To Unleash Their Gifts

Kids deserve the right to think that they can change the world.We actively look for the strengths in each other and try to fan those into flame.We’re careful to never put any child in a box.Many of us know what it’s like to grow up as the athletic one, the smart one, or the handy one. You feel like you can’t venture outside your assigned role in life, and it makes your siblings feel like they’ll never be as good as you in that area.Or maybe you grew up with the stigma of not being good at anything, which is even worse.When our kids show signs of excelling in a particular field, we try to fuel their gifts by offering encouraging words, giving them the opportunity to spend more time in that area, and making sure they have the resources they need.In our family, we call these resources tools of creations. We’ve told our kids that if they have an interest that aligns with their gifts, we’ll do our best to provide the necessary resources to pursue it.We can’t always afford everything they want, and we don’t buy everything we can.There has to be a dedicated season of working on the craft to prove their commitment before we purchase anything.And it has to fall in the category of creating something, rather than merely consuming media.Not every request is approved, and not everything we greenlight turns into something.But we believe in fueling our children’s gifts.Children cannot possibly know what they’re good at without trying it.Isn’t this the way filmmakers start out?Someone gives them a camcorder and plenty of time to use it.Isn’t this the way astronomers get started?Someone buys them a telescope and points it at the sky.Just as great thinkers, writers, mathematicians, and philosophers need copious amounts of time, supplies, and spaces to practice their craft, so do engineers, mechanics, and artists.Imagine the impact you could make on the world through your children by simply investing in their interests and talents.I want to be a church man when I grow up, she said.Can girls be church mans?I either want to be a cowgirl or a church man when I grow up, she continued.But horses are expensive, so I don’t know about a cowgirl.I think I’ll be a church man.Our children grow up with very little awareness of the impossibilities or impracticalities of life.Those doubts and fears make their way into their precious little minds through the careless remarks of naysayers or the biases that are reflected in society, media, and culture.Without these negative influences, our children awaken each day with heads full of possibility and hearts full of courage.This is why the family is so important.It’s meant to be an incubator for the hopes and dreams of children, a safe haven for wondering and wandering.But they often struggle to know what makes them exceptional in the world.Far too often, children’s dreams become fashioned into a construct that reduces risk, crushes creativity, and eradicates idealism.This is why I stopped letting my children watch Thomas the Tank Engine & Friends when they were little.Sir Topham Hatt’s remarks to the trains as being useful engines were a blight on childhood wonder.For example, on a drizzly day in Sodor, an engine named Henry refuses to come out of his tunnel for fear that the rain will ruin his lovely green paint and red stripes.Sir Topham Hatt warns him to get back to work or we shall take away your rails, and leave you here for always and always.1When Henry still refuses to come out, the railway employees block the engine in his tunnel, and his friends pass him, one by one, expressing their displeasure.Henry is left alone, wondering if he’ll ever work again.The episode ends with the narrator saying, I think he deserved his punishment, don’t you?Useful is an important concept for marketplace ventures and for anyone seeking employment with a company that has a specific job to do.But who says our children can’t make up their own rules?Can’t disrupt industries with their innovative thinking?Can’t define their own usefulness?Useful is a subjective term and one on which every parent should withhold judgment until the fruits of our children’s endeavors are made evident.After all, a degree in math or science, or any of the fields considered to be practical, does not guarantee success.And what is success, after all?Your family was designed to protect the dreams of your children.You are meant to be the Medici for your young artists, idealists, and dreamers, nurturing their notions and fanning their gifts into flame.People will always say it can’t be done until finally someone does it.Perhaps that someone will be your child.Why can’t it be your child?Our role as parents is to unleash our children’s gifts and provide them with opportunities to work out their ideas, no matter how impractical or useless they might appear.There is plenty of time for course correction.Mistakes are not life sentences.Miscalculations are learning opportunities.It’s up to the future to determine which ideas will pan out and which ones won’t.As parents, that’s not our job.Our job is to call out the best in our children.To walk alongside them, even when we don’t know where the path will lead.A world where they are not bound by the limitations of society, but rather released by the dreams in their hearts and the ideas in their heads.A world where they are free to feel, free to think, and free to be.No one ever grows up dreaming of working in a cubicle.No one believes the highest expression of their lives will be the company picnic.These are young Picassos, Edisons, Goodalls, and Ginsburgs we are raising, if only we will see them for the potential each of them possesses.This brave new world doesn’t start when our children leave the nest.It begins right now in the little universe that is our family, our household.We are responsible for the microecosystems that birth their dreams, their character, their feelings, their opportunities, and their beliefs about the world.Here are several ways we can begin to unleash our children’s gifts.My girl feels deeply.And as her mother, I am committed to helping her understand that her emotions are a superpower.I want her to know that her feelings are a strength, not a weakness.Many of us grew up in homes or went to schools where expressing emotion was considered a weakness.This is one of the great tragedies of childhood.After all, we are our emotions.