What About Me Wednesday: On Letting Kids Be Themselves
Today is Halloween, and every year I find myself reminiscing about Halloweens past. It was always one of my favorite holidays as a kid, chiefly because I loved wearing a costume to school.
Some years I dressed as something unexciting and common, like a rabbit or a pirate. Other years I dressed as characters that adults recognized, but kids didn't (Groucho Marx, age 8, Elvira, age 10).
But it was in 6th grade that I wore a costume that still makes my mother cringe.
I was into theater as a kid (still am), and I had just been to see Les Miserables on Broadway. In the show, one of the female characters falls on hard times and turns to prostitution. She and her fellow prostitutes sing a song called "Lovely Ladies". It's an upbeat song with a great hook (strangely enough for a song that deals with such a degrading, unfortunate subject). As an 11-year-old, I thought it was one of the best numbers in the show. The women who sang it were listed in the Playbill as "whores". I had no idea what that meant, but I decided I wanted to be one for Halloween.
"Mom, I want to dress up as one of the characters in Les Miz," I said. My mother took that to mean I wanted to dress up as a woman from nineteenth century Paris. So we assembled a costume out of the dress I wore in West Side Story, fishnet stockings, and a hot pink feather boa. Very French Revolution.
I went to school dressed like that on Halloween. And my math teacher, Mr. Joseph, brought his video camera. One at a time, everyone in my class stood up and told the camera what we were for Halloween. It played out something like this:
Kid 1: "I'm a princess."
Kid 2: "I'm a vampire."
Me: "I'm a whore."
Mr. Joseph was dumbstruck. With the camera still rolling, he corrected me, "Uh...we call them ladies of the evening."
I had no idea what he meant, or what was wrong with being a whore for Halloween. I think at that point one of my less-sheltered friends explained to me what a whore was. For the rest of the day, I said I was dressed as a dancer.
I decided to share this story with you because I know a lot of you are parents, and a lot of you (like me) are planning to become parents in the future. Of course everyone wants the best for their kids, and that's an easy goal to fulfill when your kids fit the mold...and not as easy when they don't.
For example, say you have two children. Little Jacob is on the soccer team, loves video games, and wants to be Spider-Man for Halloween; little Emily plays the trombone, collects insects, and wants to be Richard Nixon for Halloween. Or a whore. The point is, as a parent you have to let Jacob be Jacob and Emily be Emily, even if Jacob's interests are totally mainstream and Emily's are a little out there. If you try to steer Emily in another direction, it will hurt her self-esteem.
This is especially important for kids with ADD. They already feel different from other kids, and that on its own can be isolating and hard to cope with. They need solid support and encouragement from their parents, no matter what choices they make (unless of course they're endangering themselves).
In our new coaching toolkit, Taming the Family Circus, a good portion of the program is devoted to focusing on your child's strengths. You may think that as a parent (or future parent), you'll do that instinctively. But there are actually specific techniques you can use to bolster a kid's self-esteem. Jen and Sharon cover them all in the toolkit. And just a reminder, today is the last day the toolkit is available at the pre-sale price of $37 (it's going up to $47 tomorrow). Also, you can get free shipping by using the code POFSH (which also expires today). So before your little monsters and witches come home from school, grab a copy of Taming the Family Circus for yourself.
Have a Happy Halloween!
