What Makes You Unique – Helping Children Accept Their Individuality

It can be hard to be yourself. Especially for kids. What makes you unique can be the very thing you end up despising about yourself.

For some of us, we may spend a great deal of our life trying to fit in, trying to be accepted and worrying too much about what others think about us. Especially if we feel we are different from everyone else.

I spent a great deal of time at school feeling like I didn’t belong. I had friends, but wasn’t really close friends with anyone. I never really felt like I could be myself, I always had my guard up, and it was exhausting. I was afraid I would say something that would trigger sniggers or give someone a reason to make fun of me about something else. I often tried to fade into the background so I wasn’t noticed and I often kept my thoughts to myself. I was so scared of not being the same as everyone else. And the less I brought attention to that, the better.

But after high school, I’ve found it’s usually the people who dare to be different who are the ones we envy. They are the people who took chances and did the things others wouldn’t have thought possible. They are the ones we see as successful. Not necessarily from what they have accomplished from life, but because they are happy. They are confident, self assured and didn’t have to find their place in the world. They created it.

I found that school is usually more about conforming. If you don’t fit a certain “mould”, you don’t belong. And that can be hard for kids who are trying to find out who they are and where they belong in the world. A place where different is often seen as bad.

I sometimes wish I could turn back time and go back to school, knowing what I do now. Maybe I would have found more confidence if I hadn’t spent so much time and energy worrying about what other’s thought of me, and the fear of being ridiculed because my way of thinking was different to theirs.

I would hate for my kids, or any child for that matter, to have to go through what I did.

All kids should feel free to be themselves and celebrate their own uniqueness and individuality. No one should be scared or ashamed to be who they are. Who wants to be the same as everyone else, anyway?

Unfortunately for many kids, it isn’t as simple as that. Fitting in, belonging and fear of being picked on are uniqueness suffocators. And those habits of not speaking up and being proud of who you are can be hard to break, even in adulthood.

I think it’s important to show our kids that they need to get in touch with who they are to be proud of their individuality and celebrate their uniqueness.

Encouraging children to accept and celebrate their individuality can help to increase their self esteem, confidence and happiness, and helps to reduce anxiety.

Because nobody should feel like they have to hide who they are.

How to Help Your Child Find and Accept Their Own Uniqueness

Tell them it’s okay to be different

Everyone wants to fit in, especially children. Being different is often associated with being bad. Get them to see how boring the world would be if everyone did everything exactly the same way.

Show them that being different is special

How many times to we pick something out because it is different? It stands out. We are naturally drawn to it. So why should we look at ourselves any different? Being unique is special.

Get them to keep a journal

Getting them to write down their feelings or write about things that happened is great for understanding things that have happened and helps them to process how they feel. Do they see it as something bad, or are they responding to how others see them?

You can’t control how others feel

Tell them that you can’t change or control how others feel. If they are happy with who they are, that’s all that should matter. You can’t please everyone, and you shouldn’t have to try. The only one they should have to please is themselves.

Write notes

Get them to write down things that they love about themselves and put it somewhere they can look at every day to remind them how special they are. If they are struggling to come up with something, write down some of the things you love about them. And ask them to try again another day.

Try Some Mindfulness Cards

LSW Mind Cards have some amazing mind cards for kids to help them be more mindful of their thoughts and feelings and helps them practise positive thinking. They are great for mindfulness, gratitude and expressing kindness, and can help get some conversations started.

Quotes About Uniqueness

Quotes About Unique Personality

The most important kind of freedom is to be what you really are. – Jim Morrison

Always be yourself, express yourself, have faith in yourself, do not go out and look for a successful personality and duplicate it. – Bruce Lee

I’ve always been misrepresented. You know, I could dress in a clown costume and laugh with the happy people but they’d still say I’m a dark personality. – Tim Burton

Be Yourself. Everyone is already taken. – Oscar Wilde

Personality begins where comparison ends. – Karl Lagerfeld

What sets you apart can sometimes feel like it’s a burden and it’s not. And a lot of the time, it’s what makes you great. – Emma Stone

The most incredible beauty and the most satisfying way of life come from affirming your own uniqueness. – Jane Fonda

One of the greatest regrets in life is being what others would want you to be, rather than being yourself. – Shannon L. Alder

If you are always trying to be normal, you will never know how amazing you can be. – Maya Angelou

When we allow ourselves to exist truly and fully, we sting the world with our vision and challenge it with our own ways of being. – Thomas Moore

Quotes About Being Different

Being different is what makes you stand out, it is never something to be ashamed of for if we were alike in this world, how boring would that be – Jenna Kandyce Linch

In order to be irreplaceable one must always be different. – Coco Chanel

Be the person you want to be, not what others want you to be because you are special, amazing and beautiful just the way you are and being different is something to be proud of. – Jenna Kandyce Linch

Don’t let others box you into their idea of what they think you should be. A confined identity is a miserable way to exist. Be you and live free. Trust that in living true to yourself, you will attract people that support and love you, just as you are. – Jaeda deWalt

In order to be irreplaceable one must always be different. – Coco Chanel

Normal is not something to aspire to, it’s something to get away from. – Jodie Foster

Quotes About Being Yourself

Today you are You, that is truer than true. There is no one alive who is You-er than You. – Dr Seuss

The person who follows the crowd will usually go no further than the crowd. The person who walks alone is likely to find himself in places no one has ever seen before. – Albert Einstein

You are a marvel. You are unique. In all the years that have passed, there has never been another child like you. Your legs, your arms, your clever fingers, the way you move. You may becomes a Shakespeare, a Michelangelo, a Beethoven. You have the capacity for anything. – Henry David Thoreau

Why fit in when you were born to stand out. – Dr Seuss

By being yourself you put something wonderful in the world that was not there before. – Edwin Elliott

Insist on yourself; never imitate. – Ralph Waldo Emerson

You can make life very simple or very complicated. Some people try to be what others want them to be. Others try to be different just to stand out. In both cases, they are changing themselves to impress others. Neither of these paths has a heart. Just be true to yourself. It’s that simple. – Mike Stutman

To be nobody but yourself in a world which is doing its best, night and day, to make you everybody else means to fight the hardest battle which any human being can fight; and never stop fighting. – E.E. Cummings

The individual has always had to struggle to keep from being overwhelmed by the tribe. If you try it, you will be lonely often, and sometimes frightened. But no price is too high to pay for the privilege of owning yourself. – Friedrich Nietzsche

Always be a first-rate version of yourself, instead of a second-rate version of somebody else. – Judy Garland

Everyone has the right to be who they are. Children should grow up accepting they are individuals and everyone has their unique traits. No one is perfect, but everyone is perfect in their own way.

By teaching your children to celebrate their individuality you are not only helping their self-esteem and helping them love themselves, but also how to accept and embrace others that are different. And it can help them find strength they never knew they had.

Think how boring the world would be if everyone thought and did things exactly the same as every one else.

What do you love about being unique?