How do kids go from ambitions of being superheroes in Kindergarten to fears of failures in 12th Grade? Imagine what you would find walking into a typical Kindergarten class that has a costume party - a bunch of pumped up little doods with shields, bows, tiaras, magic wands running around a class room being awesome.
Imagine that same experience in a typical 12th grade class. You will generally find some people too cool to dress up (really a fear of failure), some kids pushing the line with whatever scantily clad costume they found at Walgreens, and very little physical motion. Maybe a few kids interacting with each other - but defiantly nobody running around the class being awesome, slaying dragons, destroying bad guys, jumping off of cliffs and resisting gravity.
What happens?
Reality? Growing up? 'maturity'?
I would suggest that for the most part kids get through the Kindergarten-12th Grade process without parents ascribing their identity. As a result they seek it out elsewhere, in social media, @ school, in a extracurricular (sports, school, selling drugs). And the result is generally a pretty blah kid with a pretty blah outlook.
As parents I would challenge you to call out who your kids are before they even get a chance to get to Kindergarten but especially after they start. One way I do that is by unique nicknames.
For my wife and I this got stimulated by reading the following Bible verse in Proverbs 22:6:
Train up a child in the way he should go,And when he is old he will not depart it
The verb used their in the Hebrew of to train up translates to build in their unique identity. So my wife and I started referring to our chillens with different nicknames that developed over our experiences with them in order to help call out and affirm our kids identity.
For example, my three older kids are a little more temperate then my youngest. Well my youngest is named Cole Banner (which can easily associate with The Hulk/Bruce Banner). Early on I started referring to him as Cole the Monster. Because he was loud obnoxious and destructive. When he turned two I thought to myself, wow dont want this kids to grow up this way - he is not actually created to be destructive, so instead we have started calling him Cole the Mighty. He will consistently hear from me (on almost a daily basis) that he is not only Mighty but built to be a blessing to people.
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For my 2nd child - he had some weird fear responses early on, and can be a bit of eccentric kid. He is very social and loves engaging new people, however we found early on, he would get shut down when he perceives rejection or he feels he's in an environment where he is not skilled or doesn't know what to do. So we started calling him 'Jack the Brave' - one who slays the lions of society and the giants in the land. While thats kinda long - we usually just say Jack the Brave. He hears that several times a day, and its his frame of reference when he interacts with me or his mom (his siblings even start using that...which is awesome). So in moments of fear, or in parenting moments we are generally able to go back to his identity to help him develop the courage to confront his conflict. If its talking to a bully, or owning up to a mistake - Jack the Brave is learning a mindset of tackling giants, and will be a powerful kid come the end of 12th grade.
My hope for you today - is that as you are building powerful kids you would be able to call out their unique identity early on. You as parent are the responsible party to build that foundation. Use unique nicknames if it helps. Its been awesome for my kids.
Society will gladly try and ascribe something to your kid...my take is what society thinks is not going to be super helpful for my 6 or 7 year old - I can do it just fine.
Be mom be dad - use nicknames if it helps!
Thanks for reading along - don't fear failure - rather fail forward...its easier
live big and dominate the day