Give Your Child an "Anchor"
Monday, December 10, 2012 at 7:31AM
Does your child have an "anchor"?
In an article a friend of mine shared with me, an "anchor" is defined as:
An anchor is an activity or pastime that they do deeply and consistently over a long period. Anchors help them define them and their evolving identities. Anchors teach them valuable lessons that they can apply to other aspects of their lives — especially school. Most important, anchors help them to be different.
For my 11 year old, Anna, her anchor is music. She began piano lessons three years ago, and has loved it ever since.
Last year she auditioned for a prominent children's chorus here in Atlanta.
It is her personality to be apprehensive about new things, and it took a couple of months before she felt at home and enthusiastic with this new activity.
As our family and friends attended her first concert this past weekend, I thanked God for this anchor in her life.
She has made friends, learned invaluable musical skills, and logged many practice hours towards a goal.
I learned something this weekend.
By encouraging and gently prodding my child in an activity she is good at, her dad and I fostered a sense of accomplishment and greatness.
It is my prayer that this sense of accomplishment will be a stepping stone in her life - a stone that will lead her to do great things which contribute to the betterment of God's kingdom.
She was obviously proud of herself, and her friends and family were so proud of her.
Every child needs to feel they are contributing to something beautiful, meaningful and worthwhile. That sense of accomplishment is a gift we must strive to give our children.
You cannot put a price on that gift, either.
When she describers herself now she uses the word "musician".
She plays the piano for enjoyment and is sightreading music that interests her.
Guitar lesson are in the plan for 2013.
We need more people in our world that have anchors - more people that feel a passion and a connectedness for beautiful things.
As I listened to the most exceptional children's chorus concert I have ever heard of course I was proud. More than that, however, I was thankful that my daughter has the opportunity to develop her anchor.
Do your children have "anchors"?
What are they?
Did they choose their anchors themselves, or did you gently guide them?
Reader Comments (5)
My kids all have their anchors -- and they chose them all by themselves, although we supported them.
My eldest was a collector. He collected so many things - stamps, coins, rocks & minerals, baseball cards, action figures. And he truly collected them, cataloging them, organizing and labeling them. He would spend time each day working on his collections. And we, in turn, took him to rock and gem shows, saved every stamp from every envelope, and helped him find all the quarters from all the states.
My middle guy was (and still is) a Lego-maniac. Even as a young man in his own apartment, he will relax by building. He doesn't have the time for the elaborate Death Stars and battleships as he did when he was younger, but he enjoys it, still.
The little guy is a writer. He writes in many different styles, but the style he spends time on, every day, is graphic novels. We spend a lot of money on fine-line markers and notebooks in our house!
My daughter's anchor is the fine arts. Especially drawing and performing in dramatic productions. She shines in these endeavors and we are very proud of her accomplishments. Looking forward to seeing where this "anchor" takes her in life.
Blessings
Diane
I could not have read a more beautiful post tonight. Two things are interesting: My husband just said the same thing about a week ago of people. He said that we needed more people in the world making beautiful things. He said this in direct relation to our daughter's anchors; and our oldest in particular. Which leads me to the 2nd interesting thing, she plays piano also! She is 6 yrs old and has been learning since she was 3 and this year composed her first piece of music which is still a work in progress but a very, very beautiful piece of music that came from a very beautiful heart.
I love your story!!! Our youngest daughter's anchor is dance. She is learning ballet and tap. To answer the question, with our oldest daughter, we sensed she had an interest in music so we signed her up for classes at 3 and she hasn't looked back. Our youngest chose her anchor and has been resolute about it since the beginning.
Can I say again how beautiful this post is? It says so much more than what you said. And for fear of creating a too long comment, I digress.
Thank you.
I love this post, and never thought about their activities in this way. For two of my kids TaeKwonDo is their anchor, particularly for my oldest child. My other children are still figuring out their anchors, this is great food for thought.
we're working on finding anchors for our kids. I'm thinking it's gonna be musical for a few. Our eldest is 12 and loves piano. Our youngest girl is 5 and is teaching herself piano! She also LOVES art.
We're giving our 5 and 6 yo girls a guitar for Christmas and doing lessons through Schoolhouse Teachers to give them an outlet. The 3 littles do gymnastics, so we'll see where that goes. The older 2 girls love running track too.
I love that picture of Spivey Hall. I used to teach English at Clayton!