Confession time: I watched my first Star Wars episode of my life last night- Episode 4. I’d walked through the room a million times over the last couple of decades when my kids were watching it which resulted in plenty of misconceptions. Here’s some things that I discovered last night:
The white suit guys are bad guys not good guys (When shopping for Star Wars Legos all these years, I would always attempt to buy the kids the good-guy pieces. Oops).
Luke and Hans both only entered the fight because they liked Princess Leah (and I thought the story revolved around the Empire who were after Luke and Hans from the beginning).
All the scary-monster-looking-things actually have really cute voices and I want to be their friend. Not scary at all. So that’s nice.
Inaccurate perceptions aren’t a big deal when we’re talking about Star Wars. However, it is of great importance when it’s the real-life situations that are kids’ are facing. If you want to be a parent that really makes a quality impact in your child’s life and future, and if you want to make the best decisions concerning your kids, it’s going to take intentional time to observe, listen,and ask questions. Don’t “pass through” and think you’ve got the story straight. I completely get the temptation to think that we automatically know what they’re thinking in a given action or what is motivating their attitude, but if I can be so far off about a movie that played in my house hundreds of times, I’m pretty sure I can also be wrong about the actions and attitudes of my kids. Raising great kids, teaching them how to do life with excellence, isn’t going to happen by being a “pass through” parent, it’s going to require your full-attention and even sacrificial effort.
Now, that’s enough serious talk. Let’s grab some popcorn and have a seat, I’m ready to watch the giant toad, Yoda, along with his buddies CP2O and R3D3 in the next episode.