STORY and The Inner Lives of Children: a further exploration of the theme of revisiting the treasures of childhood

STORY and The inner lives of children: a further exploration of the theme of revisiting the treasures of childhood

Here I examine how reading Daniel Pink’s thoughts about “Story” led me to exploring the work of Robert Coles, Harvard psychiatry professor. Researching his work as first encountered and seen on SOF – “Speaking of Faith” extended interviews. http://speakingoffaith.publicradio.org/ (Psychiatrist Robert Coles has spent his career exploring the inner lives of children. He says children are witnesses to the fullness of our humanity; they are keenly attuned to the darkness as well as the light of life; and they can teach us about living honestly, searchingly and courageously if we let them.)

I then watched the Video of his lecture at Harvard U. (Also - Noted his work with the Duke U. Center for Documentary Studies and Alex Harris’ books and magazines, such as, Double Take, written and edited in collaboration). “The Spiritual, Moral, and Inner Life of Children” is a wise and thoughtful interview with author, interviewer, Krista Tippett. It’s about retaining and not forgetting one’s childhood, capturing your own particularity and spontaneity. How to keep the unquenchable sense of curiosity about the world, of what it means to be human. The “Whys” that we hope our children continue to ask, that we need to continue to ask on our own. STORY is at the heart of it all. How do this and children’s budding political insights and a sense of fairness and justice inform a sense of Global Mindedness, of the Internationalism emphasized in the IB curriculum.

The urgent human need to hope in the face of fatefulness…the importance of STORY. How children represent God in drawings that explore the beyond. Arguing the profound, when their resolution to their arguments is that, ”…well God is God”. ART often clarifies their thoughts, in Picturing-the-Stories they have learned or invented, they comprehend at a deeper level. “How do you see God? Draw it out”.

Which questions do you continue to ask throughout a lifetime? Remember that. You too can connect to the freewheeling search for MEANING that is humanity’s eternal quest (Victor Frankel – Man’s Search for Meaning)

• Children’s witness and wisdom on view in their letters and drawings.
• Repossessing Virtue, transgression, forgiveness, and redemption big concepts to grasp, yet children explore such questions naturally, intuitively
• Living searchingly and gracefully even in the face of hardship
• They are witnesses to the fullness of our humanity, for they see us as we are.
• They ask “Why?” an important part of all of our lives, (the unexamined life is not worth living)
• Their insights are likely often ignored
• Whence your identity? What have you been given, what have you learned?
• The questions are often worth perpetually asking, since the answers are not fixed.
• Where comes justice? Where comes a sense of morality?
• Should we foster a rebelliousness that questions, does not settle, but continues to unsettle. Question any conventional beliefs. This seems healthy, yet too often the repressive attitude is that “children should be seen and not heard.”
• A merger of the natural curiosity about the world with speculation and storytelling. The stories that enrich a lifetime. Story naturally engages. draws us in, storytelling is quintessential to humanity's search for meaning, for mattering.
• Fundamental questions are daring, soulful, seeking, a spiritual quest. Are these not the essence of all the great epic stories?
• We are all hoping the answers will come, will reveal themselves somehow.
• Mystery is such an important part of it, Mystery with power and magic therein contained.
• Rejoice in the mystery, the alluring unknown, as a vital aspect of our lives.
• The emergence of our being is formed by our setting, our parents, teachers, and our society--by the stories we are told, or happen to overhear.
• Connecting with the mystery is profound.
• Are children born with proclivities to delve, probe, to poke around, to know? One must be curious to grow. This is just part of their being, they come to us thus.
• If this curiosity is celebrated and encouraged by the adult world, it can lead to a relationship with The Something More, with the Beyond Ourselves, with God, Goddess, All-That-Is.
• Children are all searching for answers about what we are doing here.
• Frailty and Loss, suffering, vulnerability, grasping for answers in the face of suffering, religion is there to help us ponder, to reflect and pursue seeking redemption. Consider religious experience that arises naturally, just listen closely to a group of young children, you will often be amazed by the profundity of their thought.
• As narrators we tell stories, at the heart of all traditions. It is a connection that children know how to listen to stories. A world full of unfolding stories, an echoing presence stories that will touch you to the bone. Struggling with our downsides and our upsides, our lesser self and our more actualized self. We find all these in stories.
• The truths that can come through a larger calling of stories, larger than life figures that call to us and work their way under our skin, the heroes and heroines.
• Curious and alive imaginations, ready to probe, these we should wish for our children.
• Stories that are lyrical and poetical, symbolical, metaphorical.
• They will speak it out if we do not inhibit them. Listen to them. Listen to their stories.
• Often seen, the Qualities of childhood that mark later lives of leadership.
• Of all denominations, certain convergences, Spirit and the Mystery, our need for ritual, for celebrating, for reflecting and pondering. They know, they know. Prayer as an aspect of our urgent need to HOPE.
• Listen to their exploratory theology.
• Encourage their STORY-making.

Coles is Professor Emeritus of Psychiatry and Medical Humanities at Harvard Medical School. He's the author of many books, including the Pulitzer Prize-winning series: Children of Crisis and The Moral Intelligence of Children, and The Spiritual Intelligence of Children.