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How Kids Grow From Adversities · Raising Daughters

0:14
Speaker 1: Hello friends, dot you. Tim Jordan back here in the
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Speaker 1: Saddle with a brand new podcast for you. And I
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Speaker 1: really like what I'm going to talk about today because
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Speaker 1: it's one of the things I do in my life
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Speaker 1: which has helped kids deal with adversity. And so I
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Speaker 1: thought I would gather and then tell you some really
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Speaker 1: wonderful stories about people who overcame adversity and how they
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Speaker 1: got learned to learn from their adversities. The nice thing
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Speaker 1: about learning from adversity is we don't need to fabricate
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Speaker 1: adversity in our kids' lives because stuff just happens, right.
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Speaker 1: Friendship issues, being dumped by your friends, breaking up with
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Speaker 1: your boyfriend, issues at home, family issues, sibling issues. Life
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Speaker 1: just happens. Failures, mistakes, not doing on, not getting not
1:00
Speaker 1: making a team. Life just comes at us. And the
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Speaker 1: good thing is every time in adversity hits us, we
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Speaker 1: have the opportunity to learn. One of my concerns about
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Speaker 1: kids today is that a lot of parents are overprotective.
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Speaker 1: And I know you've heard that a thousand times, but
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Speaker 1: I think it's pretty true. Parents they don't want to
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Speaker 1: see their kids suffer. They don't like to see their
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Speaker 1: kids make mistakes. We go around behind them and push
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Speaker 1: and prod and we kind of smooth out their paths
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Speaker 1: so they don't have to struggle, but in reality that
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Speaker 1: struggle is really important to their development. I heard a
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Speaker 1: story one time about two brothers who were raised in
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Speaker 1: a home in which their dad was an abuser. He
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Speaker 1: was an alcoholic, he was physically abusive to the kids.
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Speaker 1: One of the brothers grew up to be a very
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Speaker 1: heavy drinker and an absent parent, just like his dad.
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Speaker 1: The other brother, on the other hand, became abstinate, never drank,
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Speaker 1: He cared deeply about his wife and his kids. He
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Speaker 1: was a great father. Day the two boys went together
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Speaker 1: and they were asked by the minister how they came
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Speaker 1: to be where they were today, how they became who
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Speaker 1: they were, And both brothers gave the same answer, given
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Speaker 1: who my father was, How could I not fascinating story right,
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Speaker 1: How differently we approach and how diffinitely were affected by
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Speaker 1: our adversities. And so let me give you some fun
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Speaker 1: stories I think that will help kind of bring home
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Speaker 1: the point about how you can help your kids to
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Speaker 1: learn from their adversity so it becomes a positive instead
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Speaker 1: of a negative. The first story I have involves a
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Speaker 1: tea cup. There were two grandparents who were in the
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Speaker 1: children's shop looking for gifts for their grandkids when the
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Speaker 1: grandma spied a beautiful tea cup. Unbelievably, this teacups started
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Speaker 1: talking to the grandparents, and the teacups said to the grandma,
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Speaker 1: thank you for the compliment, but I wasn't always as beautiful,
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Speaker 1: And the grandparents asked what she meant, and she explained, well,
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Speaker 1: once I was just an ugly, soggy lomp of clay,
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Speaker 1: until one day some wet hands screwed me up and
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Speaker 1: threw me on the potter's wheel. It spun so fast
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Speaker 1: I got dizzier and dizzier until I couldn't even see straight,
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Speaker 1: and so I screamed stopped, but the potter told me
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Speaker 1: not yet. When she finally stopped spinning me around, I
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Speaker 1: was then placed into a furnace that got hotter and
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Speaker 1: hotter until I couldn't stand it, and again I cried out, stop, stop,
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Speaker 1: but again the potter said not yet. Finally, when this
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Speaker 1: teacup thought she would burn up, she was taken out
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Speaker 1: of the furnace, and then a woman began to paint her,
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Speaker 1: and the paint fumes became so unbearable it started making
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Speaker 1: her sick, and so she cried out yet again, please stop,
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Speaker 1: But the lady told her not yet. At last she stopped,
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Speaker 1: but for them, she proceeded to put her back into
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Speaker 1: the awful furst, where it was even hotter than before,
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Speaker 1: and the teacup shouted, please stop, but the potter calmly
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Speaker 1: peered in and said not yet. Finally, at long last,
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Speaker 1: she was taken out of the and set aside to cool.
