Write Carefully, It's Permanent Ink...

 

Hi!

Meet Super FireHeart! The Valentine superhero you didn't know you needed! 

She's kind, she's smart, she's brave, she's resourceful, and knows her way around a tub of legos. 

For those who believe that progress has robbed our littles of imagination... relax.

Kids are kids are kids. They haven't changed in any fundamental way for a very long time. Given some poster paper, a toilet paper roll, some space and time, anything can happen. You add a beach cover-up, and a bit of string, and you have hours of play. 

I'm sure parents in days of yore, fretted about what kind of crazy nightlife electricity would encourage. Then came the radio, then movies, then the telephone, then television... you get what I mean. 

Sprinkled in there came card games, board games, and, yes, video games. The evolution of each, pretty incredible. 

It's the same with music, I'm sure the stick-up-the-butt- group during the flapper era pretty much crapped their pants the first time they ever saw a couple dance a tango. (The original dirty dance)

Some parents of each generation seem convinced, if not determined to find a threat in what ends up being simple progress. 

If history shows us anything about this, it's that the evil that is perceived to be embedded in progress rarely, if ever, lives up to the hype.

I mean, rock and roll, didn't actually emaciate the souls and morals of the youth in the 1950's.

Ozzy Osbourne is not, as it turns out, the prince of darkness.

Playing vinyl records backward did not, actually or factually, invite satan into your home. 

Spicy album cover art does not, not even a little bit, turn you into a sex addict.

I mean the list of fears is endless, really. 

So, for those freaked out by progress. Relax.

Engage in it so you can understand it better. Engaging helps understanding, which then can help alleviate fears pretty quickly. If your kid likes playing video games a little too much for your liking, provide entertaining alternatives. Get them out for a game of catch, a bike ride, a walk, just spend time. Try to understand this is what hanging out with your friends looks like now. Not for all kids, but for some. 

Provide opportunities for your kids to try different things, you never know what might light them up. It might not be anything you are interested in, or particularly find enjoyable, but that's completely irrelevant. If this is, indeed, truly about them, their likes, their well-being, any negative opinion you may have about any particular activity is best kept to yourself. 

Our job as parents and adults involved in the lives of our littles and not-so-littles, is to encourage and support what makes them shine, even if we don't get it, don't understand it, or think it's dumb. 

If you throw shit at what makes their heart shine, you start to make them second-guess themselves. They start adjusting who they are to fit in the box you are building for them. Adjustment can develop into contortion, eventually twisting themselves in knots, trying, struggling to find the tattered remnants of the shine they were once so sure of. 

Words, facial expressions, and initial reactions when a tender-aged heart becomes brave enough to introduce you to something they love have tremendous power. Use them kindly, use them lovingly, use them wisely. You're unconsidered reflex will live in the mirror for them for the rest of their lives. 

It will follow them. Especially if it's not just a one-off. They will hear the echoes of your disdain in their minds before every test, during every tryout for a team, every audition, in every job interview.

Your words and actions have a heavy hand in writing the foreword of the story that will become their life. Write carefully, it's permanent ink. 

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May we all take a breath, and see that the world is still a beautiful place, filled almost exclusively by good humans. 

May we remember what it's like to have fun simply for fun's sake, and do that. A lot.