Kickstarter #4 - Kids

When life seems to have dulled a little, when it’s lost its vibrancy, have you tried surrounding yourself with children?

Just being with children can be therapeutic, because they let us into their care-free world where all is simple and springing up flowers. Where joys are magnified and worries belittled. It’s like there’s always a rainbow regardless how severe the storm just past.

If you have a child or have had the opportunity of frolicking with them and frizzing their hair up, you know how fun that can be. How are you celebrating them? Pocket money and freedom to do as they like isn’t the way to go, because giving of your substance and allowing them free rein doesn’t exactly cut it. Engaging our children by being physically with them, and connectedness at an emotional level through open communication channels goes farther.

A couple of months back, I had the chance to baby sit my friends’ five-year-old son Nathaniel. I’d last met the kid two years ago when he was just three but the child expressed no memory of me. But the way he quickly opened up to me when we met seemed to suggest otherwise. I felt as if he’d known me all his 5-year-old life! Within minutes of our meeting, he was climbing all over me, I was tossing him in the air, flinging him by one arm and flipping him over, giving him piggyback rides in a manmade pool atop a shopping centre and having a water fight. I can’t remember the last time I had so much fun with a child. The child taught me to roll up my pants, let down my guard and marvel at the simple pleasures of life and laughter. Children bring out the child in adults.

Kids can teach adults so many things, and they are the ones who lead you by the hand to teach you how life can and should be celebrated. It’s unfortunate we don’t credit them enough for being life’s little ambassadors!

If you’ve got kids, I say ‘What a privilege!’ In fact, a passage from the Bible out of the book of Psalm had this to say about children – that they are a heritage from God, that offspring are His reward to us and how blessed a man is when his household is full of them.

Life in an adult world isn’t easy. It’s punctuated with politics, pain, and selfish pursuits and they cast a cloud over how we can find joy and meaning in life.

If caffeine jump starts your day, imagine what children can do for your life?

Photo credits: John and son, Conrad