The long path from childhood to adulthood can be an ordeal or an adventure. Which will you choose?
Think about your child as she is about to graduate from high school. What do you want her to be like? What will her values be? What kind of skills will she have? Will she be ready to tackle the world?
Last October I met a teen who blew my mind. I started talking to her at a camp I was attending. She was there as Staff for the roughly 8 – 13 year olds. At dinner, I asked her if she knew where she was headed. She told me she was really into music (what teen isn’t?) and that she would love to study it more in-depth. I could not have predicted what came next.
“I’m really interested in native music and drumming rhythms. I’m planning a trip to South America this summer. I’m already fundraising for it on GoFundMe, and I’m giving people things like music lessons or a song written just for them or a souvenir and stuff like that.”
I asked her some questions, and she told me lots more detail, but I was only half listening. I was thinking about myself as a 17 year old.
I had no idea who I was, or what my gifts were, or what I could give back to the world. I certainly didn’t know how to plan a month-long solo trip to ANOTHER CONTINENT. Where did she get such passion? Where had she learned such confidence? (At 17 I couldn’t even walk up to the counter at McDonald’s and order food; I always pretended I had to go to the bathroom and made my sister order for me. For real!)
Turns out she’s the daughter of Mark Morey, who created and led our camp. For 3 decades, Mark has been using the skills of nature immersion to help people get to know themselves better, connect with nature, and combat the disconnection that is so prevalent in our world.
In one of our fireside chats, Mark mentioned that his years of practice of observing nature made him a good observer of children. My ears perked up, since that’s a strong part of how I approach parenting. He said when his daughter was around 7 he began to notice she was going through a shift, moving out of the dependency of early childhood and actively expressing the desire to contribute to the functioning of the family.
So he created a ceremony to celebrate this important transition, which he calls the Rite of Competence. The ceremony helped celebrate his daughter’s developing abilities, gifts, and talents and fostered resilience in her by giving her a rich, supportive experience which she could recall when faced with the challenges of stepping into more responsibility.
It also built deeper connections with an “extended family”, and gave his whole family a “road-map” of how to navigate not only this mid-childhood transition but also the upcoming teenage years.
Since then, Mark has gone on to lead over 65 families in creating their own Childhood Rites of Competence. My daughter is only 3, so while I’m not planning on joining the next cohort of families (it starts January 29!), I’m already looking forward to taking his class in a few years.
And when my daughter turns 17? Well, I can’t wait to see what life-changing adventure she’ll be embarking on.
Your turn: What were you like as a 17-year old? Do you feel like you are equipping your child to be a resilient, confident, capable adult? What support do you need to accomplish this? Tell us in the comments.
I was very self reliant at 17. However, the world and parenting was very different. I had very little clue what was I was good at and how that would translate into a career. As I currently embark and am smack in the middle of raising teenage boy’s, I recognize that in traditional schools, we spend so much shoving them full of information that is antiquated and leads them further away from knowing who they are and what they are good at.
My son, the older one has very specific interests and is really good at things that interest, thus he does well. In the areas, where he is least interested, he doesn’t do well.
Traditional school is a shit show for him.
Everything about him gets labelled as some sort of brain disorder, or diagnosis.
He is creative, not fostered in schools. Not measured, overlooked.
Whatever natural skills and interests he has, never get to shine through as they are busy shoving other material, in this attempt to get good grades to go to college. Which we now see, does not guarantee that they will get a job in their chosen field and they are burdened with crazy debt until the day die.
I spent 95 percent of life, not even knowing what I was naturally good at, which was a lot and thus did not fit into the traditional path taken, by lawyers, doctors, etc.
How different would my life have been ????
He is an excellent writer.
It’s very frustrating to see the gifts of our children overlooked, not nurtured, and sometimes even ridiculed. In an ideal world, each of us would have a supportive, close-knit community that sees who we are and how we shine. Unfortunately, that’s not the case for many of us (I know I sorely feel the lack of community). What ways do you support your boys’ strengths? How can you help them connect with others who can nurture their talents? Do they know and value their own strengths? How can they use those strengths to help others?