“Daddy, your eyes are red.  Were you crying?”

Yes, sweetheart.  Daddy was crying.

I finally watched Dolphin Tale (with my kids) tonight and it was fantastic.  The story was wonderful, the acting superb and the message…do I even need to say how much I enjoyed the message?  And while the movie itself made me tear-up a couple times (especially when Winter showed her tail to Kyle), what really set me off was something my daughter Anna said.

At the end they show some documentary footage of people meeting Winter and at one point a little boy with two prosthetic legs walks out to the pool.  I watched Anna’s eyes get big as he came into view and she whispered, “Whoa…COOL.”  Her response made me so proud.

I gathered the kids around me after the movie and we talked about how we should treat people who are different than us.  At one point in the movie there was a little African-American girl in a wheelchair and she only had one leg.  When she was “revealed,” my son Sam said, “Creepy!”  I cringed.  But, it was an incredible opportunity to teach him about how to react appropriately when he sees people who are different.  He totally got it, too.  “I didn’t really mean ‘creepy.’ It just surprised me!” he said.  We talked about how people can be different shapes and sizes and colors, but we’re all people who have feelings and deserve respect.  Even though people may look different, they are living life just like we are.

“Yeah, like you, dad!  You do things different, but you can do whatever you want!” Sam declared.

They’re coming around.  They’re making me proud.

Thanks, Winter, for creating an opportunity to teach my kids about accepting everyone as they are.

Tell about your Dolphin Tale experience!  (Read about Jordan’s amazing experience here!)