There’s a cute little curly-headed girl who loves to come talk to me at the library.  She’s just finished first grade, has a charming British accent, and always carries a stuffed animal with her (Cheetah used to be her favorite, but now it’s a flattened, angular yellow teddy bear from IKEA).  She always half-glides, half-bounces up to the children’s desk with a big grin on her face, and with the confidence that surely I’ve been waiting all week to talk to her.  At the last two movie nights, she has joined me at my odd seat near the door (I’ve had to position my chair in front of the glass that’s next to the door, since kids kept walking into the glass) and chatted to me throughout the movie, telling me about her stuffed animal, the movie, just about anything.  Her mother just smiles patiently from across the room, occasionally rolling her eyes at her daughter’s social nature.

This little girl isn’t the only one like this, though.  I’ve been thinking lately about all of the kids who come beaming into the children’s room, knowing that I know them and want to talk with them.  And then there are the kids who used to have that confidence, but who no longer do: in particular, I think of one little boy who has just finished kindergarten, and who barely raises his eyes from the floor when he comes into the children’s room now.  He used to talk to me for a half hour at a time, but it’s hard to get three words out of him now.

His loss of self-confidence has come earlier than most kids, but there’s definitely a time in our childhood when we move from standing tall and secure to doubting ourselves and questioning our place in the world.  If only we could hang on to that sense of self for all of our lives – imagine what a different place the world would be, and how much happier all of our lives would be.