Two of the Most Dangerous Words to Say to Your Child

“You’re Special”

They are dangerous not because they are a lie. They are dangerous because they can be about YOUR need to have a “special child”.

The burden the child then bears is one of “not enough”. The fear that being his normal, imperfect, human self is not impressive enough.

This costs him. Because against the burden of this fear he will have to defend. And the greatest cost is that it will hold him back from truly connecting with the beauty of his true self and encountering that in others.

Instead, teach him that he is special, like him and her. Not because of innate “gifted” qualities but for his unique capacity to be a pipe, a channel for love, for compassion, for the divine. And most importantly, that this pipe remains open, for all experiences, even and perhaps especially when he is feeling the vulnerability of pain, his own and that of others. To care about and be cared for and allow something higher, greater and more beautiful to enter the world.