Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Day is coming and is a significant day to celebrate in our history. It excites me to dive into the history of Dr. King and the dream he had for our country. While his history is crucial to understanding the Civil Rights movement, his legacy is just as important. Dr. King’s dream made way for us to dream to make a better world for our kids to dream even bigger.
Teaching our kids to dream sounds so strange, right? But when we think about the lives we live as examples for our kids, are we showing them what it looks like to dream? The biggest piece of teaching them to dream is including them in the process of our dreams. It’s natural to keep our dreams to ourselves, to keep them quiet just in case we don’t make it.
The faith in our dreams is being able to boast in the vision God gave us so we can worship Him in the victory as we all watch Him move.
I’ve been very transparent with my son, Thomas, as I stepped out and dreamed big. He’s been right beside me as we’ve built Inspirus. Through every Kickstarter campaign, he was right beside me, cheering with every backer and sending the campaign to people I was afraid to share it with.
The first step to getting him to dream is showing him I have dreams and I’m going to chase them, too. Letting him hear and see my dreams have shown him that he can dream.
The next step is exposure – showing him and teaching him about all of these incredible people who do amazing things. We do this a lot through history and current events. We study a lot of the “greats,” showing him people who look like him and who have done things that other people said they couldn’t.
Thomas has a foundation of confidence that he can do anything. I think if we don’t teach, encourage, and affirm that they can do anything, our kids won’t know how to dream.
Now I’m working to revamp one of my curricula sets to help him figure out how to hone in on his dreams. Right now, he says he wants to be a doctor and he’s stuck with it for the last couple of years. In the past, we’ve done a lot of biology units, but now I’m making sure he goes even deeper to see if this is a passion we can tap into. I’m making sure that this is an area we are intentionally pouring into, and it’s fine if next year and the year after he has a new dream. We can dive into those, too. I want him to keep dreaming. He’s young and doesn’t have to stick with one thing.
God created us with passions and joys. It’s a beautiful act of praise when we’re able to walk in whom God created us to be and enjoy those passions.
