My Story

I’ve always been a very creative person, interested in art, music, and writing. I was told often that I was good at those things by my peers and my mother, and their praise of my accomplishments in those areas spurred me on to become better and better at them.

Adversely in my adolescence I was also told:

I’m not a math person

I’m not a science person

I’m not a good speller

I’m not a reader

I would always struggle in school

And for what? I thought.

So  I can get into a good college?  What in the world am I supposed to do in college, if I’m barely making it through high school?  What kind of serious degree or career can I pursue if all I am good at is painting and writing poetry? Forget it!

And in many ways I did.

I became consumed with my social life and did only enough school work to stay afloat. When it came time to graduate and choose a college major to pursue, I didn’t feel confident enough in any academic subject, to be able to approach it at a college level.

Now I know, for those of us who have never been professionally diagnosed with a mental disability or genetic learning disorder, our DNA does not prohibit us from being good at Math, Spelling, Grammar, Science, History, or Language Arts. For most of us, our strengths and weaknesses in academics have much more to do with our INTERESTS and our INSPIRATIONS rather than a left or right brain dominance. We pursue what we learn to love, and neglect what we don’t. And naturally we love what we’re good at, and what we become good at, tends to be what we’ve been ENCOURAGED in.

So what are you encouraging your kids in? I hope the answer is, “EVERYTHING.”

But, for many of us who were raised in “boxes” and are used to hearing others frame people into categories of “Math people”, “Artistic people”, “Bookish people” and “Athletic people”, we might not notice at first how we are now hastily and verbally, shoving our own children into a false framework.

What’s Your Story?

Were you ever told that you weren’t any good at an academic subject? What kinds of things were you made to believe about your inabilities, in your adolescence? What things do you tell everyone…

-          You’ve never been good at

-          You just aren’t cut out for

-          You aren’t able to do because you are a right brain or left brain dominant person

Have you ever stopped to consider, that maybe you never had a real opportunity to truly see what you were made of in the areas of study you struggled with, because you believed from nearly the start, you were BAD at them?

Is there any possibility, that given an inspiring mentor or a well written book, and some time and determination, that you might actually be capable of becoming good at the very things you’ve spent your entire life believing are impossible subjects for you?

Is it math?

Is it punctuation?

Is it drawing?

Is it spelling?

Is it reading?

Left Brain or Right Brain?

How many of us were taught to assess which side of our brain is dominant and allow that to tell us our future; what we were made for and what we should pursue?

As a pre-teen, I was told I wasn’t a math person. So, when math became difficult and no longer any fun, I had no motivation to work through it.  I assumed that the side of a person’s brain which makes them strong in math was not the strong side of my brain.  I believed that lie my whole adolescence and was empowered by teachers and mentors to use it as a valid excuse for my struggles. In High School I finally just gave up on math altogether.

Now as an adult, I have realized that was just something people told me and it might not be true. Once I had that breakthrough in my thinking I opened myself back up to math and I’ve learned I can be good at it, and my new attitude towards it has allowed me to develop a real interest in it.

This article is supposed to be about our children and how their thinking is being shaped, but in order to positively frame their self-image, we will first need to consider our own.

It took an epiphany for me to stop assuming since I was a creative person, I could not be a successful math or science person. We must each face the lies we’ve been believing for decades about ourselves and our abilities to learn, and in doing so, change the statements we make in front of our children.

If we say it about ourselves, our children will learn they can say it about themselves and get away with giving up, like we did.

Preparing Them to Be Able to Do Anything THEY Want

In a home where a parent is artistic, where drawing and painting are daily demonstrated, and artistic resources are always available, a young child is likely to be interested in art. They will more easily pick up artistic abilities and be encouraged in such endeavors.  And most importantly they will be INSPIRED to take part in art by a parent who loves it and lives it passionately in front of them.

In a home where a child has a mathematically confident parent and never hears the phrase, “I’m not a math person,” a child may be able to flourish in math because they never learn to associate the subject with fear and impossibility. A child like this will have a huge advantage down the road when math really does become difficult, in that they won’t be afraid of the subject, or have any belief that they won’t be able to eventually tackle any stage of it, with some effort.

But, if a child hears over and over from their parents and mentors that they just aren’t a math person, a science person, artistic, or good at spelling, you can bet they probably never will be. It won’t be their DNA that has dictated their weaknesses but rather their beliefs about themselves.

We all truly can be math people, science people, history people, eloquent people, artistic people, and yes even athletic people, if we choose to be. There of course will still be a spectrum along which we fall compared to others. We will be stronger in some areas and weaker in others, but we don’t have to feel genetically incapable of any of it.

It is so important to affirm our children’s capabilities, so that we are not shaping them to cut out certain pursuits by telling them what they weren’t made for. We ought to allow our children to discover their own passions and purposes, rather than dictate what they will become, by telling them from a young age what “ just isn’t their strong suit.”

