Steering Our Kids Personas

Children are different from each other, but one thing many of them do is try out different identities. I don't mean the abhorrent things we see in our culture today that are a total affront to God, but the seeming innocuous personas available to them. 

For example, one of your kids may be very athletic, so they will want to only wear athletic style clothes and assume an air like top athletes they admire. Everything about them is basically: _______(fill in the sport). You may have a child who has decided they are going to be a redneck, so they start asking for camouflage clothes, carrying numerous knives and donning big, heavy boots even in 90 degree weather. There may be a daughter who used to wear dresses but has clearly decided it is cool to look grungy or crunchy, no longer regularly washing hair or perhaps giving up meat, or a son who thinks being a bit of a joker is how he wants to be 'known'. This is not an endless list-- the point of it isn't to be exhaustive, but rather to alert parents to an important task in their parenting: wake up!! 

We need to tune in and see what is motivating our child to take on this new persona. The heart is what matters here, and often these changes are driven by insecurity. We'll see eldest children riding themselves to be perfect, youngests trying to fit in to any group they can gain admittance to, and middle children quietly retreating into themselves. All of these things in and of themselves aren't necessarily all bad, but depending on the age of the child and when it starts, it needs parental attention. Most of us want our kids to be similar to us, and if that is our goal, we need to look hard at ourselves to see our own shortcomings. Surely we don't wish to pass those on to our kids. Without honestly evaluating ourselves and where we find our worth, we can't guide our children.

It is difficult for some children to accept they have all the value and worth they need as a person created in the image of God. But this is a truth that we cannot give up working to instill. God made them for His purpose and His good pleasure, end of story. We aren't helping them by trying to boost self-esteem or encouraging them to fit in with whatever crowd, but rather we need to challenge these personas they seem so set on if that is where their identity and security lie. 

The latter point key. Is what they are adapting themselves to going to fade away, causing them greater pain later in life, or is it going to give them attention that we know is not going to be good as time progresses? The reputation teens build will stick with them, and it can often close doors, or open them. If our kids can only comfortably move in their tight circle, we're doing them a disservice. If we blindly accept that 'this is just who they are', and it is below our family standards for conduct or appearance, we are to blame for not trying to help them have a stronger foundation. Again, the exterior and simply being different isn't necessarily cause for alarm. We as parents need to pay attention to our kids, which means being with them and listening to them, so we can see what is motivating the persona they are striving to adopt. If they are leaving the ways they've been taught as teens, it is time to take action and work on helping them see their value in Christ with more focus.