A Child's Book of Wicca
Chapter 9 The Bad Influence

Sarah had a bad day at school.

Things had been happening that she could not tell her parents about.

They wouldn't understand.

Her friends had been talking to her about doing some things that she felt was wrong. She remembered the Rede, and while it looked like the things she was being asked to do would not break the Rede, she still didn't feel right doing them.

Some of the kids wanted her to keep their matches in her locker. Sarah knew that they wanted those matches near to smoke.

Sarah didn't know if they were only smoking cigarettes or if they were smoking something else.

Sarah didn't ask. She didn't want to know if they were doing drugs. But she couldn't see any reason to tell them no when they asked her to keep their matches.

These kids were some of the popular kids in her school, and Sarah knew if they liked her, most of the school would like her too. So she said "yes" when they asked her to keep the matches. She wanted to be liked.

But it still felt bad.

Mommy knew something was wrong. She kept trying to talk to Sarah about it, but Sarah didn't think Mommy would understand.

It had been a long time since her Mommy was in school, and things had changed.

Sarah remembered Mommy telling her about some of the things that happened when she was in school, but when all you have to worry about is whether or not you will be caught cheating at a test, somehow that didn't compare to worrying about being shot by someone with a gun at school.

And Sarah couldn't talk to her friends, they may tattle.

So what could she do?

Later that day, after her homework was done, she sat under her tree and tried to see the Green Lady.

After a few minutes, she felt the same familiar sensation, and there she was, along with the Brown Man.

Sarah was very happy.

Rhiannon leaned down and took Sarah into Her arms and held her. Herne didn't say anything, he just looked on and protected them both. Sarah cried her frustration out to Rhiannon.

When she stopped crying, Rhiannon carefully dried her tears.

"Lady," Sarah said between sobs, "what am I going to do?"

Rhiannon looked at her, with worlds of kindness in Her eyes, and said, "I don't know Sarah, what are you going to do?"

Sarah was stunned. She was shocked.

She came to the Lady and Lord for advice and how to live a life where she was good, and Rhiannon had not given her any advice. She didn't tell her what to do.

And Sarah felt lost.

Herne cleared his throat. In that growly voice He said, "Sarah, we DO want to help you, but We can't live your life for you. YOU have to make the decisions in your life."

Rhiannon was nodding. "I want to tell you what to do, but that would take away a gift you have that is the most precious thing in the universe."

Sarah asked, "My life?"

"No," Rhiannon said, "your Free Will."

"Free Will?"

Rhiannon sat down. "Yes, Free Will. The ability you have to make choices. Everyone has this gift, and many use it. Some choose, through their actions, to give that gift up and let other people make their decisions for them. But it's something that everyone has. The ability to choose what they will do and what they will not."

Sarah shifted positions so she could see Rhiannon a little clearer, without hurting her neck.

"Everyone makes choices, Sarah. Some choose to so the good thing during their day and life, others choose to do the wrong thing. A lot of people don't think about their choices before they make them and they get into trouble as a result of that.

"Remember when Meghan was causing you so much trouble?"

"Yes," Sarah said.

"I told you then that you did a good job, and that she was making a choice. Well you made a choice too, to ignore her. People can tell you that, tell you what to do, but YOU and no one else are the one who actually makes the decision to do that. You freely chose to ignore Meghan. You could have chosen to yell back at her, you could have chosen to hate her, you could have chosen to hug her every time you saw her. You made the choice to ignore her. You, Sarah, and you alone."

"That is Free Will," Herne said.

Rhiannon smiled. "Every time you decide to do one thing, and not another, you are exercising your free will. And with that gift, anything is possible."

Sarah was thinking hard. "So I can make my decisions in my life, not anyone else?"

Herne said, "That's right. You, and you alone, make all the decisions affecting your life. Your parents can help, teach, suggest, cajole, bribe, talk to you about, and take away options, but you are the one who decides to do something or not."

Sarah was puzzled. "But they take me someplace and I have to go there. That doesn't sound like much of a choice to me."

Rhiannon spoke up. "And in that case, going along may not be much of a choice. But how you act IS a choice. You can act badly, kicking and screaming. You can act apathetic, and not care about any of it, not pay attention, not listen to your parents. You can act enthusiastic, and go along with them with a happy heart, asking questions and looking for things to do. Each of those is your decision.

"Lets take an example of free will that already happens; mealtime. Your Mommy makes a meal for you and your Daddy. You can decide to eat it, or not. If you don't eat, you will be hungry. If you do eat, you will be full."

Herne said, "That's one decision."

Rhiannon said, "If you decide to eat, you can eat it all and look for seconds and thirds, you can eat what is on your plate and no more, you can eat a little of it, or you can have just one bite. If you eat a lot, you will be over full and hurt in the stomach for a while. If you eat what is on your plate, you will be full. If you eat a little of it, you may be hungry later. If you eat only one bite, you will probably be hungrier than if you didn't eat anything because now your stomach thinks it's getting fed."

"That's another decision," Herne said.

"You can eat it and tell your mother how good it is, you can eat and not say anything, you can eat and complain about the food, you can bolt it all down and not taste it. Your mother will feel good to know that you like the food, just as she will be hurt if you complain about the food, and so on. It keeps going throughout the meal and your life. The choices you make will have an outcome, but you are the only one who can make those choices.

"Each of the things that happen because of those choices are consequences. Each time you make a choice, you have a consequence. They can be good or bad, or they can not matter at all and be neither good nor bad. But you will have the consequences."

Sarah said, "Didn't we talk about this before?"

