Yesterday I went to a parents meeting for my son who is in Year 3 at school. It was when I returned home and was telling him how proud I am of his achievements that he said “ARE THERE ANY BUTS MUM?”

Well, such a statement or question (what ever it was) triggered in my mind and my whole body a very unsettling feeling. He even didn’t say BUT in a single form… he used BUTS plural instead, as if one but is not enough. So I got to thinking. Is it we parents, schools, or society as a whole responsible for sending such a contaminating messages to our kids?

Don’t take me wrong, I am of the opinion that our kids’ responsibility is to study… and too much pumping up their ego can make them into monsters. BUT, I can definitely recognize the feeling of inadequacy, lack of worth, lack of self-belief, and the big big pressure that kids have to deal with nowadays. We grown ups are sometimes too immersed in how to cope with our own life… how to pay for bills, how to be more spiritual, or how to buy our next flat that we forget how our kids are coping in life.

How do they see themselves, what are they expecting from themselves? What do they feel our expectations are from them? With lack of communication both ways they start acting as they think we expect them to, after all they are good kids. And before we know they have fallen in to a dark hole unable to shine.  Copying the school friend or the neighbors, shutting themselves off from who they really are and stepping into a mask of acceptance. Living someone else’s expectations. Unable to project their might, incapable of loving themselves full of criticism not only for what they do, as well as for how the rest of the people around them are behaving. They are likely to grow up into adults that are constantly testing themselves and others, from starvation diets, how to be a master chef, running huge marathons, to climb the Everest.

YET, the sense of INNER-WORTH, LOVE, SELF-ESTEEM, AND BELIEF IS NOT THERE. Let’s instead show them how to nurture the light that we so much envy to have. Let’s open their eyes, pull back the curtains of life to see that the only mountain to conquer is that of their inner worth. And there lies the valley of self-esteem, belief and love. These are the tools to have, and with such precious findings there will be no mountain, valley, business, or love they cannot conquer. Only the ones they think they deserve they receive! Give them the power!

EMPOWER!