I have a four-year-old son who loves pirates and a two-year-old daughter who loves to dump water on the floor. At any given moment, I feel like I’m on the high seas—and I’m rarely the captain.
Puzzles are a mainstay in our house. My son prides himself on 40-piece floor puzzles; my daughter prides herself on dumping every box we own. To stay sane, I’ve started timing myself on how fast I can put them back together (36 seconds for four puzzles, for those keeping score).
But recently, while “training,” I was struck by a wooden cow. My daughter had realized that if she dumped the puzzle, Daddy would busily put it back together, a cycle that brought her immense joy. My obsession with speed had blinded me to a missing piece, and her “rebellion” actually helped me find it.
The Art of the Cutout
There’s a reason two-year-olds start with puzzles that have shapes already cut out of the board. One piece for one shape. It is straightforward and foundational. We cheer when they fit the ship into the ship-shaped hole because they are learning the “Art of the Puzzle.”
I see a direct connection here to how we teach children morals. In our adult lives, “moral complexities” often cloud our decisions. We sometimes turn the “Other” into a villain to justify ourselves. As a person of faith, I believe all humanity is capable of villainy. But if we communicate these adult complexities to children before their foundations are laid, we risk raising children who are morally ambiguous at best and morally bereft at worst.
The Subversion Trap
Fairy tales are the “wooden cutout puzzles” of morality. The hero and villain are defined; the virtues are clear. Modern storytellers love to subvert these roles—take Shrek, for example. Making an ogre the hero is great storytelling, but it only works because the audience has a foundational understanding that ogres are traditionally bad. If you don’t know the rule, you can’t appreciate the exception. Child psychologist Bruno Bettelheim warns against teaching ambivalence too early:
“Ambiguities must wait until a relatively firm personality has been established… Then the child has a basis for understanding that there are great differences between people.”
Seeing the “Goodness of Goodness”
Children need a “moral road map.” They need to see what a world of goodness looks like so they can eventually recognize the negative effects of sin within it. Fantasy draws them into a “what if” world where they can safely observe archetypes of good and evil.
Martin Buber once recalled a student who wrote a brilliant essay on why lying is destructive, while being the most habitual liar in the class. He argued that we don’t need more lectures; we need a “compelling vision of the goodness of goodness itself” presented in a way that stirs the imagination.
Conclusion: Practicing the Beginner Puzzles
It is much safer—and more effective—to have a child read Snow White and recognize that the stepmother is wicked because of her jealousy, rather than pointing at a neighbor’s new boat and saying, “See? He is evil.”
Children steeped in fairy tales learn to recognize the “ogre” in their neighbors (and themselves) without claiming their neighbors are wholly ogres. They learn to recognize humility in The Goose Girl so they can later honor it in their community.
A child with strong inward beliefs has a far greater chance of exhibiting outward virtues. And if we find ourselves struggling to navigate the complexities of adulthood, perhaps we just need a little more practice with the beginner’s puzzles.
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