Article Link: http://www.exchangepress.com/article/a-manner-of-speaking/5013404/
My friend Ginny tells the story of a little girl and her sister who were arguing. Their parents told the girls to go off by themselves and make a plan for how to work out their disagreement. After a while the girls returned: "We came up with a plan. We plan to forget this ever happened."What good ideas we can come up with when we are encouraged to solve our own problems! There is such satisfaction in being the creative force, the one in control. But what about the times when we are at the end of our ropes, when no matter how hard we try, we cannot find the answer? These are the times when we need the intervention and support of trusted others.
What enables us to be in control of the problems we can solve on our own and to reach out for help when the problems are beyond us? It's the community - family, work, neighborhood - in which we find ourselves. The little girls in Ginny's story live in a family community in which they are recognized as resourceful, creative thinkers. We can be sure that if they had been unable to create a solution, support would ...