Courage can be defined as the audacity of trying to do something good but difficult to achieve. It is the power of not doing as everybody else does, and instead, keeping ones’ opinion and even convincing the others of it.

It means being faithful to your own ideas, being guided by your good instinct even when it seems inconvenient or foolish to others.

It is the audacity of being friendly, showing your feelings, being frank and sincere.

Courage is a character’s quality and it is possible to teach it to our children.

We all know that having courage is not an easy task.

Once a child I know, told his colleagues, in an occasion when they were insisting that he followed them on doing something wicked: “You need a lot of courage to be a coward. When all your friends are trying to convince you to do something you believe it isn’t right, and you are called a coward, you need a lot of courage to say: ‘”Yes, you’re right, I am a coward.’”

It is important to make clear to our kids the difference between courage and boasting. The silent courage is the one we should try to teach them. Courage to say no to something that they know is wrong. Courage to approach that child that has no friends and say: “Hi, how are you? Would you like to play with me?”

As parents we should be alert to the efforts that our children make, helping them to get over the difficulties and stimulate them. If a small child is learning how to cycle, just the fact of being able to sit on the saddle should be prized.

Trying to achieve something is the important thing, even if without success. Every single attempt must be encouraged, stimulating the child to try repeatedly. We should say to them how better they get at each attempt.

When a baby manages to take food into his or her mouth alone, he or she manages to sit on the sofa, or maybe stands up for the first time. These precious moments should be encouraged.

Did you fall off? Stand up. Try again. Haven’t you manage to put the puzzle together? We can try to do it together.

Our children will be courageous if we bring them up correctly, if we teach them to think before they act, if we teach them to say “no” with confidence and encourage them to practice whatever seems difficult to them.

When facing something new, everybody feels that his or her heartbeat is faster. It is good if our kids know that even we adults have difficult tasks to achieve and that we need courage.

We must stimulate the moral courage on them, that one that makes them not follow their friends or colleagues when they do not agree with what’s being done. The moral courage to say the truth when it would have been much easier not to do it.

We should be the courage’s model to our children, as they learn what they experience. They observe us, they look at us, and they imitate us.

 Did you know that...?

...a good way to teach courage is to encourage them to look into people’s eyes when they speak?

...that being courageous also means not to have anything to hide from others?

...when we look into someone’s eyes it is as we were saying, “I trust you and you can trust me”?

Text written by Spiritist Moment Team, based on the book Teaching values to your children - chap. 2. Translated by Huei Lin Allegretti.