One of my goals as a dad is to help my kids prepare for life in the best way possible. I want my kids to be ready to face anything the world throws their way, and enable them to handle it with grace.
Giving my kids this ability is not exactly the easiest thing to do. But if I want to be a positive influence in each of their lives, one of the things I must do is help them know themselves.
What does that really mean? Know themselves?
Our culture pressures each of us to conform to societal norms, and young people are especially targeted. But not everyone stops to ask the question, are those “norms” good and beneficial? Or are they more harmful than we realize?
Helping our children understand their identity is a fundamental part of developing a worldview that will allow our kids, and ourselves, to keep the world in a proper perspective. Knowing who we are is one of the most basic elements to developing a biblical worldview, and the sooner we have a solid understanding of that, the better off we’ll be, and our kids as well.
There are two parts to this. Our kids need to know themselves in two ways.
Their Identity As An Individual
As a father of six kids, I’ve come to realize very quickly that, while all of my kids have some similarities as siblings, each one of them is uniquely different. Each of them have different personality traits, different interests, different senses of humor, different ways of handling stress, different methods of expressing love, anger, joy, excitement and every other emotion.
For example, one of my daughters is more of an introvert, while another is definitely an extrovert. One of my sons loves to pull pranks, and another one is very quiet and serious much of the time. And each of those qualities are perfectly okay.
One of the most tragic statements that I hear from many parents is, “Why can’t you be more like your brother/sister?” That is probably one of the worst sentiments that you can express toward your child. They need to know that it is alright to not be like their siblings, that it is okay to be their own individual.
When we give them the freedom to know themselves, and to be themselves, they develop a stronger sense of self-confidence, which will serve them well in a world that strives to force each us to conform.
Their Identity In Christ
The second part of enabling our kids to know who they are involves knowing whose they are. Teaching our kids regarding their identity in Christ is a critical aspect of influencing them for life.
There are many ways that this can manifest in your interactions with your children, but they need to know that they are loved by the Father, and that he desires to have a relationship with each of them. God loves each of us, not because of what we have done, but because of who we are. We are created by God to have a deep and intimate relationship with him. When your kids realize just how deep God’s love for them is, they can experience a freedom to be who God has created them to be.
Once they have established that relationship with Christ, and accepted him as Savior, they need to realize just how steep the price was that the Father paid for them. It cost him his very own Son to purchase our redemption. As a result, our sins have been paid for, we have been made new, and we have peace with God.
Without knowing who God created them to be, it will be impossible for your kids, or any of us, to have a full knowledge of themselves. Perhaps the best way to share this with your kids is to model it in your own life. If that means that you need to make some changes, then do it! Your kids depend on you to lead them.
Enabling your kids to know themselves is one of the best ways to exercise positive influence in their lives for years to come. When you give them the freedom to be themselves, you’ll have the authority to speak into their lives, and they will listen.
Be deliberate, Dad!
How do you enable your kids to know and be themselves? You can leave your thoughts in the comments section below.