I’ve always admired the campaigns that Dove run on self confidence and the likes. So, I was really excited at the privilege of our family being invited to be a part of Dove’s Self Esteem Project this year!
Self confidence is such a critical thing, and one thing that ends up affecting everything we do, from relationships to work, and ultimately our potential as human beings. So, we can appreciate how critical it is to try to get this right with our children, so they get to grow up to be all they are supposed to be!
I wanted to just share some of the things that stood out for me, when I attended the online Zoom conference that Dove held, hosted by Hulisani Ravele.
WORDS & AFFIRMATIONS
My main takeaways were from Sthandiwe Kgoroge’s talk 🙂 She spoke quite a bit on the importance of words and affirmations…how words were what built her and also what broke her.
She spoke about how the words you speak words and affirmations are what your child will draw on, on a rainy day.
This really encouraged me to be even more intentional about affirming our kids. I realised that I don’t want to wait until an issue comes up for me to speak into it, but to rather be intentional about continually filling up their “affirmation bucket” with all things good, so that when they need to draw from it, it will always be full 🙂
The awesome thing about this is that the Law of First Mention says that when you’re the first one to tell your child something, you become their first reference, and then everything they come across is tested against that. Not to say they’ll never take other things to heart, but having a really good foundation of their value will assuredly go a long way in helping them deal with life situations.
And foundation is so important!
It is so critical that we deal with these issues at a young age, because we all know that the issues we deal with as adults are mainly rooted in things that happened or were said to us as children.
Stha also spoke about the power of words, and how we can use this, from a young age, to empower our children.
One of the habits they have as a family is doing Daily Words of Affirmation – where they read out some affirmations about who and what they are. I thought that was such a great idea! Something that will be embedded in her daughter’s mind and person for the rest of her life.
The other speakers also had great sessions
I love how Rolene Strauss spoke about the different nature of boys and girls, and how we need to relate to them differently as we raise them.
Terence (AfroDaddyCT) spoke about some things that have been on my heart recently: mainly that children are people, and how we should give them the autonomy to have their own thoughts, feelings, needs, etc
There were honestly so many great takeaways from the speakers, as well as the host.
If you’d like to watch the session, you can still catch it on Dove’s Facebook page: click on this link.