The Wisdom of Mr. Rogers

Unfortunately, 2021 has not offered much hope.  In the short 7 days, we changed the calendar over to a new year we have seen COVID numbers rise and political unrest in our nation’s capital.  We had so much anticipation that when 2020 ended, 2021 would be ushered in with physical and emotional healing.  It has not.  Not yet.

In the past year we have tried to tackle topics like keeping kids safe, anxiety that families might be enduring, and how to make situations a “teachable moment”.  And although these are very relevant and still apply, I wonder if there is more to all of this than just trying to give the adults tools to help the children.  How can children change their own outlook so that it effects their world for the long term?

In walks Mr. Rogers…….

“Imagine what our neighborhoods would be like if each of us offered, as a matter of course, just one kind word to another person.”

Have you been on social media these days? I deleted Facebook off my phone because of the hateful things people were saying.  What if we were as quick with a kind word as we were to give an opinion?

“When I was a boy and I would see scary things in the news, my mother would say to me, 'Look for the helpers. You will always find people who are helping.”

It’s really a matter of perspective.  Change your focus, your lens, seek out people who doing things to positively change the world. Look for the helpers. Be a helper.

“We live in a world in which we need to share responsibility. It’s easy to say ‘It’s not my child, not my community, not my world, not my problem.’ Then there are those who see the need and respond. I consider those people my heroes.”

 We have a shared responsibility to the world we live in. What if the children learned early in life that other people’s problems were on some level their problems? That by responding to the needs of others would in turn not only meet the need of the individual but also meet a need in themselves.

 2021 is here to stay.  We can be disheartened or we can take this as an opportunity to change how we approach tough situations.  Research shows that situations that evoke an emotional response, whether positive or negative, are far more memorable than less dramatic ones. So choose our words to be ones that uplift, stay in control of how we respond, take time for acts of kindness and helping our community. Our kids are watching,,,,,,

Steph Chambers