ENCOURAGE KIDS TO DREAM

Sir,

It is funny how we always talk about how children are future leaders, inventors, etc, yet many a time we are lightning-bolts quick to kill their dreams and bury them 20 feet under. I am quite young myself and I have experienced ridicule as high as a mountain for having big dreams. People will ask you what you have in mind for the future and when you tell them they tell you; “You’re dreaming too big, dream smaller. What you’re talking about is nothing but a fairytale that sadly will never come true.” When I was younger I didn’t quite get it and that almost cost me my entire future because I almost let all of them go. Now, I worry about the next teenager or child who is being told to be comfortable and go for the average things in life.

Capabilities

Instead of being encouraged to go for our dreams, test our capabilities, we’re being encouraged to be comfortable in being indifferent and do what everyone else is doing, the way everyone else is doing it. I have often heard parents telling their children; “This is Africa, not Europe,” and never realised they were creating a void deep inside their children or that they were taking a rifle, pointing it straight at their dream, aiming straight for its forehead and pulling the trigger.

Allow

As parents, sisters, brothers, etc, we ought to allow our children to believe that they can be whatever they want to be, as long as they believe it in their hearts. We ought to say yes to them believing they can share the stage with Ed Sheeran someday, or produce a movie, or become the continent’s next great fashion designer; or be Batman (yes, something as silly as that). Let us allow them to picture themselves having arrived where they want to be and start working towards meeting that inner person they see every time they close their eyes. Let us not allow our experiences with failure and hopelessness to be the reason we discourage our children to dare to dream. And most importantly, let us not live our ideal lives through our children. Let us not be the people they glance at and think, “This is the life you chose for me, not the life I wanted for myself.” Let us give them room for imagination and allow them to be the wonderful beings they are.

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