emotional kryptonite

  

Yesterday we had cartoons on the TV, and there was a Batman/Superman/Spiderman thing the children were watching.  My daughter commented she likes Superman - but also Hulk.  It seemed to be about being strong and brave.  So it got me to wondering about how I could relate these ''superhero'' qualities to the values and characteristics I have been trying to work on with my kids.


As I have mentioned over at my other blog as well, there's been a lot of talk at my house of late about hurt and forgiveness.  These are big concepts to grasp, especially for children. And so I had been trying to work out how to get these ideas into practical terms for my 9 year old (in particular) to understand.  We've talked about how being angry is like letting someone mean live in your head.  We've talked about how forgiving someone makes your heart feel lighter.

The superhero thing suddenly made a whole lot more sense.  And in particular I was thinking about what super-qualities might apply to anger.  There it was:  Forgiveness is like kryptonite to conquer anger.   I talked about this with my daughter last night, as she is currently wrestling with the idea of having to forgive someone who hurt her deeply as a very young child.  She says she's almost afraid to do it -  I think perhaps she feels that the anger gives her some power over her thoughts and reactions to that person.

I left the ideas with her, reassuring her that it was not something that might happen easily, and nor would the feelings magically disappear - but that by applying her ''kryptonite of forgiveness'' to the angry feelings, she could take some of the sting out of them.  She understood and promised to think about it.

Keep you posted