This is NOT that talk!

Now let’s hold on right here while I make something clear.

This isn’t one of those talks that follows the philosophy of “Everyone gets a trophy no matter how well they play their sport, and everyone gets an A+ no matter how well they did on their assignment.” In those ways children need a barometer to see how the effort they put into their pursuit matches up with the results that they receive. Receiving a poor grade or not getting a trophy in a sport, teaches a child that they need to find new ways to approach their goals in order to receive better results in the future.

This talk is about thinking before we speak and knowing that the more times you tell a kid they are bad, bad, bad at something, the easier it is for them to believe it and give up on it.

And I’m not talking about mean verbally abusive parents. I’m talking about very kind, loving parents. Parents who often may not even realize they are saying these negative things to their children, but who based on how they themselves were educated, truly believe right brain/left brain dominance dictates WHO someone is capable of being and WHAT they are capable of being good at.

Parents and mentors need to be the voices of support encouraging children that they can excel in anything THEY DESIRE. We need not to be the people in their lives who throw our hands up and say, “You’re just not cut out for this. You just weren’t born to do this.”

(Unless of course we’re talking about being in the NBA or the Royal Ballet School… of course in those types of cases very specific genetics are pretty much a requirement!)

The Powerful Words of Mentors

We as parents are not the only ones who can frame a child’s world negatively by what we are telling them about themselves. Even when we correct our own speech, we still have to be concerned with input they are getting elsewhere.

A good mentor is able to creatively and passionately INSPIRE students towards accomplishment. But sometimes the mentors our children end up with, have decidedly chosen their approach to teaching and whoever can’t keep up, is verbally torn down or simply made to feel less smart by inference. Negative experiences like this can not only change the way a child thinks about themselves, it can affect how he or she pursues their own education, forever.

We must be vigilant as parents, to listen to our children and take action when we hear them beginning to repeat negative comments about themselves and their abilities to learn. If an adult in their life, like a coach or teacher has been telling them they aren’t good at something, or just aren’t cut out for something, it will begin to show up in a child’s attitude about themselves.

Our first instinct in this kind of situation can be to go on the defensive and like a mother bear march right in to that coach or teacher and tell them a thing or two about their lame brained teaching skills. But hold on a minute! Instead of getting all huffy and puffy over a situation like this, we can embrace it as part of the shaping of our children’s character.

After all, our kids will face criticism, competition for place, and even insults, throughout their entire lives. Rather than try and make those negative comments go away, we want to instead take notice of them and equip our kids to look ‘em in the eye, and knock them down with truth about their abilities.

As parents we need to stay on top of these kinds of negative influences as best we can, being aware of them, and bringing them up in discussions with our kids. We ought to more often be our children’s cheerleaders rather than their defense, reminding them that they can accomplish what they set their minds too and that they ought to get out there and prove it.

Exactly What TO Say and What NOT to Say

My hope is to encourage parents and mentors not to negatively frame a child’s world by the words of your mouth.  It takes a continual conscious effort to make sure we don’t verbally put our children in a “box” with a label of “not good at…” when we see them struggling in academics.

Instead, we should be affirming our children when they struggle and saying things to them like,

“You can do this, you just need to keep at it.”

“I know you can get into some tough spots with this subject, but just stay with it.”

“Don’t give up. You are very smart and totally capable of getting this.”

“ You will get it… you’ll see.”

“You are great at this.  You’re at a tough part with it, but you’ll get it because you really are great at this.”

These are the types of things we need to be saying to our children over and over again so that when things get tough, those affirmations are what fill their thoughts and push them on towards achievement, rather than cop-outs. We need to avoid saying things to them like,

“You’re just not a math person.”

“Honey science just isn’t one of your strong suits.”

“You’re just a creative person, not an analytical person.”

“You’re just like me, terrible at spelling.”

“You’re just like your father, terrible at punctuation.”

These negative comments allow our children to simply give up. These kinds of phrases tell them, that no matter how much effort they put into improving, they will never be GREAT. How is this motivation to work harder? It’s not. It is however motivation to drop the effort entirely.

One Final Note

I think as parents we are even sometimes tempted to say our children “just aren’t good at something” in order to take some of the heat off of ourselves.  If our child is struggling in a subject, it is much easier to tell the world and that child, that they simply aren’t a math person or a science person than it is to work harder with them on the subject. It is easier to box them up as “bad” at a subject, rather than admit we as parents or teachers might be failing in helping them to better tackle a topic.  After all we are awfully busy and having to realize that one more thing needs more of our attention can be an overwhelming admission.

The good news is that if you really stay on top of the ENCOURAGEMENT and building up of your child’s confidence in their God-given capabilities in ALL subjects, the farther ahead you’ll be in trying to help them conquer the subjects they struggle in. They will already be assured that they can succeed at anything, if they just keep trying.

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