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Speaker 1: And when she was all cooled off, a boy put
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Speaker 1: the teacup into a box of straw all over her
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Speaker 1: with some other teacups. Then a lady placed them all
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Speaker 1: on the shelf in the store, next to a mirror.
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Speaker 1: And this little teacup said, when I looked in the mirror,
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Speaker 1: I was amazed at myself. I couldn't believe by what
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Speaker 1: I saw. I was no longer ugly in soggy. I
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Speaker 1: now glistened and was beautiful. And I cried for joy,
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Speaker 1: and I realized that all the suffering was worthwhile, for
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Speaker 1: without it I would still be ugly, soggy, and dirty.
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Speaker 1: All that pain took on meaning and made sense to me.
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Speaker 1: I could now bring beauty and others and joy to
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Speaker 1: other people. Isn't that a great metaphor for adversity? I
4:47
Speaker 1: also read a story one time, but the Great Barrier
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Speaker 1: Reef in Australia, and that Great Barrier reef stretches some
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Speaker 1: eighteen hundred miles from New Guinea to Australia. And to
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Speaker 1: our guys, we take visitors out to view the reef.
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Speaker 1: One day on a tour. The guy was asking an
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Speaker 1: interesting question. The visitor said, I noticed on the lagoon
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Speaker 1: side of the reef it looks pale and lifeless, while
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Speaker 1: the ocean side is very vibrant and colorful. Why is this?
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Speaker 1: And the guide gave an interesting answer. He said, the
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Speaker 1: coral around the lagoon side is in still water with
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Speaker 1: no challenge for its survival, and it dies early. The
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Speaker 1: coral on the ocean side is constantly being tested by
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Speaker 1: the wind wave storms, searches the power it has to
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Speaker 1: fight for survival every day of it's life. And as
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Speaker 1: it's challenge and tested, it changes and adapts. It grows healthy,
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Speaker 1: it grows strong, and it reproduces. Then he added this
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Speaker 1: telling note, and that's the way it is with every
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Speaker 1: living organism. Great metaphor, great, great metaphor. I read a
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Speaker 1: story one time about the famous author Paul Cuello. He
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Speaker 1: decided when he was a kid growing up in Brazil
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Speaker 1: that he wanted to be a writer, and his parents
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Speaker 1: tried to dissuade him. They wanted him to be an engineer.
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Speaker 1: At that time, Brazil was a very repressive society. It
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Speaker 1: was a dictatorship. His parents were afraid about everything. Because
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Speaker 1: of that, they tried bribes with Paul. They cut off
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Speaker 1: all of his money. They took him to a psychiatrist,
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Speaker 1: and then they lost all hope. This guy is crazy.
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Speaker 1: We love him, but he's crazy. And they admitted him
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Speaker 1: to a mental institution because he wanted to be an artist,
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Speaker 1: and that parents kept telling him artists starve, they drank
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Speaker 1: too much, theyir homosexuals. But Paul escaped from the institution
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Speaker 1: and they put him back into the mental institution three
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Speaker 1: times total because he kept running away. The last time,
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Speaker 1: his parents gave up and he became a hippie. He
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Speaker 1: left Brazil. He traveled to San Francisco with only two
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Speaker 1: hundred dollars to his name, didn't speak any English. He
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Speaker 1: stayed in a YMCA. He took great about dreyhound buses, everywhere.
