Cultivating Confidence: #PlanestotheRescue

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How many of you have kiddos who loved the movie Planes?  Little Crafter is a huge fan of Dusty and his friends, so he was super-excited to find out that there’s a new movie coming out this month, Planes: Fire & Rescue.  Although it’s not in theaters until next week, I’ve got high hopes for it because I’ve heard that not only should it be entertaining, it touches on some of the awesome themes found in the original: Courage, Confidence, and Passion!

Confidence, in particular, is something we’ve been talking a lot about here in the Artsy House over the last several months.  Little Crafter has always been pretty comfortable with his abilities and who he is…that is, until a particular incident at school.  Ever since I first put a paintbrush in his hand at the age of two, he has absolutely loved art.  He paints, he works with clay, he makes things with beads and Mod Podge and tissue paper…he’s quite the experienced crafter.

But when it comes to drawing, his abilities aren’t on the same plane as some of the other kids in his class.  You see, he attends a school with multi-age classrooms, which means his class is composed of 5-7 year olds.  Even at the end of the school year, LC was still five, so he was still the youngest and smallest in his class.  Because he’s such a great reader, though, his reading group was composed of himself and two seven year olds.  One day as they were working on a project, he was drawing a picture and this conversation took place.

Child 1: “What’s that?” {pointing at LC’s picture}
LC: “Art!”
Child 1: “No it’s not.  It looks like a bunch of scribbles.”
Child 2: “You’re a Scribbler.”
Child 1: “Hey, Scribbler.”

…and so on, which brought poor LC to the point of tears.  Truth be told, when he finally told me the story several days later, I was on the verge of tears myself.  I know the other two children personally, and they’re honestly not cruel little people it was just one of those instances where they forgot the two year age gap between themselves and my son and got carried away.  Regardless of their intentions, though, words hurt.  We all know that.  And just like that, with that one little word, “Scribbler,” LC’s confidence in his artistic ability was crushed.  Just like in the original Planes movie, when Dusty’s opponents called him names and told him he was too small, too insignificant to achieve his dream.

What’s a mama to do? Well, remember how Dusty’s mentor Skipper coaches him to believe in himself and to find the confidence to let his abilities shine despite what everyone else said?  That was what I had to do for my little man.  I had to coach him to see that just because those other children didn’t recognize the great art he was creating, he wasn’t any less of an awesome artist.  And to prove it, I called on an expert…Jackson Pollock.

If you’re not familiar with Jackson Pollock, he was a major player in the abstract expressionist movement.  He lived from 1912-1956 and is best known for his style of “drip painting” or “splatter painting.” If you do a quick Google search for his art, you’ll quickly see why I chose to show LC his work.  To many people, Pollock’s art looked like “splatters” or dare I say scribbles.  But the reality is, it was groundbreaking.  It was art.  And it’s worth a fortune.  Together, LC and I talked about what makes art.  Shapes and colors; that’s all you need.  Shapes, colors, and your imagination.  Just because other people may not appreciate it doesn’t make it any less valuable or amazing.  Then, I gave him a canvas, a brush, some paint, and turned him loose to create…Jackson Pollock style.

He had a blast, and it was so precious to watch his confidence in himself return, one splatter at a time.  Every day, I work to reinforce and rebuild his belief that he can do anything he puts his mind to so that the next time someone tries to tear him down, he’ll have the confidence to know the truth.  I affirm him, I give him opportunities to create, and I show him examples of others who have been in similar situations.  Even if those others happen to be fictional characters with positive messages.  I’m planning on taking him to see Dusty in the Planes: Fire and Rescue movie as soon as it’s out, and in the meantime, he picked out this cute “Heroes of the Sky” t-shirt from the boys’ clothing section in Walmart to wear when we go.

He also got more than a little excited when we passed by the bedding section and he spied Planes…not only did they have sheets and comforters, they had something that majorly caught his eye.

Yep, I’m a sucker.  Another stuffie.  We can’t wait to see what Dusty is up to next and where his confidence will take him.

As for Little Crafter, he’s come a long way and is back to believing in his abilities again…as you probably saw in his very first blog post ever, which he published last week.

 Hooray for confidence and for characters that remind us we can do anything if we believe in ourselves and don’t let others stand in our way!