Who Is Your Child’s Hero?

My lovely mum always told me to be my best self and she gave me lots of examples through stories of how to be a hero.

She always told me stories of people who did their very best to shape and change things so others had better lives. She told me about Rosa Parks, Emmeline Pankhurst, Martin Luther King. What heroes and heroines to litter my childhood….they made wonder woman look purely pants!

Mum was my biggest heroine though – she always was her best self…full of a generosity of spirit and an ability to go the extra mile even for a stranger. There is a lovely story in our family of mum bringing home a hungry homeless man for tea because he had told her he was hungry. Granny obliged but didn’t let her out again for a while! Mum remained that innocent and kind.

My Great Granny had been a similar woman and she lived in the country. On the side of her cottage fence in code the homeless travelers of the day alerted each other to the fact that tea and biscuits could be found here. She was unafraid to open her lovely cottage to anyone. What a great story.

My son is 6 . He knows about Rosa Parks now too, he knows why Barak Obama is important and who won the competition to be in charge of our country. He knows about Mother Theresa and his Great Great Grandma’s tea parties. He loves these stories and make me tell them again and again.

Life in it’s reality is full of inspirational heroes and fabulous true stories. Who needs Ben 10 when you have a gutsy Grandad who lost an eye under a train and was back at work the next week? Family stories and real life heroes are stories children love. They shape lives.

Go on, tell your child a true story, give them a real hero – guaranteed they will love it!