Who were your childhood heroes?
Although this fact is not well known, the type of hero you had as a child is linked to your adult happiness.
One of my heroes is my grandmother, who taught me, "It's nice to be important but it's important to be nice."
I asked my son who his hero is and he said, "Parpie." That's my grandfather, who was a prisoner of war.
So which people make the best heroes for kids?
How many heroes should we have?
Is it okay to hold celebrities up as heroes?
Which kids' heroes promote happiness and success later in life?
It turns out that children whose heroes are personally known to them are more likely to achieve life satisfaction as adults.
Also, there's a protective factor in having a number of heroes rather than just one.
A psychologist once told me about the Five Fingers exercise: Ask your child to come up with 5 people they could turn to in a crisis, including at least one outside the family.
That exercise could easily be applied to heroes, too.
To expand my children's repertoire of role models, we watched this great BTN special about Dr Douglas Mawson, who contributed hugely to science and also survived an incredible Antarctic ordeal.
We took a trip to the replica Mawson's Hut to really imagine ourselves in his shoes.
For a follow-up, I'm going to get the kids to plan our next intrepid winter expedition.
How much food and water do we need? What will we take to keep warm? Which personal qualities will help us to survive and thrive?
Who are your children's heroes? Do you know any heroic human beings we can learn about next? Please share in the comments, we love to be inspired!
Our Mawson field trip follows a simple but awesome afterschooling formula. To learn more, check out this post. New to afterschooling? Try our A-Z of Afterschooling.
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