Today's Kids and Hero Worship: Who can they look up to?

I grew up wanting to be a superhero that can save the earth from power crazy villains. However, the catch was not to be too prominent so forget about Superman, Spiderman, Batman and etc. I preferred the superhero from the TV series 'Greatest American Hero'. Of course, we all know what happenned to that series. I think it got cancelled after 3 seasons and my superhero worshipping didn't last long. I went back to idolising great football players like Pele, Zico and Maradona. So every 4 years or so, my friends and I went beyond our normal evening soccer escapade and started calling ourselves by our favorite players' names and went kicking balls around the field and of course, a few shins. Ouch!

Now that I am a dad with a 6 year old son and another son less than a year old, I am beginning to see that my 6 year old son is beginning to emulate superhero characters when he is playing with his neighborhood friends. I think he started off with Spiderman, then Superman and after that Zoom. He started rounding off the kids around our neighborhood and wanted to start a superhero training academy (he got that idea from Zoom) to discover hidden superhero talents. That didn't last long because the kids that are much older than him decided that they should be the leader of the team and not him. (So to those who are complaining that promotion should not be based on seniority, please teach your kids the same.) When all superhero worshipping activities ebbed, along came Dora the Explorer and Little Einstein. My son only sat and watched the shows but seldom acted out any of the scenes or wanted to skip around looking for clues like Dora did. Eventually, this phase also tapered of after a while.

Then came Avatar: The Last Airbender. Okay, the first time I watched it and I thought how could anyone watched those shows. It was ridiculous and of course watching the show in German just made in worse. Nevertheless, my son was hooked on the show and you need not to remind him to come home and take a shower in the evening as he somehow brought himself back in time to do all those daily chores just to watch that show. Normally, I have to scream and shout to get him back to the house. What shocked me the most was my wife was also into watching Avatar. I had to reconsider my initial judgment and I decided to watch the show from the beginning and most importantly in English. Half way through the first episode, I was also hooked and wanted to watch more.

Anyway, the story here is about hero worship and surprisingly Aang, who is a 12 year old Airbender from the Air Nomad's Southern Air Temple, and his compadre Katara, Sokka and Toph (not in picture) are the ideal heroes for my son and his friends in the neighborhood. My son could relate to Aang, a superhero with child like behavior that is trying to restore harmony and balance to the four nations in a fantasy world home to humans, fantastic animals and supernatural spirits.

In this show, the Avatar, Aang, who is supposed to be a savior for the four nation needed his compadre to defeat evil or in most cases to survive long enough for him to master all bending skills. As silly as this might sound but this cartoon actually teaches the idea that even great people need to work in a team to ensure success. This is especially true when each of the team members have their own unique strength that on their own might not be enough to ward off evil but together they form a very potent force to knock evil off its feet. Then the ultimate lesson is that in order to seek for knowledge one must be able to get out of one's comfort zone in pursuit of knowledge that can restore harmony to the four nations. Of course, telling my son all of this would just fall on deaf ears. So I simplified the lessons for him as listed below.

1. It is okay to have fun before and after every lesson to gain power (I told him that knowledge is power) But when it is time for training, he must put full concentration so that the knowledge that he gained can be more powerful. So when it is time for him to sit down to do his homework, he must complete all of them before running off to play outside or jumping on the sofa to watch tv. This still does not work for my son because the Master is also a bit impatient and can't concentrate himself. So how must the son concentrate? Lesson 1 to Master - you must lead by example.
2. Love is the strongest bond that one can have with another person. Whenever a terrible event happen, he can count on his loved ones to come and cajoule him - save him from the bad things.
3. Friends are very important and should be supportive of each other. Working together as one will produce positive results - good win over evil.
4. Knowledge is everywhere and he must seek it not just with his eyes but also with other senses. This is referring to Toph who mastered metal bending through understanding the similarity of vibration mode between earth and metal. It is also important for him to understand that he should not limit seeking knowledge with those who are older or superior to him but also from those who are not at his level and younger than him.
5. He must treat people with disability with utmost respect as that person may possess ability that others might not have. This is in reference to Toph Bei Fong who is a blind 12 year old Earthbender.
6. He must understand that not all bad people are evil. Just like Aang, he must judge a person by his/her actions and intentions, therefore must be cautious when making decisions. Do not let emotions clout his judgment. Sometimes bad people may want to change their ways but if good people are not willing to accept them, the bad people may have no choice but to return to their old ways.
7. He must understand priority. He must do things first according to priorities. This is definitely not going through to my son because he repeated the word as protities.

Nevertheless, hero worshipping a fictional character may not be good for my son as he grows up into a teenager. He needs to learn to hero worship a real person but he needs to decide who that person is. It could be Prophet Mohammad s.a.w or it could be President Abraham Lincoln. To name a few - Mahatma Gandhi, Bill Gates, Bono from U2 and Nelson Mandela. As long as he can remember the lesson to take what is good and to leave what is bad, insyaAllah he will turn out great himself maybe not as a superhero but a hero to the people that he cares for, saviour to his community and a protector of the world's harmony. It is now up to him and his 'compadre' to make the journey into the great unknown. Wallahualam.