When you were five, what did you want to be when you grew up?
At five years of age, children reach a major developmental turning point characterized by starting formal school, increased independence, enhanced social skills and better emotional regulation. This age marks a shift from toddlerhood to school-aged, where they demonstrate improved cognitive, physical and communication abilities.
For children at age 10, or adults at their glowing ages, they might remember clearly what they wanted to be when they grew up. For a person at my present age, unless I had kept a diary or a tremendous memory capacity, I would not have remembered my dreams at age five. Nevertheless, I do remember one thing that shifted a naive kid into the one outgrowing her age.
When I was four or five years old, one thing that happened to me was the one that led me to ask what the purpose of life was. I was a second child to my father, whose favourite child was his first child. One day my father promised to take both my elder sister and me out for a wedding banquet. Our mother dressed us up, and then we waited for dad to come home and take us out. When dad came home, he changed his mind and only took my sister to the banquet. I cried so much and for so long, not for missing out on the banquet but missing out on my dad’s love.
Today, I still remember vividly and share this unforgettable experience here. Life is difficult to predict; what we thought was a “loss”, it could turn out to be a “win”, and what we thought was a win, it was indeed a loss. My sadness has revealed to me that the eyes of God have been keeping watch over me.
A dream or a goal for life that children have at age five can have such a profound impact on their entire lives. There is a wisdom for parents or teachers to ask kids at age five to make a wish or to dream the dream about their future. Where there is a will, there is a way. The birth of my will at age five has, since then, been guiding my way.
✨✨💖 ~
Proverbs 22:6,11
[6] Start children off on the way they should go, and even when they are old they will not turn from it. [11] One who loves a pure heart and who speaks with grace will have the king for a friend.”
en yan hua fang 