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Speaker 1: He was determined to become a writer, so at first
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Speaker 1: he started writing songs. He made a little bit of
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Speaker 1: money on some of the songs. When he was thirty
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Speaker 1: nine years old, he decided he had a dream that
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Speaker 1: could no longer live without being fulfilled. He said he
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Speaker 1: was killing me. I'm unhappy. So he quit everything to
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Speaker 1: write full time, and he said, I became fear from
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Speaker 1: that moment on. So what he did was he traveled
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Speaker 1: for two years with some money that he had saved up,
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Speaker 1: and in that two years, during his traveling, he wrote
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Speaker 1: a book, and he said, you have to either leave
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Speaker 1: a lot of things behind or live aware that you
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Speaker 1: are not fully treasuring the miracle of being alive. In
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Speaker 1: nineteen eighty eight, Paul Quello published The Alchemist and it
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Speaker 1: went unnoticed. The bookseller told Paul it sold one copy
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Speaker 1: the first week, but he remained confident. Six months later,
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Speaker 1: the second copy was sold to the same person who
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Speaker 1: had bought the first one. By the end of the year,
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Speaker 1: his publisher had canceled his contract. He looked for a
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Speaker 1: long time to find another publisher, but he did not
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Speaker 1: give up. When it was finally republished, word of mouth
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Speaker 1: grew and today. His book The Alchemist has sold more
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Speaker 1: than one hundred and fifty million copies worldwide. His message
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Speaker 1: to us was doll him into your fears. If you do,
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Speaker 1: you won't be able to talk to your heart. That
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Speaker 1: is a lot of adversity, and thank goodness, he did
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Speaker 1: not give up. I read that book a long time
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Speaker 1: ago and I loved it. Another author had a lot
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Speaker 1: of adversity growing up, John Green. He experienced overwhelming anxiety.
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Speaker 1: He had a lot of ruminating thoughts growing up. He
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Speaker 1: was diagnosed with OCD as a kid. It became worse
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Speaker 1: as an adult. He took medication, he went to therapy
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Speaker 1: to control it, and he used all of his issues
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Speaker 1: and all of his experiences with all of that mental
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Speaker 1: health stuff as inspiration for a lot of his relatable
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Speaker 1: book characters. The book of his that I read was
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Speaker 1: The Fault in Our Stars, which became an international bestseller,
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Speaker 1: and he also created YouTube videos to explain to people
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Speaker 1: was like to have OCD. He used his adversity for good.
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Speaker 1: Another person who did that was Abraham Lincoln. He had
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Speaker 1: a lot of adversity growing up, a lot of loss
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Speaker 1: and tragedy. He grew up very poor. His mom died
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Speaker 1: when he was nine. He was depressed as a kid,
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Speaker 1: and he ended up being depressed off and on throughout
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Speaker 1: his life. But he used his adversities to relate with people.
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Speaker 1: He could feel their pain and they could feel his,
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Speaker 1: and that made him very relatable and it's one of
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Speaker 1: the reasons why he was such an amazing president. And
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Speaker 1: when he went through some of his bad spells, he
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Speaker 1: learned to focus on his work to get through them,
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Speaker 1: so he used his adversity. Another interesting story from another
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Speaker 1: interesting man, James Earl Jones, the actor, as he stuttered
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Speaker 1: a lot and he was terrified to speak in front
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Speaker 1: of people. One day, his English teacher, a man named
10:07
Speaker 1: Donald Crouch who had worked with Robert Frost, he discovered
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Speaker 1: that James loved to write poetry. He showed his teacher
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Speaker 1: one day a poem and the teacher said, that's too
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Speaker 1: good to be your work, and the only way you
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Speaker 1: can prove it that you did it is by reciting
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Speaker 1: it by heart in front of the class. So James
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Speaker 1: nervously went from the class and he did it. He
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Speaker 1: spoke that he spoke his poem without stuttering, which inspired
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Speaker 1: him to write and speak more. At graduation that same
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Speaker 1: teacher gave gave him Emerson's book Self Reliance, which was
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Speaker 1: exactly what he had taught James self reliance and Overcoming adversity.
