Your Turn: The Little Engine that Could

We like to believe that we teach our young, through children's literature, traits and behaviors worthy of emulation and which will serve them well as they mature into adulthood, but sadly, this is not true.

Rather than teach our children that they can overcome physical reality with persistence, work and optimism, we would better serve them by teaching them the famous words of another fictitious character, "Dirty" Harry Callahan: "A man's got to know his limitations."

Only then will they truly happy, since no child will be foolish enough to expect more from himself or from situations beyond his control than what he is actually capable of, thus avoiding many of the great failures and disappointments in life that come from never fulfilling ones unattainable ambitions.

"The Little Engine that Could" gives our children a false sense of hope and their own limited abilities. They would be better off reading about "The Little Engine that Wisely Decided that Some Mountains Simply Cannot be Climbed".

Sent by John Brown | 7:10 PM | 2-19-2008