Grandma Henke

My dentist and I were talking today … Okay so while we were talking he had his hands in my mouth most of the time but he seemed to be able to figure out what my mumbling and drooling represented …Anyway, we were talking about our kids who sort of grew up together.   They all knew each other and they attended the same schools and hung out a bit together.  

Somehow we got to talking about the people who influence children, particularly as they go through their teenage and young adult years.  He was telling me about his son who was a fairly decent athlete in his last year of junior high and played on the football team for the school.   The coach had a son on the team who wanted to be the star … and the coach wanted him to be the star … so the dentist’s son ended up getting yelled at and ridiculed a lot as the coach blamed all failures on him.   Gradually his self esteem plummeted and he lost interest in sports, in his friends, in school, church … about everything.      It affected his attitude,at home, his grades, and the friends he took up with afterwards.

When he was a sophomore in high school a man started up a league base ball team and went out of his way to ask this boy to be on it.      The man was positive and upbeat and the boy was able to play and become quite good at base ball.    The coach at the high school saw him playing the summer between his sophomore and junior years and talked him into trying out for the school ball team.     He ended up making the team and contributing a lot to it his junior year and really being one of the main players his senior year, but the most important thing from all of this was the difference this middle man made in this boy’s life.    He turned it back around by giving him confidence in himself and making him feel important.    

It shows the power of “one”.     One man tore him down and robbed him of his self worth and another man built him up and gave it back.    

Technorati Tags: Self Worth, The Power of One, Self Esteem, Influence