This article is part of the Answering Kids’ Hardest Questions series.
Who Am I?
A question that a child might ask—maybe not directly but even indirectly and is certainly one that they are thinking about in their life—is, What is it that makes me, me?
I know it’s a question that I’ve asked myself. I think it’s one that we all ask and that we all struggle with throughout our lives. Who am I, really? What is it that identifies me?
As an adult, I have turned to things, situations, circumstances, and experiences, and all those things have impacted that question. I’ve looked to work, for example, as an adult to find my identity. How often do we meet someone for the first time and we say, “I am a doctor. I am a school teacher. I am a writer”? We introduce ourselves, and in doing so, that has an impact on how we view our life. We identify ourselves as this job that we do.
But the question is, What happens when we don’t have that job anymore? Does that mean that we have no identity anymore? I’ve also found my identity in roles I’ve had, like being a mom. But what happens when my kids leave home? Where am I left? Am I floundering because I don’t have that identity?
Who Are You?
Christina Fox
Designed for children ages 3–5, this engaging and lyrical picture book encourages kids to ask important questions about their identity while presenting a more stable and fulfilling perspective rooted in their relationship with God.
As we wrestle with that, imagine what that’s like for children who are starting to ask those questions for the first time, who might be looking to the things they do.
They don’t have a job, but maybe they are on the soccer team and they’re a winner. They excel in athletics. Does that mean that’s their identity? What if they are really good in school? They win all the spelling bees or score well on all the math tests. That’s the thing that they do. Does that make them who they are? What happens if they don’t do well on a test? Does that crush their identity?
So I think that’s a really important question. While a child may not necessarily ask it out loud, it’s certainly one that they’re thinking about. And how we respond to them as parents can have a huge impact on their identity formation. Are we telling them, “You’re an excellent student. Why did you not do well on this test?” Or, “You’re our little athlete, and so you have to always win the race.”
What’s really important as parents is that we disciple our children in the Word and that we help them see what the Bible says about them.
I think that what’s really important as parents is that we disciple our children in the word and that we help them see what the Bible says about them. Genesis 1 is really the best place to start. In Sunday school and in their children’s Bibles that we read to them, they see the story of creation. We read to them the story of Adam and Eve and how God created them. That’s where we start.
We teach them that God made them, and so he’s the one who crafted them and he’s the one who gives them their identity and purpose. He’s told all of us that we were made to give him honor and glory, and that’s what we do. No matter what our gifts and talents are or the jobs that we have, that’s really our purpose—to live for God.
Christina Fox is the author of Who Are You?: A Little Book about Your Big Identity.
Christina Fox (MS, Palm Beach Atlantic University) is a speaker and author of Tell God How You Feel: Helping Kids with Hard Emotions and Like Our Father: How God Parents Us and Why that Matters for Our Parenting. She works as the assistant director of alumni relations at Covenant College. She and her husband have two sons and reside in the Atlanta area, where she coordinates a soul care ministry at her church.
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