The Dream Poster

Earlier this week I was reading in the Home Educating Family magazine an article Chris Davis wrote about Dream Posters. I couldn't find the identical article online but I did find this one. It reminded me of a project my oldest daughter and I did at the beginning of her senior year and so I thought I would share. I would only like to say that after reading Chris Davis's words, I see room for improvement but hey we were on the right track!

We had spent the previous months struggling with trying to define what life looked like with chronic illness. Days were lost to appointments, fatigue, and just trying to survive. For a planner like myself, this was out of my comfort zone. Beads of sweat would appear on my brow as I pondered how we were going to catch up. School was important but quite frankly we just wanted peaceful days where her breath was not labored or her fatigue was not debilitating. This led me to the decision to spend a day putting it all down.

We divided her board up in to four categories: health, financial, school, and personal. Armed with scrapbooking supplies and tons of magazine, she spent time picking out things that inspired her or were had something to do with her vision of the future. Then the process of choosing what went on the board began. Each section began to fill and after a while she had put her dreams and goals on a board to inspire, challenge, and remind her.

I learned a few things that afternoon. Her personality was expressed through the board. She is a very language-oriented person and her board reflected that with quotes in all four sections. Her most intimate dreams were laid down. One that still sticks out in my mind was the phrase, "breathe easy" placed in the health section. Oh how my heart cried out as I watched this go on the board.

Recently she moved in to her new living space and the board was the first thing she put down there. One night we were moving furniture and her board caught my eye. As I looked over it, I realized that she had already accomplished quite a bit.

After reading the article from Chris Davis, there are a few things I would tweak. The first suggestion he makes is that the parents are removed from the activity. Often, without realizing it, we filter our own thoughts and dreams for our children on to the board. Another suggestion he makes is to use double sided tape. This allows the child to move items around as he continues to think about his dreams and goals.

This year I plan to spend a day with my last two school-aged children and allow them to make a Dream Poster. My hope is that a friend (hint hint) will stop by and help facilitate the activity so that their true dreams will make it to the board. Anyone want to join us?