Life is full of lessons, most of which are taught throughout the entire journey of life. These lessons are often passed along to us from parents, teachers and other authority figures. We hear them. We see them. We feel them. We experience them in a multitude of forms often without ever stopping to question, to ponder their legitimacy. For instance, are these lessons packed with wisdom and fact or on bias and opinion? Maybe perhaps even a combination of both?
Whether based on fact or personal experiences and perceptions of the world, we still receive these lessons. Most are delivered through the best of intentions, all as an attempt to teach us how to navigate the world around us.
Far too often, many of us look back at certain times of our lives with regret. The ways in which we handled a circumstance or an event, wishing we had handled it differently or perhaps even approached from a different perspective.
What if we instead viewed the world through the perception of our inner strength? Our inner wisdom? Intuition? Inner guidance? Through the lens of diversity? What if we were taught how to view it from these perspectives from an early age? What if we were taught to make choices based on these things that are all found within rather than outside of ourselves?
How would we shape the world if we were to acknowledge and use these tools? How would these tools shape our lives? How would these tools allow us to impact the lives of others? What could we achieve? What would we achieve?
Perhaps these ponderings require us to ask much larger questions. Questions such as, “How can we teach our children how to use these tools?” and “How can we help them along the way?”
Brianna Mobilian offers solutions to these questions in her book, “Kids Create the Change”. The pages of her book offer insight and wisdom in beautiful illustrations of wonder and adventure.
Mobilian says, “Kids Create the Change felt to me like a book that needed to be written. As parents, we often want to teach our children essential values but aren’t always sure how. I wanted to create a meaningful journey for children and a parent to share quality time, enhance the parent-child connection, and gain priceless values and skills. Additionally, I wanted families to have a keepsake of their journey to coincide with the amazing memories they make along the way.”
The journey pages contained within this book provide both parents and children life lessons, lessons that can be not only remembered but lessons that your child can continue to practice as he or she navigates life.
Mobilian takes her readers on a 90-day journey of transformation, transformation that teaches children that it’s okay and acceptable to live their lives as the best versions of themselves, “Readers are taken on a journey of self-discovery, reflection, and inspiration with a parent. Each day brings a new lesson or adventure through thought-provoking messages, empowering activities, or guided reflections. Children also discover acceptance through the thirty chapters and thirty beautifully illustrated and diverse characters.” She creates an environment of teaching and inspiration that encourages children to create positive change not only in themselves but in the world around them.
The thirty characters in this colorful book represent a range of cultures, abilities, and disabilities. And, this is for good reason. Despite our outer appearances, where we are from, and whatever we feel that limits us, we are all still beautiful in our own ways, “I wanted children to have a safe space at home to meet diverse characters, learn a bit about them, and ask their parents any questions they may have.”
Children follow these diverse characters through a myriad of adventures that teach boundaries, mindfulness, how to handle conflict and how to tap into that inner strength when they need it to help them make decisions and guide them through the twists and turns of life.
These pages of this book invite both children and parents to ask themselves questions. Questions about money and how one is truly wealthy despite numbers in a checking account. Questions of what it truly means to tap into that inner compass and how to allow both the intuition and wisdom that is found there to guide them.
These exciting concepts are also presented in ways that small children can easily grasp and understand. “I was intentional about introducing concepts at a level that children can developmentally understand. Examples are relatable, vocabulary is defined on words that may be new, and comparisons are provided to add context and clarity,” says Mobilian who also shares personal experiences with her own children, “My son turned into this little guy that was wiser beyond his years as he would share with his little sister that it’s okay for her to feel her big feelings.”
We learn how to live life as we each navigate the journey with all of its beautiful twists and turns. Those life lessons that we pick up along the way can shape the ways in which we view ourselves, our abilities and our goals and dreams. They affect the ways in which we share with others, the ways in which we perceive and live our lives and the ways in which we impact not only ourselves but those around us.
We can help our children now. We can help them to understand what it means to truly be an advocate. An advocate for themselves and an advocate for all. We can teach them that it’s okay to navigate life as themselves, staying true to their own, authentic nature. We can teach them that it’s okay to be unique and that perhaps most of all, that it’s okay to love themselves.