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Speaker 1: There are so many people in our history who have
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Speaker 1: had to overcome adversity. I think those are great stories
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Speaker 1: to tell your kids. Look for them. They're all over
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Speaker 1: it all kinds of books. Let me give you a
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Speaker 1: couple more. James Whistler a famous painter in the early
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Speaker 1: eighteen fifties. He spent a brief and academically unsuccessful period
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Speaker 1: at West Point. He just didn't fit there. One day,
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Speaker 1: while he was there, he was assigned to draw a
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Speaker 1: bridge with the rest of his classmates. So he drew,
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Speaker 1: being an artist, a very romantic stone bridge with grassy banks.
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Speaker 1: He had two small kids fishing from it. His army
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Speaker 1: instructor yielded him to get those kids off the bridge.
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Speaker 1: This is an engineering exercise. Well, the artist Whistler got
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Speaker 1: the kids off the bridge, but then he had them draw.
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Speaker 1: He had them fishing from the bank of the river.
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Speaker 1: When he showed the instructor he yelled him again. He said,
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Speaker 1: get rid of those kids, remove them, get them completely
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Speaker 1: out of the picture. With that creative artistic force inside
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Speaker 1: of Whistler was too strong. His next and final version
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Speaker 1: had the kids completely out of the picture. They were
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Speaker 1: buried under two small tombstones on the river bank. So
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Speaker 1: he persevered through his adversity at West Point, and that
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Speaker 1: spirit inside of him just could not be denied. Just
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Speaker 1: like a famous classical Indian dancer named Sudha Chandrin. I
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Speaker 1: love the story. She was cut off in the prime
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Speaker 1: of her career when she was in an accident and
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Speaker 1: she had had her right leg amputated. She was then
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Speaker 1: fitted with an artificial leg and she returned to dancing
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Speaker 1: and she made it back to the top of her career.
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Speaker 1: When she was asked how she had managed to do this,
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Speaker 1: she said, quite simply, you don't need feet to dance.
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Speaker 1: What a beautiful quote. You don't need feet to dance.
12:47
Speaker 1: Talk about overcoming adversity. Another story I found in a
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Speaker 1: book about a very famous woman, Bessie Blount Griffin. She
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Speaker 1: became a physical therapist and inventor, and she used her
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Speaker 1: childhood adversity experiences to help other people. She did not
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Speaker 1: have an easy childhood. She was very bright, innovative, creative, resilient.
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Speaker 1: Her school, on the other hand did not have any
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Speaker 1: textbooks and they later had had to get them from
13:17
Speaker 1: some of the all white schools because back then the
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Speaker 1: black kids didn't get a books. One day, she was
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Speaker 1: scolded in school because she was writing with her left hand,
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Speaker 1: her natural hand. Instead of getting angry, she not only
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Speaker 1: learned to write with her right hand, but she taught
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Speaker 1: herself to write with her feet and her teeth as well.
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Speaker 1: Let me say that again. She was scolded because she
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Speaker 1: was writing with her natural left hand, and she learned
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Speaker 1: to write with her right hand and her left hand,
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Speaker 1: and she learned to write with her feet and her
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Speaker 1: teeth just to show the teacher. After the sixth grade,
13:51
Speaker 1: there were no additional educational resources for African American kids
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Speaker 1: in her community, so it forced her to stop her education.
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Speaker 1: The family relocated north to New Jersey, where she remained
14:03
Speaker 1: self taught all the way through high school until she
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Speaker 1: obtained her ged. She attended a She went to an
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Speaker 1: all black owned hospital in the state, and she enrolled
14:13
Speaker 1: in their nursing program that was in New Jersey. After
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Speaker 1: she got her nursing degree, she continued her education at
14:20
Speaker 1: a Ponzer College of Physical Education and Hygiene in East Orange,
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Speaker 1: New Jersey, and she also became a physical therapist. She
14:28
Speaker 1: had always wanted to help people, and after World War Two,
14:31
Speaker 1: she volunteered for the Red Cross to work with injured
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Speaker 1: soldiers from the war. She taught those who couldn't use
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Speaker 1: their hands how to write with her feet and their teeth,
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Speaker 1: just like she had as a child. Her ambi ambidex
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Speaker 1: ambidexterity and her ability to perform tasks with her mouth
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Speaker 1: and her feet helped her relate to her patients who
14:52
Speaker 1: are coming out of surgery. She did this kind of
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Speaker 1: work all the way into her eighties, using her adversities. Amazing, amazing, amazing.
