• Toddler:  the next time you are hanging out together on the jungle gym, taking a walk, or tumbling in gymnastic class, see if you can create an opportunity to push yourselves just a little bit harder, just a little bit longer.  When your child says “I can’t.  I want to be carried,” see if you can coach him/her to build some endurance with the play.  Promise, “Let’s just play for 5 minutes more, and then we will take a break.  I know you can do it!”
• Preschooler:  the next time you are headed out on a wintery walk, let your child choose if he/she will wear a coat.  Pack the coat along with you, just in case.  After 5 minutes or so on the walk, ask your child “Do you feel cold enough to need your coat?”  Let them have the experience of needing to wear the coat, instead of just assuming or wanting that for them.   
• Early elementary student: ever been drenched in a rainstorm or fallen overboard?  Uncomfortable isn’t it, to be walking or swimming around in water-soaked jeans.  How about simulating such an experience for your child by encouraging them to take a bath tonight fully clothed?  See if they can stay in the tub or shower for 5 minutes in their soaking wet, heavy clothing! 
• Upper elementary student or ‘tween:  have a sit-up challenge with your child tonight.  Before heading to bed, ask your child if they would like to see how many sit-ups you both can do in 5 minutes.  You can do them as slowly or quickly as you want.  Teach them how to do a sit-up, if they don’t know how, or google how to do one effectively if it has been awhile.  The goal is to experience the pretty much immediate discomfort and encourage one another to push through that feeling until the timer goes off.    
• High schooler or teen:  The next time your teen goes to raid the fridge, ask “Are you hungry?  How do you know you’re hungry?”  Have a 5-minute discussion with your child about the difference between craving and hunger.  Sometimes we crave sugar and simple carbohydrates, when our bodies really need a muscle and brain building protein-enriched meal.  Sometimes we are hungry for time, attention, rest, or human connection, more than we are for food.   Sometimes out of emotional discomfort, we hope food will fill the void.  True hunger is different.  A discussion like this can also help us develop compassion for what it might be like to be truly hungry due to poverty or famine and to develop gratitude for the food that we do have in our fridge.  Pausing before eating can also help develop tolerance for being “just a little bit hungry” and still being okay when we can’t immediately satisfy every craving. 

“That’s not fair!” is a common complaint most of us will hear from our child at some point–especially if we have more than one and cake is involved.  Before we can teach our child what fairness is, revisiting the dictionary definition can be helpful.  Essentially, fairness entails decision-making that is free from bias and self-interest.  To be fair is associated with being honest, just, and equitable.  Favoritism and fairness don’t go hand in hand.  These are elements of moral courage, and it does indeed often take courage to suck it up and do the right thing!  What is fair does not always feel good or even make sense to a toddler or a teen.  It can be difficult to understand the difference between fair and equal.  Therefore, our children are looking to us to model what is fair to help guide them through those uncomfortable, confusing moments when doing the right thing doesn’t feel right.  Highlight the fact that justice is blind, but the scales always balance in the end. Trusting that fact takes practice and time.

