Stone Soup - the real lesson

The other night, Henry thought some chicken soup would help his sore throat, but I didn't have any canned. I realized that I actually had half of the chicken I cooked Sunday (a chicken on every grill!). I also had noodles, of course, so I started to scrounge around for what else I could add in order to produce homemade soup at 7 pm on a school night.

I reminded Henry of the Stone Soup fable we read the night before, and remarked that this was our stone soup as I found shallots, carrots and celery and made some broth. He got totally into the spirit of the moment and dumped in some left-over broccoli from the fridge. We went out and cut some parsley from the parsley farm and some thyme and sage from the front herb boxes and kept improvising.

Henry started weaving his own version of the Stone Soup story while we were cooking, spinning it into a half-hour tale complete with characters, plot, setting, dialogue, drama and mood. I was entranced by his story and how he conjured up such a colorful tale on the fly.

The soup turned out to be delicious, and it was a classic learning moment for me. I'd been worried over Henry's lack of focus in class and inability to finish his work when the others did. While stressing about what he couldn't do compared to his classmates, I neglected to notice the unique things he can do, those amazing creative skills that set him apart. As I mentioned here before, I hope his teacher and I can find a way to keep his spirit up and frustration level down while he struggles with the structured classroom learning environment of public school. I feel I fail him regularly by focusing on the negative, but isn't guilt one of the defining emotions of parenting?