Kids are great teachers: When a 5 year-old inspires social change
Lalo Mighty climbs her mountain
The movement I’m working on is called New Sincerity, but I’m starting my Medium storytelling with my daughter, Lalo.
Last Summer, as the early work of the New Sincerity movement was just beginning, my daughter Lalo and I took a hike in the mountains.
That hike, and that little girl, gave rise to a new perspective. I wondered, “What can I learn from the fierceness of a 5-year old that I can carry into my work with New Sincerity.”
Lalo chose a steep path and started trudging. Soon though, she was afraid of what she didn’t understand. “How much farther, daddy?!” she asked over and over.
I invited her to stop and savor how far she had already come, and that reassured her. And then we pushed ahead against the fear. There were tears, falls and scrapes, and then resolve. It was amazing to experience.
Despite her scraped knees, Lalo chose to push past her fear of the unknown. She chose a path that required her to be fierce in facing uncertainty and failure. Less comfort, more reward.
It got me thinking about the concept of the growth mindset, an idea the Stanford developmental psychologist Carol Dweck and her team developed to understand how kids respond to challenge. If you haven’t already, get into Dweck’s TED talk — it will lift you up.
My work in social justice focuses on cross cultural communication and identity. As you can imagine, the hatred and bigotry rising out of Washington D.C. hit my colleagues and I hard.
But in remembering Lalo’s approach to the mountain, one that exemplifies the growth mindset, I got back to the lesson. How could the fierceness of a 5-year old inform my work with New Sincerity?
I learned that the connecting thread between Lalo’s journey and our stories of inclusion and American resilience is the growth mindset in action. It’s about persistence, focus and doing the work, always with compassion. This is our brand, and it’s playing out on our Instagram and in the feeds of our contemporaries — latinarebels, blacknerdproblems, culturestrike, thestrutbymic, h_e_r_s_t_o_r_y and many others.
Get into the mindset on Instagram, Facebook or the web, and stay tuned for news on the launch of our platform because we’re building a movement. Want to partner? Just send a message.
Love to my Lalo Mighty (yep, that’s her middle name) and to the work, the community and to change. Ever forward.
