“Tell me how you’d describe your body.”
I’d learned of late, to ask my children how they’d describe themselves, to gain a little insight of their self-perception, esteem.
“Short hair. Tall.” (Even though she’s the shortest in class.)😅 Pause. “And thick thighs. X says I have thick thighs.”
“What?” I said, trying not to sound alarmed.
“She was just joking.”
“Really?”
“Yeah, it’s okay. I don’t mind it. I think it’s funny too.”
I thought of the times I was called chubby when I was little. It was funny until it wasn’t.
Suddenly inspired by the Holy Spirit, I felt God give me a new object lesson for my children.
“When someone says something bad about you, it’s like a sticky note. It’s a label and *pat* they can stick it on you. But what you can do, is to peel it off, and?”
“I can throw it away!” My two girls said excitedly. “Let’s do it together!”
On different colored pieces of sticky notes, I wrote down “bad names” they told me.
“Mama, write FAT here. SMELLY. UGLY.”
And together, we stuck them on each other, peeled them off and threw them away!
Then came the unexpected question that hit me like a ton of bricks.
“Mama, what happens when you unpeel the sticky note, and you are bleeding?”
My heart stopped. What a profound question. I wanted to say “use a bandaid” but that was not it. That’s exactly what so many of us do when people hurt us. We hide it under a bandaid and pretend it’s okay.
“We bring it to Jesus, and ask Him to heal our wound.”
When I ended the lesson, it was my five-year old who told me without prompting, “I wanna write ‘I love you’ on the stickies.”
What a lesson. That as much as we have power to disregard mean, empty words. We can return evil with kindness. Such is the power of our words.
What other ways do you teach your kids about positive self-image and identity? I’d love to know ❤️