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Speaker 1: Another woman, Edith Head, famous costume designer. Her childhood adversity
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Speaker 1: experiences led to a career. She had a very lonely childhood.
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Speaker 1: She grew up in the Southwest US. They moved around
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Speaker 1: a lot. She never had any or very many friends.
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Speaker 1: She spent a lot of time alone, and she used
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Speaker 1: her imagination to make her world come alive and to
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Speaker 1: entertain herself. They had no money to buy dolls or toys,
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Speaker 1: so she made her own figurines from wood, and she
15:34
Speaker 1: would dress them up with scraps of fabric. She had
15:37
Speaker 1: tea parties with her homemade dolls. She dreamed of having
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Speaker 1: a wonderful life. Her family moved to la she started
15:45
Speaker 1: acting in plays, and she took some art classes, and
15:48
Speaker 1: she developed a very keen eye for design. In nineteen
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Speaker 1: twenty three, she applied for a job as a costume
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Speaker 1: sketch artist, even though she had no experience doing that,
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Speaker 1: and she talked her way in to the job, and
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Speaker 1: by nineteen thirty eight she was Paramount Studios Chief costume designer.
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Speaker 1: Edith Head worked in over a thousand movies. She was
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Speaker 1: nominated for thirty five Academy Awards and she won a
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Speaker 1: record eight times. That's Edith's Head, who used her adversaries
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Speaker 1: growing up to help motivate her to an amazing career.
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Speaker 1: Another woman who did that was one of my favorites,
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Speaker 1: Jane Goodall. I read a book about her biography a
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Speaker 1: while back, and she said that she when she was
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Speaker 1: a little girl, she read her first Curious George book
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Speaker 1: and she fell in love not only with a monkey,
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Speaker 1: but with a man in the yellow hat. She said,
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Speaker 1: I decided then there I wanted to be that man
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Speaker 1: in the yellow hat working with monkeys. I told everybody
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Speaker 1: I wanted to go off to Africa at when she
16:50
Speaker 1: was eight, and everybody left to her, and he told
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Speaker 1: her to dream about something you can achieve. You can't
16:54
Speaker 1: do that. You're a girl. Girls and women don't do
16:58
Speaker 1: things like that. The only person who support her dream
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Speaker 1: was her mom, who simply said to Jane, which Jane
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Speaker 1: took to heart, if you really want something, you must
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Speaker 1: be prepared to work very hard, take advantage of all
17:12
Speaker 1: the opportunities to come your way, and above elves, never
17:15
Speaker 1: ever ever give up. Jane is a little girl loved
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Speaker 1: being outdoors. She climbed trees to read her books. She
17:23
Speaker 1: daydreamed about life in the forest with Tarzan and the
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Speaker 1: Man Yellow Hat and Curious George. She wanted to live
17:29
Speaker 1: in Africa with animals and write books about them. At
17:33
Speaker 1: age twenty six, with no training, with no scientific degree,
17:37
Speaker 1: she went to Gambay at Africa in nineteen fifty seven
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Speaker 1: to work with doctor Leaky. Very little was known at
17:46
Speaker 1: the time about chimpanzees, and so she decided that she
17:49