• Toddler:  The next time you notice that you’re losing your cool with your toddler because it had been a long day and the tantrums plentiful, put yourself in a safe, quiet time-out for five minutes.  If you employ this discipline distraction technique, having your toddler watch mommy or daddy sit quietly on the kitchen floor or in a favorite chair might suddenly make the concept of obedience and punishment seem fair.  Ensure your toddler is safe and occupied nearby, while you make time-in for yourself and take a few deep breaths.  Tell your toddler “Mommy needs to calm down and take a few deep breaths because I was raising my voice/got mad/or am feeling tired,” whatever the case may be.  Modeling this kind of equitable self-discipline might make your toddler feel that the rules are not biased quite so much in your favor as it may sometimes feel to them.   
• Preschooler: Read Paul Galdone’s The Little Red Hen together at bedtime. This tale of an industrious hen and a lazy cat, dog, and mouse might inspire a discussion about the concept of giving versus getting.  Don’t be surprised if your child notices or points out the times when you were both the industrious hen and the lazy dog.   Remember that at this age your child probably places no judgement on some of the inconsistencies they notice in your behavior; they’re just gathering information about how the world works.   
• Early Elementary: Introduce the “You cut and I choose,” rule to help level the playing field and minimize the often exhausting negotiations over who gets what piece of the pie.  The next time you are sharing a serving of food with your child, agree who will cut and who will choose the serving sizes.
• Upper Elementary or Tween: Play the “What would you do?” game during dinner tonight.  Introduce a number of possible moral dilemmas pertaining to fairness from your own life experience, or theirs, or take from our following list of possibilities:  your teacher has left out the answer key to an upcoming math test on his/her desk, do you keep it to yourself, share it with a friend, do you return it to the teacher?; you know a kid at school who is cyberbullying another of your classmates (you also find this classmate annoying), would your reaction be any different if you are good friends with either party?; a friend invites you to a party, you say “Yes,” and then another friend invites you to what you think will be a better party for the same night;  your best friend gets interviewed by a TV news station and gets lots of attention about a project that you both worked on and put in an equal amount of effort into.  Encourage discussion about these scenarios and don’t assume what the right thing would be until you’ve debated the various pros/cons of possible “right” responses. Unknowingly loading the deck against your children during these kinds of discussions can quickly silence them and/or limit their engagement–especially if your child tends to think out loud and needs time to play with the idea of what he/she wants versus what he/she is learning about what is right and fair.
• Teens: We may think we don’t make decisions based on self-interest or prejudice, but cognitive bias is a very real phenomenon that can often get in the way of fairness and impartiality.  Reinvent the classic “Coke versus Pepsi” taste test that most of us watched ad nauseam between after school TV specials when we were growing up.  Set up a test taste between your teen’s favorite national brand food or soda compared with the no-name brand.  Use a blind fold and challenge them to discover how brand versus taste focused they may actually be?  Fairness means giving each contender an unbiased, impartial try to be judged based on its own merits. 

Working on these skills may call upon different types of courage.  Review the Six Types of Courage to figure out which types your child might need to complete this workout.  

Compiled and written by Lisa and Jennifer:

It is commonly understood that habits are formed or broken in as little as thirty days.  Much of the time we are unaware of the habits that define us, instead opting to run on auto-pilot.  Today, we are suggesting that you turn off the auto-pilot.  The first step to making any kind of change is becoming conscious of how our routines, thinking and reacting to life can dominate us.  Routines can provide a great deal of comfort, but they can also box us in, particularly when they are not healthy habits.  Before your children’s habits and routines become ingrained, you can set a powerful example of flexibility in thinking, feeling and behaving.

Here’s a list of 5-Minute Courage Workouts by age range to turn off the auto pilot.

• Toddler:   On your walk today (or drive) to a daily destination, take a different route than usual.  Announce that you’ll be taking a new path and see what he or she notices.  Notice, yourself, if it seems to bring up any discomfort for your child, or if instead there’s excitement for exploring new territory.
• Preschooler:  Does your child have a security object?  Try proposing that a different teddy bear or blankie go through the day with your child. (Book recommendation: Knuffle Bunny: A Cautionary Tale by Mo Willems).  If that one is too alarming, try mixing up the bedtime routine.  Have your child “read” the bedtime story to you, or have someone else do the tucking in – or have your child tuck you in, if you’re an early-to-bed sleeper. 
• Early Elementary:  Give the mac and cheese or the corn flakes a break today.  At this age kids get habituated to favorite foods, so offer something completely different for a change.  It’s not necessary to put peanut sauce or ketchup on everything.
• Upper Elementary or Tween: This is the age of “like” and “you know” and other verbal tics.  Ask your tween to give a recitation of the day’s events without resorting to any of these lazy language mannerisms.  Get your mental scorepad ready and keep count.  Then let them turn the tables on you and have them count how often you do it, yourself.  Bet you can’t get away with a perfect score!
• Teens: Have a discussion about goals, hopes and interests now that your teen may be considering college and work options.  Provide pen and paper and ask him or her to write with the non-dominant hand a list of their future hopes, dreams and wishes.  Be prepared to be surprised by what utilizing the other hemisphere of his/her brain may prompt in terms of unexplored hopes and dreams!

Working on these skills may call upon different types of courage.  Review the Six Types of Courage to figure out which types your child might need to complete this workout.  Learning to be conscious of habits – and thus empowered to change them –  may one day save your child’s life.

Compiled and written by Lisa and Jennifer:

Here’s a list of 5-Minute Courage Workouts by age range to improve spiritual fortitude.

