Helping Our Children Realise Their Unlimited Potential
In our school prospectus we outline some of those expectations we have for our students, one of which asks them to “Understand that they are a precious individual with unlimited potential.”
It is a source of great frustration to me and I am sure many others that so many of our young people seem to struggle with issues surrounding their self-image. It doesn’t help, of course, that everywhere they look they are bombarded with idealised, filtered and quite unrealistic versions of the human race and reminded in no uncertain terms that their inability to match up to these paragons should concern them greatly. Too often women are represented in the media as objects of male desire, a process that objectifies and dehumanises them, and which discourages young girls from having the courage to be themselves and to think independently. The same process operates for boys, who are encouraged to believe that all they need for happiness is money, abs to die for and a carefully cultivated spontaneity.
It falls to those of us who love and care for our children to be boldly counter-cultural in these matters, reminding them where we can of the transitory nature of public adulation, and of the reality that, trite as it may sound, beauty really does come from within. A faith in God can be a real ally here, since once our young people grasp that they are loved unconditionally as they are, warts and all, it becomes much easier for them to love themselves.
It also reminds them that like us they are here for a reason, that there is a purpose directing their lives. It is not always easy to work out what that purpose may be, but we can encourage each other to understand that who we are is likely to be more important in this regard than what we do.
I am not sure why so many of us, especially in our youth, have feelings of worthlessness, but suspect it is somehow bound up with the tendency of a materialistic society to promote artificial ideals and needs which remain tantalisingly out of reach, or which when finally grasped prove to be profoundly unsatisfying.
We must work to convince our children that they are not just worthy, but indeed infinitely precious and recklessly loved. They are capable of extraordinary acts of creativity, heroism and compassion, yet they require some measure of self-belief if they are to realise their potential. I am drawn once again to the often quoted words of Edmond Macdonald who writes:
When God wants an important thing done in this world or a wrong righted, He goes about in a very singular way. He doesn’t release thunderbolts or stir up earthquakes. God simply has a tiny baby born, perhaps of a very humble home, perhaps of a very humble mother. And God puts the idea or purpose into the mother’s heart. And she puts it in the baby’s mind, and then – God waits. The great events of this world are not battles and elections and earthquakes and thunderbolts. The great events are babies, for each child comes with the message that God is not yet discouraged with humanity but is still expecting good-will to become incarnate in each human life.
We cannot possibly know what miracles the tiny babies and growing children entrusted to our care might one day perform. The chances are that most of those miracles will go unnoticed on the world stage, but this makes them no less profound. It has been said that there are two lasting bequests we can give our children: one is roots, the other is wings. If we can provide our children with the roots that underpin a set of firm, life-enhancing values and which remind them of their worth and beauty, then perhaps, with our continuing encouragement they will begin to sprout those wings that will free them to express in countless unimaginable ways their unlimited potential.
Patrick Wallas
Headmaster