Speaker 1: wanted to work with them, and she became totally absorbed
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Speaker 1: in her forest existence. Lowliness became a way of life
17:56
Speaker 1: for her, and Jane said once I was there. I
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Speaker 1: belonged to the forest. This is where I was meant
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Speaker 1: to be. She started noticing that the chimpanzees were using
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Speaker 1: things as instruments, and nobody believed her. All the scientists
18:12
Speaker 1: started discrediting her because she had no official degree. They said, monkeys,
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Speaker 1: chimpanzees cannot do that. That's a human thing. But she
18:20
Speaker 1: finally filmed chimps making and using tools, and that finally
18:23
Speaker 1: got their attention. National Geographic sent a film crew to
18:27
Speaker 1: record her, and she spent the rest of her life
18:31
Speaker 1: working with the chimps, traveling around the world telling the story,
18:34
Speaker 1: raising money, never in one place for more than three weeks,
18:39
Speaker 1: all because she decides she was not going to take
18:42
Speaker 1: no for an answer, and she rose above and went
18:45
Speaker 1: through all of her adversities. Another famous woman, Madame Currie,
18:51
Speaker 1: Marie Currie, a scientist. Even this little girl, she loves science,
18:57
Speaker 1: and she was kind of discouraged from doing that because
18:59
Speaker 1: again she was a girl. She ended up discovering two
19:02
Speaker 1: new elements, polonium and radium, and she ended up becoming
19:06
Speaker 1: the first woman to win a Nobel Prize, and she's
19:09
Speaker 1: still the only woman to win it twice. Ten years later,
19:13
Speaker 1: when she was ten, her sister died of typhus, and
19:15
Speaker 1: her mom died when she was twelve to tuberculosis. She
19:20
Speaker 1: became really depressed as a little girl and very withdrawn.
19:23
Speaker 1: She spent all of her time to home, and she
19:25
Speaker 1: used that time to focus on her science experiments, and
19:29
Speaker 1: that helped to pull her out of her depression. She
19:34
Speaker 1: used that depression and her grief to overcome that adversary
19:41
Speaker 1: to become one of the most famous scientists ever. Let
19:46
Speaker 1: me tell you just for a moment about not a person,
19:48
Speaker 1: but trees, the Sequoia trees. If you've never seen a
19:53
Speaker 1: sequoia tree, they're amazing. And I went to a sequoia forest,
19:59
Speaker 1: oh about a year to go. And Sequoia trees have
20:03
Speaker 1: existed in fire prone areas for over two thousand years,
20:07
Speaker 1: and they not only survived these fires, but they thrive
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Speaker 1: because of them. You might think that's that's odd. Why
20:14
Speaker 1: would the why would trees you know, do better and
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Speaker 1: thrive in those times Like in the last several years,
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Speaker 1: we've seen these amazing, horrible fires that have gone out
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Speaker 1: in California. Here's why those fires have helped the sequoia tree.
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Speaker 1: Why that adversity has made them stronger. Number One, they
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Speaker 1: get scarred from the fires. The scarred and marred, burnt
20:36
Speaker 1: bark reveals the pain of past fires, but also a
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Speaker 1: visible proof of survival. The new bark that grows because
20:42
Speaker 1: of it actually grows around the old bark. I'm sorry.
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Speaker 1: The old burnt edges and makes it stronger because of it.
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Speaker 1: It also wipes out the undergrowth. Although the sequoias might
20:53
Speaker 1: well stand the fire's heat, the smaller trees and plants
20:55
Speaker 1: underneath are not as fortunate. The fire ignites them. It
20:59
Speaker 1: chargs them and reduces them to ashes, and once cooled,
21:03
Speaker 1: those ashes become soiled ripe with nutrients, allowing the surviving trees,
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Speaker 1: the sequoias to thrive. Also seeds. The heat from the
21:13
Speaker 1: fires triggers the cones produced by the sequoia trees to
21:16
Speaker 1: open and drop their seeds into the new rich soil below.
21:20
Speaker 1: From that heat, from that loss, from finally letting go,
21:23
Speaker 1: these little seeds are liberated to flourish with new life.
