Good • Strong • Safe

published on July 27th, 1:05 p.m.

Let’s talk about heroes. Who are your kids heroes? Who are yours? Our heroes tell us something about ourselves. They can also help point the way for us. Why all this focus on Heroes? Because somehow our society is still looking for heroes in our media and entertainment world and coming up short handed. We’ve totally lost the idea of what a hero is. We touched on it when we honored “Sully” Sullenberg, the airline pilot who safely landed his plane full of people in the river. But even that was a case of being the right person at the right time and doing the right thing. What is a true hero? Of all the descriptions in the dictionary I want to focus on this one: a hero is noted for feats of courage or nobility of purpose especially one who has risked or sacrificed his or her life. Having a nobility of purpose is what we want to instill in the students. We may not all be heroes during a war, or have the chance to risk our life for something or someone, but we can ALL be heroic in our nobility of purpose. How we live our lives, how we treat each other can show that nobility of purpose. The most common person among us is a hero when they treat other people with respect and honesty. Teaching our kids that kind of purpose for their lives can be difficult. They are surrounded by the glitz and glamour version of heroes, the kind that get all the attention, whether they want it or not. The news media thrusts people into “heroship” not necessarily because they are doing the right thing or being good people but because they have achieved a great act—top swimming awards or presidency. These things don’t make us heroes. Being a hero is an everyday job, no matter what the job may be. It’s living your life as a trustworthy person, someone who can be counted on to be responsible, dependable, with strong convictions yet willing to help teach others values and morals. It’s being a person who teaches others by their own example of kindness and giving. Teaching our kids how to be this kind of hero gives them a strong concrete base to grow their lives from. They will reach out to others, be good examples, try hard, and while making mistakes—learn from them and help others learn. Our kids can be training to be heroes when they are empathetic to other kids, when they learn about poverty and want to help those living in poverty. Our kids learn about being a hero from us, the parents, as we live our lives as heroes to our kids and most kids will list their parents on their list of heroes. Why? Our kids see us sacrifice for them, stay up late helping them with homework or that science project that is due tomorrow, building a costume or helping in the classroom with Valentine parties. Our kids are nurtured by us, not only in the food we cook for them, but by the hugs and kisses they receive, the bandaids we put on their knees and especially by the listening ear we give to them when they come to us with troubles, worries or sorrows. Our kids learn how to be heroes when we cheer them on in sports, academics or the backyard family football game or when we take the time to be with them. YOU are your child’s hero, whether you realize that or not. You may feel like that mantle has been thrust upon your shoulders, but from the moment you became their parent, you became their hero in the making and the teacher of another hero in the making. You can be the best example of what the perfect hero can be and even when we make mistakes in front of our kids, we teach them how to learn from them as we ourselves learn from them. Keep up the great work Hero. Keep those kids good, strong & safe.