• Toddler: Wish upon a star tonight. Find a star with your child and make a wish, and then offer the observation that many other children around the world can see the same star.  Ask your child to imagine what that other child’s wish might be.  As your day is ending, another day is beginning halfway around the globe, but toddlers are toddlers everywhere.  The roots of empathy lie in our ability to imagine someone else’s experience. 
• Preschooler: find a book such as Wish: Wishing Traditions Around the World or    Children Just Like Me: A Unique Celebration of Children Around the World  or Wake Up, World!: A Day in the Life of Children Around the World that shows children from all walks of life and every corner of the world engaged in daily and weekly routines that will be familiar to your child.  See how many points of similarity you and your child can find between your family and the families in the book.  Depending on how much information is available about the children in the book, this can open the conversation with your  child to wonder what might be important to that other child, what home life might be like, what holidays they celebrate, what a school day is like, what breakfast might be.
• Early Elementary:  Do you remember “Roses and Thorns” from our workout on public speaking?  Consider the spiritual dimension of this dinner ritual.  Each person at the table can take turns saying what they were grateful for today, and what was challenging for them.  Introduce the possibility that everything can be part of our personal and spiritual development, and discuss what learning may be inherent in each rose and each thorn.
• Upper Elementary or Tween: Chances are, by this age your child knows someone who has died.  Take a moment to reflect upon this loss – even if it’s only a pet.  This can open the discussion about what may happen to them or you in the event of unexpected death.  Share with your kids what will happen to them if you should die while they’re still young.  Consider telling them what your final wishes are, and why.  Your beliefs about death can inform your decisions about these practical matters.   Invite your kids to explore these ideas at their own pace.  Faith, hope and love can be protective mechanisms to help us deal with our core existential fear of our own mortality.
• Teens: Has your teen experienced faith practices from around the world?  We here at Lion’s Whiskers have traveled and lived in many countries, and been exposed to a variety of religious rituals.  Here is a beautiful rendition of the Muslim call to prayer, here is a Buddhist monk chanting, here is a Jewish prayer,  here is a Gospel choir.  Share these with your teens and see where the conversation takes you.  Have they absorbed any negative subliminal or direct messages over the years through movies or on-line gaming that require some examination?  Spiritual courage doesn’t just require tolerance, it requires engaging with other religions in meaningful and thoughtful ways.  You may be surprised by how much exposure your teen has had already through school or extracurricular activities, and what you may be able to learn from them.

Working on these skills may call upon different types of courage, not just spiritual.  Review the Six Types of Courage to figure out which types your child might need to complete this workout.

The younger the mind, the more flexible the thinking.  Studies from social psychology and education show that younger children are not yet inhibited by more conventional, rational problem-solving.  We could all learn to think outside the box a little more.  Your child can help lead the way outside!

Here’s a list of 5-Minute Courage Workouts by age range to improve intellectual flexibility.

• Toddler: you’ll need to dig out some boxes from your basement or visit your local supermarket and ask for some.  Perhaps you even saved a giant box from a recent refrigerator or washing machine delivery?  Now, that would be great!  Place the box in the middle of the living room, stand back, and prepare to be amazed by how your toddler will explore what you think is “just a box.”  Your challenge is to not assume what they make of the box and simply observe.  Get down on the ground yourself, crawl around and follow their lead around the box. See how the box transforms in your own eyes. 
• Preschooler: find several boxes that can nest inside each other, like a set of Russian nesting dolls.  Large paper boxes, tissue or cereal boxes, and delicate velvet ring boxes.  Lay out all the boxes for your preschooler and say “What do you think these boxes are for?” Then, ask your child “How would you like to arrange these boxes?”  Be prepared to be surprised by the ways he/she may see the boxes in relationship to one another.  Encourage your child to think for him/herself.  If they want to have direction with this task, you could say “There is no right or wrong way to put these boxes together.  I am really curious to see what you create all on your own.”  The way your child explores space and sees relationships between objects may cause you to look at spatial relationships in ways you haven’t in years. 
• Early elementary student: find a dozen random objects from throughout your house (look for variety) and put them in a box on the dining room table.  Ask your child to sort them without explaining or suggesting what the categories might be.  If your child really craves guidance, just say “Take your best guess about at least one way these objects can be related or similar.”  Step back and resist the temptation to sort the objects for them.  See if you, too, can find more than one way to sort the objects into categories.  For example: color, shape, function, size, ownership.
• Upper elementary student:  On your next drive or walk together, ask your child to imagine a world where there are no rules and that they didn’t care what other people thought about what they (your child) did.  Now ask them what is the first thing they would do?  Share with your child what you would do if you didn’t care what other people thought, and if you didn’t box yourself into certain ways of thinking, feeling or behaving. 
• High schooler or teen: It’s time to rule the world.  Ask your teen what laws he or she would enact if put in charge of everything and everyone.  What kind of society would they like to create and what would it take to do that?  Dwell in possibility with them instead of immediately squashing idealistic proposals that you think would be difficult or unworkable or have dire unintended consequences.  Soon our teens will be our leaders; it’s best to give them time for creative brainstorming now!