21:28
Speaker 1: It's in letting go of the things, beliefs and hurts
21:30
Speaker 1: and misopportunities we've been holding on to for too long
21:33
Speaker 1: that often free us also from things that might be
21:36
Speaker 1: holding us back, and instead to fully drop new seeds
21:40
Speaker 1: of new possibilities. Also, the roots last, and not least
21:46
Speaker 1: for the sequoia trees. The sequoias do not have a
21:49
Speaker 1: deep root system, even though they're amazingly tall trees. They're huge. Instead,
21:54
Speaker 1: their roots find greater strength not by going down below
21:58
Speaker 1: their own shadows, but in stretch into and connecting with
22:01
Speaker 1: the roots of the trees all around them. It's not
22:04
Speaker 1: their independence that provides their greatest strength, but their interconnectedness
22:08
Speaker 1: with all the other trees that allows them to survive
22:11
Speaker 1: even those incredible fires. So the sequoia tree also uses
22:17
Speaker 1: its adversity to get stronger, to grow stronger and longer.
22:24
Speaker 1: Last two stories. I hope these hope these are interesting
22:26
Speaker 1: to you. This is one of my favorites. I read
22:29
Speaker 1: this a long time ago. This is about a prisoner
22:33
Speaker 1: in a concentration camp in World War Two who was
22:37
Speaker 1: fearless and free despite his imprisonment. One day he went
22:42
Speaker 1: into the prison square and he started playing his guitar.
22:45
Speaker 1: The guards forbade him to play, and the next day
22:48
Speaker 1: he was again singing and playing to a large crowd
22:50
Speaker 1: of prisoners. So the guards dragged him away and chopped
22:53
Speaker 1: his fingers off. The next day he was back in
22:57
Speaker 1: the in the in the area, singing and making whatever
23:01
Speaker 1: music he could with his boldly, with his hurt fingers,
23:06
Speaker 1: the guards dragged him off, They smashed his guitar, and
23:10
Speaker 1: the following day he was right back there, singing with
23:14
Speaker 1: all of his might, and the crowd joined in and
23:16
Speaker 1: their hearts were filled with joy. So the guards had
23:20
Speaker 1: his tongue torn out, thinking that that would end this nonsense,
23:25
Speaker 1: to the astonishment of everyone, prisoners and guards included. The
23:29
Speaker 1: next day he was back at his place, swaying and
23:31
Speaker 1: dancing to a silent music that only he could hear.
23:35
Speaker 1: Soon all the other prisoners were holding hands and dancing
23:38
Speaker 1: around the bleeding, broken figure whose spirit could never be broken.
23:43
Speaker 1: Talk about overcoming adversity and not giving in. What an
23:49
Speaker 1: example for all of us when we get so upset
23:52
Speaker 1: about little things, thinking about what this man went through.
23:55
Speaker 1: Amazing final story. I heard the story a long time ago,
24:01
Speaker 1: and I telled the girls in our camps a lot.
24:05
Speaker 1: There's a grandfather one day who decided he wanted to
24:07
Speaker 1: teach his granddaughter a lesson, and so he gave her
24:10
Speaker 1: a cocoon, and he told her the inside of the
24:13
Speaker 1: cocoon was a caterpillar and that over time the caterpillar
24:18
Speaker 1: was going to change into a butterfly. He said, at
24:21
Speaker 1: some point. Right now, it's just kind of sitting there,
24:23
Speaker 1: But at some point you can to notice that that
24:24
Speaker 1: cocoon is moving. It's the butterfly inside starts to struggle
24:28
Speaker 1: to get out. And he said, you're going to be
24:30
Speaker 1: tempted to cut it open and to help the butterfly,
24:34
Speaker 1: he said, but don't do that, he said, no matter what,
24:37
Speaker 1: let it come out on its own. So the little
24:39
Speaker 1: girl said she would, and sure enough, when she first
24:43
Speaker 1: got that cocoon, nothing happened. It was just laying there.
