“It’s just like in Dungeons and Dragons when we used Kindness to solve our problems!”

A 6-year-old kid said that to me today after we resolved a conflict between his 5-year-old twin friends.

One little girl made a necklace with plastic snap-lock beads. The other girl liked it so much, that she grabbed it and hid it somewhere in her bedroom. The artisan cried and yelled in frustration, “Give it back!!”

The thief ran away and hid - yelling back that she would never reveal the necklace’s location.

We went on a hunt for the necklace, searching high and low in the bedroom.

I calmly said, “It is sad that she hid it… she must have really loved your necklace. I bet she took it because she would like to have it for herself.”

“But I want it for myself! I made it!”

“And that’s totally fair. You made it! It was not right of her to take it and hide it. That was not kind of her. But it is hidden now and she does not want to tell us where it is. And we can’t find it… So what can we do?”

“I’ll never talk to her again and I won’t play with her ever again!”

“Hmm you could choose to do that. But then you still won’t have your necklace… and you won’t have her either… and then I bet she wouldn’t even want to tell you where it is.”

“But she won’t tell me where it is anyways! It is gone forever!”

“Hmm maybe it is lost forever. But I don’t think so. Because she knows where it is. And I bet we could get her to tell us. Or maybe… Hmmm… what is it that you want?”

“I want my necklace!”

“Do you want that one specifically… or would you like it if she made you one? Then maybe she could have the one you made. So it would be like a trade instead of her just taking yours.”

“Ugh. I guess that would be okay. But she would never do that.”

“Well… we don’t know until we ask. Would you like to go ask her? Or would you like me to try?”

“Fine. You try.”

The plastic jewelry pirate was hiding remorsefully in the other room, having heard her sister’s cries of agony - but too ashamed of her earlier choice to back down. I approached and gently said, “Hmm she’s feeling really upset. But you know what she said? She told me that if you made a necklace for her, you could have the one she made. The one that you hid. I bet she wouldn’t even be mad anymore if you made a nice necklace for her. And then you could have that other one! Would you like to try that?”

She set to work on making the necklace. I returned to the mourner and told her the good news. Something washed over her face and she said, “Can you please get me a paper and a marker?”

She wrote a love letter to her sister.

***

We began playing my invented kid-version of Dungeons and Dragons a few weeks ago. Our hand-scrawled character sheets had just four stats. Strength, Kindness, Intelligence, and Magic. Each character started with 100 health points (so they’re not really worried about dying - but it is a possibility), and we later added some spell slots for characters with skill points in Magic. What falls into each category is very flexible and open to interpretation. Generally, when they tried to resolve a conflict with physical violence - I would ask them to add their Strength stat to their dice rolls. If they tried to talk it out and convince the “bad guy” to help them - they would need to roll high, but could add their Kindness bonus.

If you’re not familiar with Dungeons and Dragons, it’s a live-action role playing game. Group story-telling, with dice rolls to randomize the encounters. After proposing an action, you roll a 20-sided dice to see whether you succeed or fail. If you have proficiency in something, you may get a bonus added to whatever number you roll on the dice.

When making the character sheets (photo above), I asked them which stat they would like to be best at. We discussed how to balance our character’s weaknesses and they quickly realized that it would be good to have a diverse team.

Our characters could also shape-shift into Pokémon for some reason. Because why not? We spent a while researching in their books and online to determine the specific moves those Pokémon could do - to ensure our characters stayed true to form.

These kids don’t mess around when they are playing games.

They are exploring how to explore ideas.

Perhaps I will write an entire book someday about how to play kid D&D. I’ll have to work out the kinks first.

Throughout the game, I openly tell kids when I am bending the rules. I explain that in the “grown-up” version of the game, there are more statistics and rules about what you can and can’t do. But the purpose is to have fun - so I don’t worry about getting too technical with these kindergarteners!

As I guide our imaginary team to confront various conflicts, I always leave room for situations to be resolved without excessive violence or meanness. And if the children choose to solve a problem with violence, like the time they immediately attacked a dragon upon seeing it, then I am careful to point out the flaws in that strategy. In the dragon’s eyes, they are the bad guys because they just stormed into his house while he was napping and began attacking him! If they come in shooting, of course the dragon will attack them!

They needed to keep their purpose in sight. The purpose of that particular campaign was to find their green koala friend, Dada, who had gone missing. They were searching the rooms of Grandma Catty’s basement when they stumbled upon that dragon.

They could have recognized immediately that Dada was not in that room and gone on their way. Or they could have tried to ask that dragon if he had seen her around.

He had, in fact.

But I didn’t explain all of that to the kids. Instead, after being hit several times, the dragon gasped, “Why are you doing this to me? I was just trying to take a nap! Please don’t hurt me anymore. I don’t understand why this is happening!”

They hesitated. “But you’re a dragon! You’re bad!”

“Why am I bad? I didn’t do anything to you. I only blew fire at you to try to get you away from me. You keep hurting me. I just want to be alone! Why are you here?”

“Oh. We came here looking for Dada!”

“Dada? You know Dada?”

“You know Dada?!”

“Of course I know Dada! She is always so nice to me. Are you friends with Dada?”

“We’re her family!”

“But then why were you hurting me?”

That’s a tough one to answer. We fear that others are out to get us…

but what if we have been the hunters all along?

But we can consciously choose to stop the hunt.

I can consciously choose to stop seeing others as enemies.

I can consciously choose to let go of my belief that my limited perspective is the Ultimate Truth.

I am a mere aspect of whatever the Ultimate Truth is.

I am learning how to tap into my true self. Exploring how to solve problems with Kindness, Strength, Intelligence, and Magic makes that a whole lot easier.

Author note: The links you see in my posts will usually take you to the Amazon page for products I mention, just in case you want to buy some of whatever I’m using in my teaching!