"Yes, we did. But we did not talk about this as deeply as we are now." Rhiannon sighed. "Sarah, the one thing you will never escape from is choices and their consequences. So it would help you if you thought things through before you make a choice."

Herne spoke up. "Sometimes it's easy to make a choice that is right. 'Should I hurt this person or not?' is an easy choice to make if they have done nothing to you. But sometimes it is very hard to decide when you are not thinking."

Rhiannon nodded. "Yes. Thinking things through is one way to keep from making wrong choices. For instance, can you tell me what happens if you throw the matches in your locker away?"

"The kids I'm keeping them for will be mad. They won't like me and they may beat me up."

"Yes, that is a possibility. But what happens if the Principal looks in your locker after you threw them away?"

Sarah thought. "Well, nothing. There won't be any matches in there to get me in trouble."

"And if you keep the matches? And the Principal looks in your locker?"

"The kids will like me, but I'll be in trouble with the Principal and teachers."

"Who else will be mad and you will be in trouble with?"

"Well, the Principal will probably call my Mommy and Daddy, and they will be mad at me. They will probably punish me for a long time for breaking the rules like that."

Rhiannon said, "This is one of those decisions called 'the lesser of two evils'. It means that you have two choices, and in either choice, someone will be mad and there will be bad consequences. There will also be good consequences from them too, and it's a matter of deciding which set of good consequences outweighs the bad consequences. Is it more important to you for the kids to be happy with you, and be in trouble with all the adults, or is it more important to have the adults happy with you, and the kids mad?"

"I don't know."

Herne said, "You are the only one who can know Sarah. It's your decision to make. We cannot make it for you."

Sarah felt worse. "You are supposed to help me," she said bitterly.

Rhiannon held her close. "Sarah, we can tell you what IS, we can advise you, we can tell you what might happen, we will love you, but YOU are responsible enough to make your own choices and live by the consequences. It is part of growing up. We cannot live your life for you. You are a person, not a slave. We will not keep you as a child forever."

Sarah was crying now. She didn't know what to do.

Herne patted her back. "My advice to you is to talk to your parents about this situation you find yourself in. Tell them what is going on, your fears and your hopes. They will be in a better position to help you than we are. We will be here to advise you as much as we can. But it's your decision."

Sarah nodded. When she woke, she still felt Herne and Rhiannon's kisses on her cheeks.

She went home and talked to Mommy and Daddy about the matches. And she lived with the consequences.

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Bad Influence discussion

Not being preachy, this section is so the child can think of some of the moral conundrums you and I work with all the time. I'm not trying to guilt anyone out, but there is a whole lot of gray out there and precious little black and white.

This is not designed to take away hope, it's intended to empower your child into making his or her own decisions and understanding that there are times when all choices are bad or negative and how to choose between things that have equally bad outcomes. It's also to help your child develop critical thinking skills.

Many adults in this world "live by default" which means that they allow circumstances to sweep them along, never making a decision, until all their choices are gone and usually the worst decision they could make is the only one left. As a result of that, they complain that they never have any luck or that the fates are conspiring against them to keep them down and so on. When making a decision earlier would have given them multiple options.

So, some points raised in the story are:

What is a decision? A choice? Are they the same thing?
What is a consequence?
What is free will?
Why won't Herne and Rhiannon tell Sarah what to do?
Should they tell her what to do?
Who makes the decisions in your life?
What kinds of decisions do you make?
Are you making good decisions?
What is "the lesser of two evils"?
Have you ever had a situation like Sarah's?
What do you think Sarah did about the matches?

Some projects:

Spend a week writing down decisions and what could happen from those decisions. Have the child think the situation through as completely as they can, without prompting. Write these down in a special notebook and have them check what they thought would happen against what actually did happen. It may take a long time for the consequences of their decisions to come home, but that's okay. Have them grade themselves on how accurate they were on this.

Make up a situation in which there are many choices that can be made. Make a "decision tree" with labels as to which decisions will lead to what consequences. You can make this as complex as you would like, but I advise stopping at 4 sets of decisions/consequences in and plotting out completely all the obvious choices and consequences. Some suggestions:

You break a lamp (hide pieces, lie, admit it, deny everything, blame someone else, fix it secretly, etc.) You get in trouble at school You cut a doll into pieces

You may even take this to an adult level, and show them that this applies to you as well, and do the same thing with YOUR decisions.

Work situation Home situation (bills, car repair, home repair) Wiccan situaion (holidays, work and Wicca, etc.)

And finally make a tree about how other people's decisions affect your child.

Is school open? What happens if the principal is sick, and how many other decisions are affected by the principal closing the school for a snow day? Parent deciding to go on vacation to an exotic location. How does this affect the child? Your boss moves you to another department which will entail a move of the family. How does this decision affect the child?

Map these decisions out and work on it as a family project. You can make it complex and do this with computer graphics and fractals, or simply do a flow chart on a big piece of paper. The level of complexity is up to you and your ambition, but the tree should be easy to follow. "Decision 1 brings consequence 1 and decisions 2, 3, 4, 5, and 6. Decision 6 leads to consequence 6, and choice 12, 13, 14, 15 and 16...."

IF you find a situation similar to the story's fictional situation in your child's life, help them work the consequences out of their decisions. Point out that the Rede is a guideline, not an absolute rule and that in some gray areas like these decisions are exploring, it won't always apply.

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A Child's Book of Wicca Chapter 9 The Bad Influence

A Child's Book of Wicca
Chapter 9 The Bad Influence