The Ponyo Initiative

The kids and I watched Ponyo the other night. It is such a great movie. We loved it, and I highly recommend it. It is unlike anything we had ever seen before, and we all liked that it was new and different. The colors and animation are great, and we recognized many of the characters' voices (Well, I did at least. I'm not sure they know who Liam Neeson is -- yet).

What struck me most about the story (other than the catchy theme song at the end) is that the five-year-old main character, Sosuke, is very wise for his age and very aware, and he is asked by his mother to do something that no five-year-old I know would be able to do. (I will not spoil the surprise.) Now, this does not detract from the story in any way; it just got me thinking about kids today and what they can/cannot or should/should not be asked to do or should learn to do.

I think the term I am after is Initiative. Do kids today possess the same type of initiative that we did or our parents did? Is it even necessary? In the movie, the character sets out on an adventure, but he's FIVE! What is going through his mind? Does he realize what he's doing? We know he's made some type of plan because he packs food in a bag and GETS SOME MATCHES, and again, it got me thinking: what do my kids know? What could they do if circumstances called for action? Could they act, or would they fall apart waiting for a parental figure to tell them what to do? Have I equipped my kids to survive? Should they know how to light a match?

In the great adventure stories I used to watch on Wide World of Disney, most of the characters were young, no older than 10 or 12. These children were expected to survive in the wilderness or solve crimes or escape to Witch Mountain or be so sure of themselves that they could find a solution in any situation. I think of Tom Sawyer or Pollyana or even Laura Ingalls. By the time they were five, they knew stuff. By the time they were my kids' ages, they could run a household. I loved these stories because the kids were brave and did the right thing most of the time. They made smart choices, hard choices, and the right choices. What kind of choices would my kids make?

In these wonderful modern times, we have taken most of the physical danger out of growing up and replaced it with a more nebulous fear. (I add a disclaimer here that not all kids' lives are pictures of safety and wholesomeness. I know that there are plenty of kids for whom survival is a daily battle, and for them I pray that safety becomes reality.) What I mean is that the hardships our forefathers experienced are no longer part of our suburban kids' reality. They don't need to know how to make a fire in the woods or hunt for food or whittle. Our kids are warned of the dangers of smoking, drugs, strangers and YouTube, and most heed those warnings, but they sure as heck don't understand Morse Code or which berries are good to eat and why you shouldn't stick your hand into a random hole in the ground. They can stop, drop and roll and lie on the floor if they smell smoke, but if push came to shove, where would our modern kids be if the lights went out and the games went dark and the refrigerator stopped running? Could they calmly grab a flashlight, pull some bottled water from the garage and look for the first aid kit? When would they stop crying and realize they needed to make some decisions?

I guess my musings bring me back to survival and what we need to be teaching our kids in this advanced world. What is their first line of defense if something were to go wrong -- earthquake, fire, flood, etc.? What do they need to know to survive? All they've ever heard is "Don't play with matches!" What if they really needed to light one? We tell our kids to stay away from the stove and the tools, so they have no experience with how to use them. Could my kids make quick, sound decisions that would impact their ability to survive in an emergency? I'm not sure they could. This worries me. They're smart kids, but I have a feeling they would be cowered in a corner just waiting until somebody showed up to help them recharge their DS's.

I think as adults we should show some initiative and prepare our children for survival without all our modern conveniences -- not out of fear but out of concern for their safety. The more they know ahead of time, the easier it will be for them to make good decisions. I'm a planner, but I've never thought about planning for this or helping my kids plan for an emergency in a real, concrete way. Perhaps it's time. Kids should know basic survival skills and how to help each other not be afraid so that everyone can create the happily ever after.