24:47
Speaker 1: But after a while she noticed that there was some
24:50
Speaker 1: movement and there was some punching out of the sides
24:54
Speaker 1: of the cocoon, as that butterfly inside was struggling. And
24:58
Speaker 1: the girl felt sorry for the butterfly, and so she thought,
25:01
Speaker 1: I want to help him, but grandfather said not to.
25:04
Speaker 1: But after several days of this, when there was a
25:07
Speaker 1: lot of movement inside that cocoon, she couldn't stand it anymore,
25:10
Speaker 1: and so she took a little knife and she very
25:13
Speaker 1: carefully cut a little strip all along the side of
25:16
Speaker 1: the cocoon, and then she opened it up, and very
25:19
Speaker 1: slowly a butterfly came out. And this butterfly was beautiful
25:25
Speaker 1: and dusted off its wings. It was on top of
25:28
Speaker 1: the table, and he flapped his wings and started to fly,
25:31
Speaker 1: and he crashed down to the top of the table,
25:34
Speaker 1: and then he flapped his wings again. He flew a
25:37
Speaker 1: little bit, crashed back down to the table. Now he
25:40
Speaker 1: was on the edge of the table, and he took off.
25:42
Speaker 1: He started flapping his wings. He flew for a couple
25:44
Speaker 1: of feet and crashed to the ground and he died.
25:48
Speaker 1: This little girl was crushed and she began to cry.
25:53
Speaker 1: What she had failed to understand was that that butterfly
25:56
Speaker 1: needed time to push against the walls of its shell,
25:59
Speaker 1: to push to push the fluids down the length of
26:01
Speaker 1: her wings, strengthening them so that when she did emerge,
26:04
Speaker 1: she would have the strength to fly and to survive.
26:08
Speaker 1: It was the struggling that allowed the butterfly to be
26:10
Speaker 1: ready to survive and thrive. And so it is with
26:15
Speaker 1: our children. What it's good for the butterfly, it's also
26:19
Speaker 1: good for your kids. They sometimes need to struggle, they
26:23
Speaker 1: sometimes need to fail. They sometimes need to not get
26:26
Speaker 1: what they want. They need to be able to face
26:29
Speaker 1: their adversities, go through them, learn from them, and become
26:33
Speaker 1: strengthened by them. That sounds so easy. I know it's
26:36
Speaker 1: not always easy to watch our kids suffer. But remember
26:39
Speaker 1: all these examples of all these people I just told
26:42
Speaker 1: you about. Remember the example of the butterfly is the
26:46
Speaker 1: reason for the struggle. Help your kids understand their reason,
26:50
Speaker 1: especially after it's over, to look back and say, what
26:52
Speaker 1: you learned from this? What could you do for next time?
26:56
Speaker 1: How have you changed from it? So they learned that
26:59
Speaker 1: adversity is not a bad thing. They learned to face them,
27:02
Speaker 1: to learn from them, and to grow stronger from them.
27:06
Speaker 1: Check out my website at www dot Dr tim Jordan
27:10
Speaker 1: dot com for all kinds of information about my books
27:12
Speaker 1: and camps, and all my previous podcasts three hundred and
27:16
Speaker 1: seventy something of them. You can get a hold of
27:18
Speaker 1: and listen to those if you haven't heard them before.
27:21
Speaker 1: I'll be back here in a week with a brand
27:24
Speaker 1: new episode a brand new topic. If you have ideas
27:27
Speaker 1: for topics things you would like me to talk about,
27:30
Speaker 1: then send me a note at on the website. You
27:34
Speaker 1: can hold me there. Also on my email you can
27:37
Speaker 1: email my wife and a n n E at d
27:40
Speaker 1: R Tim Jordan dot com and a n n E
27:43
Speaker 1: at Dr Tim Jordan dot com give me suggestions about
27:46
Speaker 1: topics you'd like to hear. I'd be glad to do that.
27:49
Speaker 1: Otherwise I'll be back here in a week with the
27:51
Speaker 1: brand new podcast. Thank you for passing these on to
27:54
Speaker 1: your friends, and thank you so much for stopping us
28:07
Speaker 1: O