Children + Big Dreams

My adorable nephew loves cars. And I mean he LOVES cars. I often hear him talking about getting a BMW or a Lamborghini or something else. We all (this includes me) laugh and say "do you know how expensive that is?" or a "you're not getting a *insert car*"

But I've been doing some thinking about this for awhile:

Who am I to dash his dreams of getting a nice sports car?

Kids dream. Kids are not conformed to a certain way of thinking.... yet. We (as a society) encourage kids to dream big and often tell them, "if you think it, then you can do it." But then we'll turn around and crush some of their dreams. I'm sure most adults are thinking they're "preparing them for the real world" but they're kids. Don't make them live in the real world yet - and besides it will be better for them if they can think outside of the box anyways.

I've decided instead of using my pessimistic knowledge of real life I'm going to encourage them to dream.

For example, I accompanyed this same nephew to a fireside at my church about college and afterwards I let him drive my car around the parking lot. He didn't want to be there at first because he's going to be a race car driver and doesn't need to go to college. Honestly, my first instinct was "you what?" (I never heard him mention this option before) but I reminded myself not to crush dreams, so our conversation went like this:

me: "But college is important, you can do both."
nephew: "....."
me: "what if you got tired of racing cars?"
nephew: ".... *shakes head no*"
me: "..... what if you got in an accident on the race track and you lost the use of your right arm?"
nephew: "...... *has a thinking face*"
me: "You'd want something to fall back on, right? What about fixing cars?"
nephew: "I like auto-mechanics."
me: "Then study that. It's not stopping you from racing cars."

Don't let the silence fool you, that one's a thinker.

Yep, I don't think I dashed that dream at all.... :-)