to explain the good and bad and that things don't always work out the way we want them to no matter how hard we work and no matter how much we want it.  No one is entitled to a carefree life.  It just doesn't happen, and at some point every person is going to have to deal with frightening or unpleasant circumstances.  We need to PREPARE our children for these life events without scaring them to death or discouraging them.

In our country today children are not leaning about common things like managing finances, choosing a mate, raising children, birth control and choosing a correct career path.  None of us are being taught how to handle serious illness, death and dying.  As a result, when many people "hit a wall" and have to face these problems, they crumble.

Brave was an excellent movie about a girl who wanted to determine her own fate and not have someone else decide everything for her.  Girls today need to be encouraged to to just that.  Reach for the stars, it is possible.  Teach your kids to set realistic goals and reach for them and not to be afraid to fail.  Some of our greatest lessons are learned when we are in the valley of failure.  Teach them to dust themselves off and get up and try again.  Prepare them for the challenges of life and don't try to protect them from the "boo boos" life is going to hand out along the way.

Go for it!