Recently I picked up Sean Covey’s children’s book, Seven Habits of Happy Kids. Check it out here.
Sean Covey works for FranklinCovey; he is the son of Stephen Covey, who wrote Seven Habits of Highly Effective People. I recently read this book and was expecting a list of helpful but fairly superficial suggestions–things like make a list, keep an organizer, et cetera, but the book is much deeper than that. It’s about aligning your priorities and actions with your principles. For Covey, his principles come out of Christianity, but he is not in the least evangelical and he does not dictate what those principles should be, for the most part. The habits are not only about how to prioritize your life, but also how to interact with other people. I think his lessons are so important that I’m thinking of incorporating them into my classroom, especially as a way of teaching how my students to work well together.
Anyway, when I saw the children’s book on the clearance rack, I immediately snapped it up. There are seven stories set in a pretend animal-world called Seven Oaks. Each story features a different character and how they learn each of the habits. The stories and illustrations are fun and engaging, and don’t seem preachy at all. Each story is followed by a one-page explanation of the habit and how it applies, and gives tips for applying it to parenting. The first story, for example, exemplifies the habit of being proactive–to act on your world instead of reacting to it. The character, Sammy Squirrel, is bored and goes around asking everyone what he should do. Finally an elder in the village tells him he’s got to find his own fun. He picks up a broken radio and fixes it, then gives it to a sick child.
I think overall younger Covey did a nice job of transforming the 7 Habits into a child-friendly way. My children both seem to like it, too!
Here is a video clip of an interview with Sean Covey.
