February 22, 2024
from Jennifer Le Varge, Lower School director
Editor’s Note: Periodically, you will find a guest Head’s Message here from members of the administrative team. We hope you will enjoy reading their thoughts and reflections about life at MPA.
I recently came across, on Instagram of all places, a video clip from an episode of Oprah’s “Super Soul Sunday” featuring the great Dr. Maya Angelou. Dr. Angelou, a female Black American poet and civil rights activist, has inspired millions through her writings and teachings. In this conversation, Dr. Angelou recalled advice she gave to her son when he was growing up:
“He said, ‘I don’t have any friends. How can I get some friends?’ I told him two things. First, in order to get a friend, you must be a friend. And second, there is a place in you that you must keep inviolate. You must keep it pristine, clean, so that nobody has the right to curse you or treat you badly. Say no, when it’s no … Because that place must remain clean, clear.”
As the message sank in and I sat there on my couch, in my pajamas on a Saturday morning, this teaching reminded me of the words of my grandfather. Born in Guadalajara, Mexico, my abuelo was a commanding figure in our family. I used to love sitting around the big mahogany table at the tail end of family dinners when the grownups would start drinking coffee and the cousins scattered off to play—this is when the juicy family drama would come out! Sometimes, the grownups would reminisce about the old days, and I often heard renditions of my mother’s great escape from South Bend, Indiana in the late 1950s. At that time, my grandfather returned from serving in the US Navy during the Korean War and was attending Notre Dame University as an engineering student. My mother and uncle were young children in elementary school, and my grandmother worked as a seamstress. One day, they came home and found that slur words for Hispanic people had been painted on the side of their bungalow house. Fearing worse was to come, my grandmother packed up my uncle and mother and escaped on the first train out of South Bend, leaving my grandfather to finish his engineering degree alone. It was years before the family was properly reunited.
I remember asking my grandfather, “Weren’t you scared to stay there? What if they came for you?” My grandfather, who had weathered many displays of prejudice against him and his family over the years, said:
“Listen, some people are going to try to throw junk at you. Junk like, you’re not good enough, you’re not smart enough, you don’t belong … And so what? What are you, the garbage man? Just because people may throw junk at you doesn’t mean that you need to pick it up and own it. Leave that junk on the ground where it belongs.”
I think back to these words sometimes when I am facing a new challenge or battling old, limiting self-beliefs. As parents, we might harken back on adages and advice bestowed upon us if we are lucky enough to have had sage figures in our lives. How might we further help our children build up their own internal beliefs about themselves, too? Positive affirmations are one way that we can help our children develop positive “muscle memory” that will help them deflect the junk that will inevitably be thrown their way and stand firm in their own special kind of greatness. In Lower School, we have a display board near door one with several positive affirmations and mirrors displayed. Every so often, I spy children and adults using this interactive display to repeat the displayed affirmations, including:
- I matter.
- I can do hard things.
- All my problems have solutions.
- My challenges help me grow.
- I forgive myself for my mistakes.
- I am enough.
One of the key psychological theories behind positive affirmations is the “self-affirmation theory” (Steele, 1988). Affirming positive messages are like acts of self-love, helping children (and adults) develop helpful schema in their brains to deal with stress responses. When practiced regularly, positive affirmations help us to counteract negative self-talk, having a profound effect on our well-being. The resulting self-integrity relates to one’s own self-efficacy, or our “perceived ability to control outcomes and respond flexibly when our self-concept is threatened” (Cohen & Sherman, 2014). As noted by Healthline, “knowing you have the ability to manage stress and other life difficulties can help boost confidence and self-empowerment, further promoting faith in yourself.”
For more ideas, you may wish to check out the children’s book, “I Am Enough” by Grace Beyers, or check out this list of 25 self-confidence affirmations from Big Life Journal to use at home. Find even slivers of time to tap into that sacred space inside—we all have it, we may just have to dig deeper sometimes to find it, and positive affirmations can help us all to do just that.