Here are some additional 5-Minute Courage Workouts: Navigating the Neighborhood, Playing With Fire, A Fate Worse Than Death, Home Alone, Saying I’m Sorry, Talking Dirty,  It’s A Dog Eat Dog World

We’d love to hear about your results with one of these workouts, or share your own!

assigned twelve labors, or enormous tasks,  (giving us the word “Herculean” for a huge job). The first of these labors was to slay the dreaded Lion of Nemea.

 

• Toddler: at this age, your child is likely perfectly comfortable getting down and dirty.  At dinner tonight, put away the cutlery and eat with your hands.  Enjoy the texture, the colors, the sheer squishy sensation of feeling your food before you eat it. If you didn’t pick the ingredients from a garden, tell a five-minute story about the journey your food has taken to get to your plate. Imagine the worms that fertilized that garden squirming around your food just before the farmer’s hand pulled it out of the ground. Say a blessing for all involved in helping plant, grow, tend, harvest, package, and deliver your daily food.
• Preschooler: get some vegetable or flower or herb seeds, find a spot in the yard or pot you can fill with dirt, and plant the seeds with your child: no gardening gloves allowed! Or find a lonely, long-forgotten houseplant stashed somewhere in your home and offer it a fresh start in a bigger, nutrient-rich, new dirt home (either in your garden or in a larger pot).  Notice where your comfort zone ends with getting dirt under your nails or on your clothes.  Water the earth until it’s nice and muddy and pat down the surface together with loving care.  Talk about how the dirt will give nourishment and protection to the seed while it grows.  See dirt as life-giving and positive rather than a menace.
• Early elementary student: it’s probably been a few years now since your child has run barefoot around the yard, on the beach, or on a playground. It’s time to kick off the shoes and find some interesting paths to walk barefoot.  Spend five minutes finding as many different surfaces to walk on — some surfaces may even hurt if your tender toes have been cooped up too long.  This is where some physical courage might come in handy! 
• Upper elementary student or ‘tween:  See if you have any long-forgotten clay or a tube of facial mud mask around the house.  Plan to spend five minutes with your hands in the clay sculpting some exotic creature, or give each other a five-minute mud mask facial.  If you have the opportunity, on the next rainy day find a mud puddle and surprise yourself and your child by sitting in it!  Let go of the worry of dry-cleaning costs and what the neighbors may think.  Bask in the healing properties of mud; have you ever noticed how contented pigs seem to be?  There’s a reason.  Let the nutrients in the mud rejuvenate you and your ‘tween. 
• High schooler or teen: It’s time for your teen to cook tonight.  The meal could be as simple as spaghetti or scrambled eggs, but it’s going to be served with a twist.  Tonight, dinner is to be served on the floor!   We are not suggesting that you simply sit on the floor to eat off your plates, but that you actually eat off the floor. This could bring up all kinds of inner and outer resistance; notice what you’re feeling and explore with your teen what’s coming up for them. This may provide the perfect opportunity to test what you and your child’s comfort level with getting down and dirty is just before they leave home and eat off someone else’s floor.  You could also try just eating on the floor together, as many cultures around this world do everyday.  You may need to revisit some of the earlier dirt workouts if your teen seems to have skipped a few stages of getting comfortable with dirt.  Improvisational workouts like this provide an opportunity to practice the kind of  emotional, social, physical and for cognitive flexibility that today’s world requires.