Who or what brings light into your life?

Kyle | Tauranga

Reflecting on the gift that children bring, Kyle shares a special moment with his daughter.

“One of the key things that I always find laughter in is children. Whenever I’m around children, they’ve always got something – something they say, something they do.

They have different perspectives on the world. They have a different perspective on life and experiencing what’s happening in the moment. They’re really showing us how to look at something fresh because they’re looking at everything fresh and new.

It’s a really helpful reminder to continually – and I encourage people to – get in that space with children all the time. To give them freedom to explore, to experiment, and to be children. Because a lot of the time, I think we approach children trying to get them to fit in, or trying to put what we’ve learnt on top of them, and we miss that opportunity to sit in that space with them and learn from them.

Just the other day, my eldest daughter brought me a picture. I’m quite heavy into my art, and she’s heard me talk about how art is such a strong gateway to self-expression. It’s a way to express yourself – that’s what it is. It’s not about the end product; it’s another form of communication.

She came running up to me with this artwork she had done, all really hardly coloured in and stuff like that. And she’s like, ‘Dad, look at this! I didn’t draw anything, I just felt it.’ And she pointed out things like, ‘Look here where I ripped through the paper’ and she just had this whole experience she was discovering – how she could express herself into this space, not in any form or shape.

It was just this really cool little space that I thought was amazing. I haven’t even been directly talking to her – she’s just overheard different things – but she captured that and was able to express it through her own expression and experience.”