Kids inherit their beliefs and their belief in themselves based on what you show them.

Intentionally or indirectly...

 

 

Vernon R. Heard

Limitations are learned.  Before kids learn from their own experiences, they are molded by your words and actions.  Words repeatedly used like “can’t”, “never”, “it’s always been that way” kinda lower the bar on what kids can expect to do or achieve; what they can expect from themselves.  They establish settling for less or giving up easily as options instead of going harder or not taking no for an answer.  If they’re lucky, they will ignore these teachings and aspire to their great potential in spite of the negativity.  That, though, is probably the exception and not the rule.  I say, don’t teach them what they can’t do, teach them what they can do… what they could do… what they will do.  Keep an open mind and open eyes and tell them to expect greatness.  Make it ‘non-optional’.

 

Encouraging creativity means letting a child’s imagination run wild.  Let them make up stories, songs, be silly or artsy or just… different; creative.  Not necessarily in an artistic context but by letting them tear apart a radio to see how it works or run their own lemonade stand or build a backyard rocket ship or… just about anything they can dream up, with your supervision, of course.

 

You never know where the next Barrack Obama or Benjamin Banneker or Oprah Winfrey will come from.  You never know where the next NASA engineer, technology innovator or digital media visionary will come from.  Stifling a child’s creativity may not only stunt their growth, but it’s a disservice to the culture to deprive the world of their potential gifts. 

Praise their stick figure drawings, read to them, read with them, talk to them about following their dreams, ask them to describe themselves as they are and as they see themselves as adults… engage them.  It doesn’t end with the “you can do anything you set your mind to” speech we’ve all heard of.  Take kids to museums, on road trips, to the aquarium.  Open their eyes to something other than their immediate surroundings.  Introduce them to another language.  Let them see that their neighborhood is not a boundary that they have to stay within.  Instill an “of course I can” confidence in your child.   They don’t even need to know yet about obstacles and opposition just yet.  Let them know that they can succeed at what they want to be when they grow up.  Keep negativity out of the mix at an early age and lay the bricks that build a self-confident foundation that a setback would never phase anyway.  Don’t build mental walls around them.   You mold them in many ways and their expectations are part of that.

 

Use YOUR imagination with them.  Think of more activities for them than the obligatory forced\voluntary piano lessons, karate lessons, or ballet.  Get ‘em out and let them try new things.  Things that THEY are interested in.  Give them possibilities.  Encourage them.  It will go a long way beyond their oohs and aahs of the moment.  It plants sparks of the possibilities of what people can achieve.  What people can be.  They can see themselves more as groundbreakers than grounded aircraft.

 

Your little Doc McStuffins could be the next Black female neurosurgeon like Dr. Sherise Ferguson.  Your little science fair contestant could be the next Black geophysicist like Bill Stinson.  Aren’t you glad Prince’s mother didn’t continually yell “Turn that DAMN music off!! I’m sick of it!!”?   What if Venus and Serena Williams’ parents opted for the forced