In this season of gift-giving, parents often wonder about the best gift for a child. I invite you to look at this from a perspective inspired by a public speaking prompt for our Green Mountain Youth Speakers meeting last night:
“What’s the best gift you can give someone that doesn’t cost anything?”
How would you answer that? Would it be something you could make or a task you could do?… What if it was an attitude you could convey? Perhaps that might be more important than anything you could make or do or buy.
I think the best gift you can give your children is to BELIEVE in them.
How many children know that someone believes in them? How many children know that someone believes they are capable of ________________. I’ll leave it up to you to decide all the words you could use to fill in that blank. You might use words like kindness, humility, generosity, creativity, academic achievement, making the right choices, or any other number of adjectives and goals that reflect your family’s values and your child’s aspirations.
How You Say It
How you make this powerful statement – “I believe in you” – is up to you. Perhaps you never say those exact words out loud. You may say it with different words or simply through your actions. But take the time to consider how you can frame your conversations and actions so that your children know without question that you believe in them.
When You Say It
Granted, “I believe in you” might not be the first words that come to mind after your child cuts through an extension cord with the hedge trimmers, spills paint all over an upholstered chair, or worse. Don’t expect yourself to use these words immediately after things go wrong.
The time to say or convey “I believe in you” is when you and your child begin to move forward from an ‘incident’, when your child is facing a new challenge, or just when you the two of you have a random quiet moment together. And then you want to say or convey these words consistently as your children grow and change.
In your search for the best gift for a child this Christmas, you’re probably looking for one or more nice ‘actual’ gifts to wrap up. But don’t discount your belief in your child – an important year round gift you can give.
And now… consider a gift for yourself. Perhaps you could do the same for yourself. What a great gift to give yourself – to believe in YOU, to believe that you are ________________.
What would you fill in the blank with today? It doesn’t hurt to do a little bit of optimistic thinking here. Maybe you don’t feel perfectly capable, patient, strong, kind, etc. But you can get there. Just like your children, you are capable of great things. All it takes is a little belief.
For more on encouraging your children and yourself, I invite you to read “The Importance of Not Yet”.