Wednesday, August 18, 2010

The Bloom is in There

I watched an excellent talk the other night given by Brad Wilcox about building self-esteem in children. He said something really interesting and I wrote it down to remind myself. He said that we would never complain that seeds are not flowers. We would never take the packet of seeds back to the store and point to the beautiful image on the seed packet and complain to the manager that these ugly brown things look nothing like the picture on the front.

We wouldn't do that because we recognize the potential that lies within each seed to become a beautiful flower. Instead, we would plant the seed in faith and we would nurture it until it blooms.

When we hold that seed inside our hand, we know the bloom is in there somewhere.

Studies show that one of the leading factors in a lot of self-destructive decisions that teens make is low self-esteem. I have found this to be true as I watch my children and the choices they make: the ones with healthy self-esteem have no problem going against the flow of their peers to make good choices, while the ones that struggle with self-esteem also struggle with peer pressure. Brad Wilcox gave some keys that we can do as parents to help our children increase their self-esteem. And you'll notice he never mentions buying certain clothes or shoes.

P raise (especially in private. Public praise tends to embarrass kids.)
A ccept
R espect
E ncourage
N otice
T ime
S ay (as in, give them a say about some decisions, and let them know that their say matters.)

These are things we can do, I can do. Sometimes we get discouraged with what we see before us in our children, and we think it's nothing like what we were hoping for. But think of that little tiny brown seed. If we gave up on it, not understanding how what we see before us could ever turn into a beautiful bloom, we'd miss the best part.

I'm definitely nurturing the bloom.

5 comments:

Sarah said...

Jenna - what a great, great post. Thank you! I needed this reminder today... my "flower" is beautiful but sometimes I forget... I'm going to share this with other parent friends of mine!!!

Crystal Collier said...

This is a subject I face a lot with home schooling. Patience while they grow, faith that they will eventually grasp all the concepts it's seems so important for them to understand RIGHT NOW.

The bloom does come.

J9 said...

Thank you for this post....I really needed to read it! You don't even know me; I am one of those crazy blog stalkers (at least my kids say that about me!) but I think you wrote this post just for me! I will definitely be watching the talk now because it is just what I need to hear.

Holly (2 Kids and Tired) said...

Awesome post. I needed this reminder today.

I need to track down that talk.

Braden Bell said...

Great thoughts, Jenna. I appreciate you sharing them with us.