The Call to Adventure: how do you see the call and when do you take it?
Is it as simple as good, calm weather on the weekend to go and enjoy the countryside or beaches?
Is it the opportunity to make some time to sit down and read?
The hard part about adventure is that it’s not easy!
If you go camping at a beach, like that great kiwi tradition, before the trip even begins there is the knowing of how many hours packing, driving, and setting up camp there is.
Then there is packing it back up, sitting in traffic to get back home, and the hours to unpack, clean and dry things from the trip.
But if the call to adventure is accepted and you do the hard thing - what is the reward?
Having a cup of coffee on the beach while the sun rises, children swimming in the ocean together or playing tag, spotlight or some dreamed up game with other children they came across, hikes, bays, beaches, fishing, time with family and friends.
But what happens if you miss these opportunities to have the adventure?
Keep doing the jobs around the house, get lost in the phone scrolling, Netflix…??
Children on an adventure, like camping, get educated!
They have to:
help organise themselves and the family for the trip,
learn patience sitting in a car for hours being quiet,
learn team work from setting up camp,
learn social skills from making new friends fast, they play games with others so they get on in society.
But once people do a lot of hard things - hard things become easy.
And going on these adventures gets easier!
Reading a great book has the same problems.
Trying to find time and a quiet place for an hour, to read that book you have been meaning to read, there are still jobs to do around the house, and there’s much easier options like watch tv, scrolling through a phone or playing video games.
At Acton Academy North Shore, we dedicate time to read!
We get lost in our books because each child selects their own book. This way they self-adapt to their ability, they use manners by staying quiet so others can read and no one has to read, but they all do.
For the children who have done a lot reading, reading is now easy for them. For the children who haven’t done much reading, yes they find it hard, but they do the hard thing, they pick up a book, they sit with everyone else quietly, they start reading and they go off on their own adventure.
This is why making the opportunity and accepting the Call to Adventure is so important to our children - and as parents we need to keep accepting the Call and doing those hard things as well.