Hi friends, happy Thursday.
Authenticity can sometimes feel like a more challenging topic to teach our kids. 🌟
How to tune in to their authentic selves, stand by their values, speak their minds, and have self-confidence…even when it feels like it is different than their friends or those around them? Gosh, we feel like we are still working on this skill as adults, sometimes!
I’ll give you a small story example of how the topic of authenticity popped up in my home life recently, that brought back so many memories of my own childhood. 🙋🏻♀️
My 6 year old daughter recently came home from school asking me why she had such “dark hairy arms” and I could tell she was feeling a bit sad about it while she was asking me this. She said no one else in her class had arms like hers. She said that another girl in her class jokingly marveled at her arms and how long the arm hair was. This made her feel like she wished she didn’t have “dark hairy arms” she said.
It reminded me of a time I got made fun of as a child for my long dark hair on my arms. I’ll never forget it…something I never once even noticed about myself all of a sudden became something I was very concerned with because one kid in my class said I “looked like a hairy monkey”. 😞 I was probably around 8 years old and it stuck with me all these years later.
I shared this story with my daughter and she was so relieved that a similar experience had happened to me, too, and that she wasn’t alone.💗 We talked a lot about things she loves about herself and worked to build that self-confidence and practiced some phrases she could say if that interaction occurred again.
Teaching kids about differences is so critical. And not just differences of the way we look, but also differences in things we like or dislike, different neurotypes, different family traditions or cultures, different ways of living or doing things, etc.
When we normalize differences as something to be noticed and celebrated, it becomes so much easier to teach kids about authenticity. 👍
Here are just a few things we like to say to our kids, as a teacher and a therapist, to avoid raising people pleasers and instead raise kids to be confident in their authentic selves! 😍
How are you showing up as your authentic self for the kids in your life to see? Because we think you’re pretty amazing…just the way you are! ✨
Sending love,
Abbie & Emily