Nicole King – I Believe

This week I’d like to talk about children, precious beings that will carry us into the future.  I’ve had the privilege of raising my own and being privy to their understanding of life through their experiences. 

I’ve learnt more from them than probably anyone else and together with the hundreds of children I’ve met through my work, I have come to appreciate that their self-worth depends entirely on how their parents and subsequently teachers see and value them.

Each child is happy to be themselves until we start to compare them to others, usually through looks, behaviour and academic achievement.  Love can become conditional if these factors influence our appreciation of their worth.

My daughter always makes the most beautiful birthday cards with long, heartfelt messages inside.  As a child one day she felt devastated because instead of commenting on the sentiment all the attention was first drawn to a spelling mistake.  Immediately it was apparent that this meaningless error took away all the focus from the meaning of the moment.

We need to constantly remind ourselves to value our children, their thoughts and their opinions.

My son once asked me, at 8 years old, how he could learn from a teacher that may be older and have more information than him but thought himself more intelligent; my son knew that this was not the case.  He couldn’t understand why he was meant to feel inferior to this person and rightly so.  We all have something to learn and yet frequently say to our youngsters “how can you not know?” …. None of us do, until we learn or are taught; this is not a weakness.

My son also used to have nightmares and huddle terrified in the corner of his crib and point at things we couldn’t see.  He explained years later that this started happening way before he knew how to talk to tell us.

We underestimate our children all the time.   They are more aware than us and more vulnerable than us, it is up to us to protect and guide them and let them grow in their own unique direction.  They are not to be herded and they should be heard.

Yesterday my granddaughter was “accused” of being shy and yet I later realised that she wasn’t being shy, she was assessing the person and the situation.  Not only does she have every right to do so, she must do so in order to develop her instincts and learn to trust her gut feelings.  I should have said that at the time so she wouldn’t have questioned her reaction; which was the correct one.

With back to school looming and the worldwide suicide pandemic on the increase, please take a moment to reflect on what we really want for our children, is it academic praise that gives us bragging fodder with our peers or is it confident and rounded people who like just how they look and how they are and that want to be around us?