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When I teach Kindergarten or first-grade children, I always teach my students a little song called “Five Little Bluebirds” as a segway into a discussion about their superpower. I developed some motions for the song, and always end this subtraction-type song by making a very sad face and saying, “No little bluebirds in the nest.” The kids find this hysterical!

We sing the song through a second time with them joining in with more enthusiasm, and I can see in their mischievous eyes that they cannot wait until we get to the last line, and they get to see my sad face AND make a sad face of their own. They laugh with their entire bodies, as 5 and 6-year olds are prone to do - and yes, that means some of them end up “prone” as they fall over on the carpet with laughter.

Whether you teach your children a song like that, or find some other way to introduce emotions, you can lead them to discover their superpower.

I ask them to show me their sad face. Show me their surprised face! Show me their sleepy face. Show me their angry face! And finally, show me their happy face! Then I tell them that we are going to do a trick.

I ask them to hold their hand next to their face and I demonstrate “Happy Face” and then pass my hand past my face as I change expression and then say, "Sad Face”. We go back and forth between the two types of faces, eventually getting faster and faster until we end up laughing.

When all is calm again, I say with great excitement, “Did you know that you have a Superpower?” They are immediately interested. I repeat the question and my comments go something like this:

"Did you know that you have a superpower?

Did you know that? - YOU have a superpower!

YOU (pointing to all of them) have the POWER to make other people happy.

YOU can choose to show kindness by doing or say things that make your friends or your family feel happy.

Can you think of something that you could do when you go home today that would make your Mom, Dad, your Grandma or your sister or brother feel happy?"

At this point, I pause to see if they can think of some ideas. Sometimes a child will say “give Mommy a hug” or “put my toys away” or some other activity. If not, I am ready with suggestions. Sometimes they get it backwards and suggest something like “I could play a video game with my Dad” or some other action that would actually be one that would make THEM happy. In that case, I redirect them to think about:

Sometimes a child will point out that they also have the power to make people unhappy, and if so, I address it, but only if they bring it up, because I want to emphasize the positive things that they can do.

I end by repeating - "YOU have a superpower - because YOU have the power to make other people happy. Think about how you can make someone happy today!"

Teaching Older Children About Their Superpower

If you teach children older than first grade, you may want to start a discussion about Superheroes during your gathering or circle time.

It won’t take long until hands shoot up and at least half the kids want to tell you about watching “Batman”, “Wonder Woman”, or “Spiderman”. From this, you can start to build a case where you compare your children to the Superheroes they admire.