by Brian
Hopefully by now you have realized that we are very proud of our children. Much of our effort as parents involves helping to boost their self-confidence and support them as they pursue their version of life’s happiness. Many days it seems that we are their biggest fans while they are their own worst critics. It can be a tough balance to drive our children forward to achieve the most out of life while also helping foster a lifelong confidence in who they are.
Jolee has a level of creativity that we do not always understand how best to support. Her unique abilities provide her with original characters and complex stories that run through her head most of the day. This all started back in elementary school as we would hear her loudly telling the origin stories for her characters from behind her closed bedroom door. We were unsure at times whether to work harder to draw her out into the real world or simply support her impressive development of her imaginary world.
Ironically, Jolee was shy about sharing her stories and characters with others (including family), but adamant that they helped her cope when she was anxious or scared. It did not help that Jolee has trouble verbalizing her thoughts and her stories often ended up looping over and over as part of her process. Even though she had amazing creativity, the difficulty was that Jolee had no real outlet to communicate or share it with the outside world.
The solution to that problem arrived when Alex came to live with our family. Alex was an inspiration, a very talented artist and was always sketching, coloring, and painting around the house. Jolee picked up her first artist pencils during her sophomore year in High School and began to draw her character for hours each day. Her skill was immature, but the detail and explanation were truly remarkable.
She now takes her sketch pads everywhere she goes and productively schedules hours each day honing her skills. She has also taken several graphics arts and cartooning classes at the Community College and as you have seen with this blog has stepped up her game with computer animated drawing for her “creature” creations. We have found a direct correlation between encouraging Jolee and her level of happiness and the quality of her artwork.
The other thing we discovered is how much other people’s positive comments and encouragement have meant to Jolee. She literally spent hours looking at a single text from her aunt praising one of her character stories, and from that she decided to create the “12 Days of Christmas”. This previous blog post starring her characters ramping up for the holidays was initially sent out as a daily text to the extended family. Jolee absolutely loved the feedback. We watched her confidence soar and chose to share them as a post on exiting the nest.
Recently, she has become more intentional about storytelling. She wrote an 18-page draft of a completely choreographed script about her characters called “The Curse of the Betrayal”. It is still rough, but could potentially be developed into a short story or film. See below for a quick sample:
The scene starts off with a blizzard and Taur was sitting there lost in thought while Mirage and Firen went to find wood to start a fire. Little did he know that behind him in the bushes there was a ghost that appeared out of nowhere and it wasn’t just any ghost. This ghost is the spirit of Boombox’s sister Harmony and she looks worried.
Harmony: (thinking): So that’s the cub Akira was talking about. Poor little guy he’ll freeze to death in this weather.
Taur shivered in the cold. The words Akira said echoed in the head.
Harmony: (thinking): I wonder why she said ‘A Curse will never kill a blessing’?
Before She could think of anything else, she saw someone covered in river clay walking past the bushes. Cut to the scene shows someone’s claws sneaking behind Taur in the distance. Then Harmony realized what Akira meant and got worried so she did the unexpected.
Harmony: “Taur look out! Behind you!”
We think Jolee’s next step will be to develop her own website as we continue to encourage her to do what she loves. At some point we may need to help her move in a different direction, but for now, let’s see how this artist thing goes.
Quick update on our nephew
JJ came into town for an extended visit in December. As previously mentioned, we were guardians for JJ and his sister Alex until age 18 and they were a significant part of our family for several years. Both moved back to South Carolina last year to be closer to their mom, but we could not have been prouder of their personal growth and maturity.
During one of our chats, JJ asked us what he can do to move himself toward a brighter future. Last year he indicated he was not ready for college or continuing education, but now he was asking for help and what opportunities there might be for him to grow. After some deliberation, it seemed like College Prep would be a great place to start. We set him up with a laptop and enrolled him in Health Sciences core classes that start on-line next month. We are very excited to see how he does and hope this can lead to additional education and job opportunities for him. It feels good to know he headed back home with a solid plan and we cannot wait to see what is in store for him as he starts this new journey.
Postscript –
A quick note about the title for this blog post. I love how it instills a simple mindset that confidence is a choice and for our children that one small compliment can magnify into long term positive impact.