We ask children as a society what they want to be when they grow up. Are we simply just what we do for a living? We ask because we want our children to have their eyes on the future, to have ambition. So few children though actually have conviction for their dreams and many adults look back with sadness over where they seem to have failed themselves because of that simple question.
Rather than giving them this huge question that they may feel unable to answer, or someday they might look back sadly on. Ask them what adventures they want to have some day. Ask them to dream and tell them that even if they only ever do one of the things they dream of that they will have succeeded.
We are putting too much pressure on children and it not helping them. We are expecting them all to be above average, to stand out, to have ambitions that we have for them. We don’t tend to let them just be children. We don’t tend to let them simply dream.
We can help our children by telling them our dreams and the adventures we have had and the ones we still want to have. Going on vacation to places like Disney can be an adventure but the kids tend to be dragged along and everything tends to be planned for them. They are not often included in the planning and not often given the choices that make it an adventure for them.
My children know that I dreamed of being a surrogate mother and when I was old enough, I made the choices, I had an adventure, and I met a need in my heart to do something for others that they couldn’t do without help.
My husband had a dream growing up, he and his friends planned a video game company, they each had a part. It was such a big dream but narrow too. Things didn’t work out and I think it left a hole for all of them. They focused so much on it and didn’t dream outside the box. Only one of them now is in the video game programming world (I think) and most have gone to other great jobs, and families, and different dreams. I bet they all wonder about “what if” though. I wonder if like my husband and I, they find it important to help their children to dream big and wide.
Life can happen behind a screen, while reading a book in car, and while falling out of trees. Make a list with your children of adventures they want to have now and the ones they want to have some day. Ask them what makes them feel alive! It is such an important question and you might be surprised how they respond.
Make your own lists of adventures you want to have and let them see it. Maybe you want to open a shop, or travel the country going into every used book story you can. Maybe you want a vacation you can only dream about like spending the night in an ice hotel (Available on with Discover the World) or another far off place one only seems to find on Pinterest. Maybe put all your dreams together on a pinterest board. Here is one of the pins on my own someday dream board.
If you haven’t guessed, I love tree houses! I don’t know if I will ever get to sit in one and read another book cover to cover again but once I did and I loved it. Memories like these remind me how lucky I am. I don’t have a million dollar job, and my life on paper might not look amazing but I can tell you that my adventures in love, life, and with kids make my life amazing. I wish I would have been asked to dream like I do now when I was younger. I felt so pushed and all I could do was push back.
Many parents are failing to ask the important questions, not the ones about what a child wants to be when they grow up. Ask them what makes them feel alive and what dreams they have. My 5 year old wants a cat, or 10, and while that one dream might not seem big, you have to know her to get it. She is one of those kids who really plays with the pets in her life and she connects with them deeply. When she says she wants her own cats, it means a lot and it isn’t silly, it is perfect.
Ask the right questions!
