Answering Kids’ Hardest Questions: What Is It That Makes Me, Me?

This text is a part of the Answering Kids’ Hardest Questions collection.

Who Am I?

A query {that a} baby may ask—possibly in a roundabout way however even not directly and is definitely one which they’re excited about of their life—is, What’s it that makes me, me?

I do know it’s a query that I’ve requested myself. I feel it’s one which all of us ask and that all of us wrestle with all through our lives. Who am I, actually? What’s it that identifies me?

As an grownup, I’ve turned to issues, conditions, circumstances, and experiences, and all these issues have impacted that query. I’ve seemed to work, for instance, as an grownup to search out my identification. How typically will we meet somebody for the primary time and we are saying, “I’m a health care provider. I’m a college instructor. I’m a author”? We introduce ourselves, and in doing so, that has an influence on how we view our life. We establish ourselves as this job that we do.

However the query is, What occurs after we don’t have that job anymore? Does that imply that we have now no identification anymore? I’ve additionally discovered my identification in roles I’ve had, like being a mother. However what occurs when my children depart residence? The place am I left? Am I floundering as a result of I don’t have that identification?

As we wrestle with that, think about what that’s like for kids who’re beginning to ask these questions for the primary time, who is likely to be trying to the issues they do.

They don’t have a job, however possibly they’re on the soccer crew and so they’re a winner. They excel in athletics. Does that imply that’s their identification? What if they’re actually good in class? They win all of the spelling bees or rating properly on all the mathematics checks. That’s the factor that they do. Does that make them who they’re? What occurs in the event that they don’t do properly on a take a look at? Does that crush their identification?

So I feel that’s a very vital query. Whereas a baby might not essentially ask it out loud, it’s definitely one which they’re excited about. And the way we reply to them as dad and mom can have a big impact on their identification formation. Are we telling them, “You’re a wonderful pupil. Why did you not do properly on this take a look at?” Or, “You’re our little athlete, and so it’s a must to all the time win the race.”

What’s actually vital as dad and mom is that we disciple our kids within the Phrase and that we assist them see what the Bible says about them.

I feel that what’s actually vital as dad and mom is that we disciple our kids within the phrase and that we assist them see what the Bible says about them. Genesis 1 is absolutely one of the best place to start out. In Sunday faculty and of their youngsters’s Bibles that we learn to them, they see the story of creation. We learn to them the story of Adam and Eve and the way God created them. That’s the place we begin.

We train them that God made them, and so he’s the one who crafted them and he’s the one who offers them their identification and objective. He’s informed all of us that we had been made to provide him honor and glory, and that’s what we do. It doesn’t matter what our presents and skills are or the roles that we have now, that’s actually our objective—to reside for God.

Christina Fox is the creator of Who Are You?: A Little Book about Your Big Identity.

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