Teachable Moments

Tonight, as I helped in the bedtime routine of our three children, I pulled out a book of complied comic strips. Calvin and Hobbes is my favorite, and so I have now introduced Watterson's work to my two oldest. After a half dozen pages they were asking for more.

I'm not sure why they like it; maybe because the main characters are a kid and his stuffed animal. Maybe they sense in my reading how much I enjoy the strip. In the course of reading I stopped to explain why Hobbes looks like a stuffed animal in panes where parents are present and why when Calvin's parents are not in the scene, Hobbes appears to be a real, live tiger. It's fun to watch the kids let that soak in, knowing how much they identify with Calvin, with their own imaginations. There were other things I stopped reading to explain. Using moments when Calvin misbehaves or gets reckless to reinforce lessons the kids have heard in other contexts.

Using the context of a kid and his tiger and allowing my children to view their lives as seen and understood from a kid's perspective seems to me brilliant parenting. Thinking about my wisdom (or lack thereof) of reading this strip to my children got me thinking about my own way of knowing and learning life lessons. Since coming out of a dark period I've recently realized how important it is to step back and see for yourself what it is you're doing. Through a series of events and disappointments, I've been able to look at the experiences themselves, from my past, and probe them with questions and view them from a distance; sort of like seeing your life lived out on paper and reading about it.

Through it all, the darkness and the light, I've learned a lot about me. I'm still processing and progressing on a plan to bring it all together for a greater purpose. But tonight, my kids taught me, by a simple example of self examination.