What I Hope for My Children

I started writing this in reply to Julie’s comment [the 500th comment on this blog and by a new reader to boot! Hooray!] on the Shinguards Go Inside the Sock post and realized I wanted to put it up here as a separate post.

Julie, I think you make a really good point about how important it is to help your child celebrate who he is and what he is good at.  All children need that.  Actually, we all need that.  In pushing one’s children to “fit in” so that they can find greater happiness, it is possible to accidentally send the message that not fitting in is truly terrible.  This is a shame.  I don’t need or want cookie cutter kids (and I’m not likely to have any).  While I want them to feel comfortable socially if possible, I also want to teach them that they don’t have to be like everyone else to be wonderful.  This is important for them to know because a) they aren’t like everybody else and b) they are wonderful.  It doesn’t mean that those other kids aren’t wonderful as well, but clichéd or not, we are all wonderful in our own way.

I hope my children can learn to appreciate other’s talents and gifts without feeling that they are worth less because they didn’t get those particular talents and gifts.  I also hope they will grow to feel mightily thankful for the gifts they have received, while keeping the perspective that being better at x doesn’t make you better, it just makes you better at x.  I  hope each of my children can find areas in which they are able to work hard and excel, because the discipline of applying oneself and learning the rules of any practice–whether it be soccer or swimming, storytelling or spelling bees, crocheting or kayaking–and then seeing improvement and ultimately success, is powerful rest-of-your-life preparation.  We all like to feel that there is something we’re good at.  We all want to know that if we work hard we can accomplish great things.  This knowledge gives us courage and strength.  It also gives us a secure position from which we are better able to appreciate other’s accomplishments and abilities.

Social Media:
  • Digg
  • Kirtsy
  • StumbleUpon
  • Facebook

June 17, 2009 | Filed Under Goals, Parenting 

Comments

One Response to “What I Hope for My Children”

  1. Rebecca on June 17th, 2009 1:15 pm

    What a wonderful post. I have no doubt your children will be incredibly grateful for who you’ve raised them to become.

Leave a Reply





CommentLuv Enabled