Why You Should Let Your Kids Be Weird

Photo by Dominik Vanyi on Unsplash

Have you ever thought that you might be a little weird? Not like “only speak to your son in Klingon” weird, but just a little different? Awesome. You should be proud of that.

But what happens when you think your kids are weird? That’s not quite as easy, right?

Hot Wife and I were talking about this recently when our kids were playing with some neighborhood kids. She said that they were good influences and she appreciated that their parents “embraced their weirdness.”

It struck me because that’s a hard thing for us parents to do. We say we want our kids to be unique and not follow the crowd but history says otherwise, because Cabbage Patch Kids and Hatchimals and such.

But why is that? Why is it hard to let our kids be who they truly are, even if we think it’s weird?

There are 3 main reasons why we don’t want our kids to be weird

1. We want to protect them from embarrassment or bullying, maybe because we went through the same thing as kids.
2. We have an idea of what normal is and we don’t want to be embarrassed personally.
3. We think we are going to screw them up.

Well, here’s the deal folks. Regardless of what you do, no matter how hard you try not to, you are going to screw up your kids. Sorry but it’s true.

Think about it.

• If you try to keep them from being bullied or embarrassed, they are going to be delicate flowers who don’t know how to deal with real life.
• If you are so strict on them that you control every aspect of their life, they will not know how to make their own decisions and may resent you.
• If you are the “cool” parents that spoil them and give them everything they want they will end up in a karate gang and terrorize the new kid from NJ.

But there is one thing you can do to at least try to help them avoid a life of anxiety and therapy — Let them be weird.

Some of you may be thinking, “I already do that. There was this one time, on wacky hair day, I let my daughter have a side pony tail and a braid.”

Cool. So what happens when your son wants to wear a Snow White dress to Wal-Mart? Or your daughter wants to wear camo and play football? Or one of them wants to be in the Robot Club instead of playing football or cheerleading? Those may be a little harder to stomach but we as parents are faced with similar situations every day.

3 questions to ask yourself when your kids want to do something you think is weird

1. Is it illegal?
2. Is it going to hurt them or anyone else?
3. Is it going to alter the axis of the earth, sending the world into a never-ending winter causing humanity to retreat to underground cities that will eventually be overrun by the giant cockroaches that have become the overlords of earth?

If you can answer no to these 3 questions then you should let them do it because honestly, who really cares? And if you answer yes to any of these questions, you should encourage them to be weird in less harmful ways.

So, your challenge is this: Embrace your kids’ weirdness. Let them explore. Be proud that they are confident enough to be weird. Remind them that weird is good and cool and that weird people change the world. And if you let your kids do those things, they may just surprise you with how awesome they can truly be.

Originally published at dadletteroffice.com on July 17, 2018.